how I saw the TV glow
20/01/25
first of all this is MY experience, and its totally valid to have a different one
I wouldnt say I was masculine or wanted to be a boy as a kid. I was androgynous I think, and I was okay with being a girl. I dont have a lot of memories related to those topics tbh, I was just a kid worried of being a kid.
I think the dysphoria started at 11 years, with puberty and when everyone started to grow up. I was uncomfortable with all those changes in my body, and I didnt related to the other girls. yeah, I was that "Im not like the other girls" type of girl. I remember looking at the boys of my class with envy when their voices started to change and suddenly be tall. also I would search for anything masculine in me to feel better about myself.
I didnt know what was happening to me at that time, so I thought firstly that it was just puberty. then I watched a video of a trans man for the first time. I got obsessed and watched a lot of more videos, but even if I had like a "weird interest" I didnt feel totally identified bc at that time all these trans men youtubers were like, hyper-masculine and muscular, and shit I was just a kid with "masculine and feminine interests" so obviously I wouldnt identify with that. So I leaved the idea, bc I thought I wasnt masculine enough and also bc of fear.
so time passed, the idea never got out of my head really, and the dysphoria just would go worse. sometimes I would wish to wake up being a man, I would treat myself with he/him pronouns in my head or in fucking amino (god). I remember saying to a friend that I would rather be a man and she replied that she too, so I thought it was normal to feel like this as a girl. then I would go back to these trans men videos time to time, I would think "god I wish I was trans", but fear and negation would make me just run away from the idea. then negation got so strong that I thought "it must be interiorized misoginy" and tried to dress more girly and "try to get used to be a woman" because "theres nothing I can do".
that was a hard time in my life because of that forcing on myself to just be a woman made me start experiencing dissociation and despersonalization lol. so well, I kept like that until some months into the pandemic, were being so much time alone with my thoughts just made me broke up and explode. I realized I didnt really saw me in the future as a woman, and that I would rather be dead. I think that realization made me finally accept that something was wrong. and navigating on the internet I discovered the term non binary. even if I dont consider myself non binary anymore, I think it was very important to accept myself as trans, because it was very hard for me, bc of shame and some ideas I had back then, to accept that I could be a man; that label made me able to experiment with myself and what really makes me comfortable in a more open way and away from gender roles and binary.
so time passed, and to be honest I was very confused with what I was and anxiety would make me constantly think "what if Im not trans" and shit. but then when I joined some communities I realized three fundamental things that would make me feel more valid: a cis person doesnt feel like they have to get used to their gender, having an imposter syndrome as a trans person is the most normal thing in the world, and not every trans person has to know they are trans since they are little.
with time I started to get a more and more masculine identity, until some day I just said, ok, I think Im just a man. and it just stayed like that until today. then, with a lot of fear, I started to tell others to treat me as a man, and tho it felt weird at first, with time yeah, it just felt better than the other way.
and thats my experience, in short.