Cult recruitment in progress

This Reddit post has been on my mind (cross-posted to r/ftm and r/FTMover30) all weekend:

Currently, I'm a 30-something, very masculine/male passing person that ID's publicly as a gay woman (so I guess butch? like... very butch). I've been describing to her how a large portion of my social anxiety comes from first meeting folks, and that very awkward, cringe part when the other person learns I'm AFAB (like someone I know introducing me), and I feel like I can see the thoughts in their head trying to reconcile my femaleness with how I look and how the thought that runs through my head all the time is "This person thinks I'm weird. I'm so f*ing weird."

And she keeps asking me what I mean by "weird". And I keep replying with something along the lines of "You know... like.. look at me? I don't fit. I'm bad at being a girl. I don't look like one, I don't act or talk like one. I try to be a girl and it's so hard. It feels so foreign." With this I've explained to her how I've tried several times in the past to present as a woman (like when I first started my job after college) and how depressed I was for years until I couldn't do it anymore and started presenting masculine again. She's asked me before if I had ever questioned my gender, but I kind of like shrug and brush it off. I mean I have... but its super uncomfortable to admit out loud, to a person sitting in front of me.

So, in yesterday's session, after I explain what I mean by weird again, she says "So you feel like other people think you're weird, and you also feel like you're weird. So, is it that you feel like a weird girl, or you feel weird because the label girl doesn't feel right?"

In that moment I felt like my head exploded. I think I just stared at her for like a full 30 seconds. I felt like my life flashed before my eyes, but only the moments where I met new people. All those new introductions, and how every one of them, it suddenly became clear that the moment they realized I was AFAB is the moment I hate, the moment the anxiety starts, because that is the moment where I feel like I have to start pretending to be something, and try to convince them that I'm a girl, and how I'm so bad at it.

But then I thought... why do I feel like I need to convince people? Or is it that I'm projecting my own feelings onto folks, and trying to convince myself?

I still can't wrap my head around this.

Every time I think about this for too long it's super overwhelming, but I needed to write it out somewhere...

I’ve written about this elsewhere and it bears repeating:

A young woman asks Reddit: "I'm not sure about my gender. What is this called?"

Oh, oh! I recognize this: it's called being at an early stage of indoctrination into a body-modification cult!

This is how cultic groups operate. First, the cult dismantles everything you think you know about yourself, including the absolute basics: am I a man or a woman? Do I know myself or have I spent a lifetime in denial? Can I trust my sense of self? Should I listen to my inner voice or drown it out?

Walk into a Scientology storefront and you’ll be given a ‘capacity analysis test’ that always returns negative results that read like a bill of indictment: you’re depressed, unstable, irresponsible, unappreciative… Scientologists reassure would-be recruits that they "wouldn't try to convince you” to join: “What L. Ron Hubbard said specifically is that what is true is only what's true for you—it's your reality that counts…” What Scientology can do is “help” you connect to that “reality,” if you’re brave enough to delve deeper. Most people just aren’t brave and open-minded enough to take that first step. Let’s call those close-minded people “wogs,” “ordinary, run-of-the-mill, garden-variety humanoid[s].”

Log on to social networks like Reddit and you’ll be bombarded with prompts to question your gender and encouragements to pour your inspecific grievances into the mold of a new trans identity. No one else can tell you who you are: trans is whatever trans means to you. But educating yourself about gender and connecting with other trans people online can help you tap into your inner reality. Just don’t listen to those questions and doubts: that’s your internalized transphobia talking. Most people just aren’t brave and open-minded and—let’s be honest—interesting enough to take that first step and explore their gender. Let’s call those close-minded people “cis.”

Suggestion is a powerful thing. This move by the therapist—reframing the client’s experience of social anxiety as gender dysphoria—is exactly how trans ideation spreads. The idea is poison poured in the ear, it’s Othello after rumors contaminate his entire life. And because there’s nothing you can do to disprove trans identity—you don’t need to experience gender dysphoria, you don’t need to experience gender euphoria, you’re trans enough, maybe you’re just in denial, maybe it’s internalized transphobia that won’t let you ‘accept’ yourself—it’s almost impossible to dislodge and move on. Everything becomes evidence of trans identification or evidence of denial or both.

Naturally, the original poster’s (OP) experiences resonates:

I was big time scared of the truth and big time in denial so I questioned very lightly and occasionally for 6 years after that. I finally gave myself permission to come out as nonbinary about 1.5 years ago. I tried on a binder for the first time and cried with joy. That was enough to convince me I was at least nonbinary. Still wasn't willing to dare to ask myself the real question though. Nonbinary felt safer to me, like people would have an easier time accepting it.

About 6 months after that I was talking to my therapist about my top dysphoria and kept saying "I'm not trans but....." And then say a very trans thing to say. And my therapist held back for as long as she could, but eventually, after I had said that about at least 5 things she said "are you sure, though?" And then it hit me. That was all it took to break the wall of "I can't possibly be trans" which was just "I'm not trans enough" in disguise. Someone else thinking I sounded trans was enough for me to be like shit...AM I?

And then I spent every free moment of the next month reliving my entire childhood and analyzing and questioning and it was so so obvious but I still couldn't admit it. But then I realized that the previously unexplainable mental health crisis that landed me in the psych ward when I was 12 DID have an explanation and that explanation was that I started puberty and puberty was traumatic and I lost my shit and was afraid to be seen in public and was full of dysphoria and all of a sudden had crippling social anxiety when before I was a social butterfly....yeah that broke me. That was undeniable.

One commenter helpfully outlines (and numbers!) the stages of indoctrination:

I would recommend testing the waters in gentle, unidentified ways when you're ready. Things that other people are unlikely to notice or comment on. Maybe try on a binder and see how it makes you feel. I fucking cried the first time, and it isnt even that effective on me. Turns out all my "omg don't look at me im hideous and its embarrassing" issues were because of my chest. Make fake social media accounts and join ftm and ftn groups to talk and learn more. Try different names and pronouns in secret groups. Try different names a Starbucks, if that's a place you like to go. Just one at a time as it feel safe. Like as experiments to see how it makes you feel.

For me this looked like:

1. Mild wondering but no commitment to figuring things out because it's scary. 4 or 5 years.

2. Casually join some nonbinary fb groups just to see if I relate. Try a binder just to see how it feels.

3. Try they/them pronouns but only with my closest friends

4. Came out as nonbinary. Lied to everyone including myself and said I was 50/50 (girl,boy) because it felt more easily acceptable. Said I like all pronouns. Said I wouldn't change my name.

5. Only my close friends complied. She/her starts to actually hurt. Asked everyone to switch to they/them and call me by my nickname

6. Realizations about how much top dysphoria affects my daily functioning. Get obsessed with the idea of top surgery (always said I wanted top whether I was trans or not). Start planning surgery and talking to my therapist about it.

7. Conversation with my therapist that I mentioned in my first comment. She has other trans and nbi patients and was like, are you sure you're not trans? Because you sound a lot like my other trans patients.

8. Cautiously try he/him pronouns with only close friends. Feels weird at first. But only because I don't feel manly enough to deserve it. I had a big "I'm not trans enough" complex.
9. Serious questioning begins. No longer scared. More like I HAVE to figure it out and have to do it now. 32 years of repression and denial turned into a drive to just finally have the answer.

10.Google things incessantly and constantly get led to reddit

11. Join every ftm reddit and fb group I could find

12. Search all my questions there and get freaked out (but also excited) when I related to EVERYTHING.

13. Start reprocessing my entire life story while suspending my fear. Like to get to the truth without outside influence. This was VERY eye opening.

14. Repressed memories surface of times I stuffed socks in my pants, etc. Just to see. Times I cried because I wouldn't be so ugly if I were just a boy. Etc.

15. Got curious about whether my issues in the bedroom are actually because of religious trauma and SA or if it's because I was performing femininity. Tried seeing myself as a man, and other NSFW things the next time my partner and I were in that situation (secretly) and the problem literally disappeared. This almost made me accept it, but I was still scared.

16. Finished reprocessing my life story. Realized nearly all my mental health problems stem from dysphoria. Finally accept that I'm a dude.

17. Waited a full month before I told my wife.

18. Waited 6 months to pursue hrt. I was scared of testosterone too. Certain affects I didn't think I wanted (more denial).

19. Waited 3 months for my hrt appointment once I did sign up.

“I’m so bad at being a girl” is exactly the thought I used to have, for years and years when I was growing up. And lots of awful self esteem issues related to other people seeing me being a girl and seeing me be “bad at it”.

Solidarity. Hugs. It’s a horrible feeling.

Also, re your therapist asking you if you’ve questioned your gender before; it’s kind of tough because I’m not sure I’m comfortable with therapists suggesting this to people. And I don’t think that feeling bad at being a girl necessarily means that you’re not a girl. But I will say, I started therapy when I was presenting in a very masc way but still identifying as a woman, and near the end of my time in therapy (years later, having accepted my gender) my therapist told me that I had hung on to those she/her pronouns for so long that she had eventually become kind of uncomfortable using pronouns for me at all. Like it was so obviously wrong and not what actually made me comfortable. She respected my wishes, kept using she/her pronouns and just checking with me about it every few months, but it was incredibly clear to her that I was trans and in that “this feels weird and ridiculous to say out loud” phase.

Therapists. They’re pretty smart sometimes.

I relate to a lot of this. I had meh feelings about gender for most of my life. I knew I was queer, so being a lesbian or queer uh... female? seemed okish. Ok enough, I guess.

I'd heard the narrative of "I've always known I was such-and-such gender" or "I was born in the wrong body" and that never felt like me. I only knew about physical gender dysphoria and I had a pretty good self esteem relative to my body, so I always kind of pushed away the notion that I might be trans.

Until I learned about non-binary identities in my 30s. At some point I decided that was the right fit, since I'd had plenty of times where I would just wish I had no gender, or gender wasn't a thing society did, or that people wouldn't perceive a gender in relation to me. In my 40s I came out as non-binary, they/she. That felt pretty good for a while. Until eventually I started to have anger about being misgendered (I didn't know that's what it was when it started, because I'm apparently oblivious to a lot lol!).

Fast forward to age 47 when I finally learned about other forms of gender dysphoria and about gender euphoria. I can clearly remember all the times I was thrilled to be gendered male or present as male, even though they weren't that frequent for me. And all the times being gendered female burned my britches hard (although not always). Reading about gender euphoria for the first time and realizing I had all these memories was like you describe - like the room was flashing with lights. It was kind of overwhelming. It felt good (yay I figured something out!) and it felt horrible all at once because dafuq how could I not know this for so long and what did this mean for my life and omigod I'm needle phobic I can't do HRT or surgery and gah!! Then a lot of, "well maybe I just like costumes, or confusing people, or it's just the clothes and I'm just a butch woman, or gender roles/stereotypes are stupid so stop playing into them."

I haven't figured it all out yet but that was about two months ago and I'm a lot calmer and happier now. Transmasc enby feels good for now and I'm just trying out pronouns and names and figuring out what I want.

Also, this was followed up by realizing I DID have physical gender dysphoria I just didn't recognize it, which sounds like it's also pretty common for a lot of folks, especially when we're older as we figure these things out. Some days it's pretty bad now, some days nothing at all. And repeating cycles of doubt/imposter syndrome and well-of-course-I'm-masc-duh. So as a newbie to the transmasc side of things, my only advice is take it easy on yourself and talk to other trans folks.

In my mind I had been trying to navigate an increasingly dark maze where the further I searched for myself, it seemed like I got further and further away from figuring out who I am as a human being. I kept thinking, why is it so hard to figure out who I am? Why do all of the things that are supposed to make me feel like a beautiful, confident, authentic woman make me feel terrible? I love women and look up to them, it felt wrong to move away from that part of myself.

Eventually I found the Gender Dysphoria Bible and was quite honestly horrified to find that I related so deeply to so much of the information I was reading. How could I be trans? Surely there’s another explanation right?

After sitting with myself I realized that this really was the missing piece of the puzzle, it’s so silly sounding but I simply didn’t realize that I too could transition, it isn’t some special ritual reserved only for some that have known it their whole lives.

I find new areas of my life that make more sense now that I have been on this journey of self-discovery. Memories from my childhood, anxieties I have felt for years, the strange disconnect I feel when I see photos of my past self, it’s complex and hard work but untangling all of this has been rewarding and brought a lot of closure as well.

I relate so much to what you’ve said about trying so hard to just be a girl, trying to do things right to find some kind of relief that was never there to begin with.

I hope you find yourself whether it’s in transitioning or continuing your journey in a different way. There’s no wrong way to be a human, if you find comfort and happiness in being a man then pursue that and don’t let anyone stop you. But also if you find that it is not for you, don’t feel bad. The only way to know if something is or isn’t for you is to try and there is no shame at all in that.

Your wording really reminds me of my egg-cracking moment. Couple years ago, I saw a tiktok where a woman was discussing realizing she was a lesbian. She told her therapist she was trying to be attracted to men, and her therapist said that straight women don't have to TRY, they just ARE attracted to men. I realized I had been TRYING to be a woman my whole life, when people who ARE women, just are. At best it felt like a performance, and at worst it felt like an unpleasant chore, but I've always felt I'm very bad at it lol.

Oh ya that’s a breakthrough if I’ve ever seen it