Before I read most of your post, I just want to say that no-one else gets to decide for you what your identity is. This should be a journey of self-discovery - it is about you and your experiences and about if and how you choose to communicate those experiences. With that being said, I will share my thoughts on this, and I apologize in advance if it seems overbearing. Take care of yourself first, before even considering what I say about anything.
I will say, I'm not a good representation of anything so don't judge anything just by me existing the way I am please. Not the best time to say this probably, but know that I am not a good representative for anything and nothing should be judged just by me.
No-one is responsible for you merely on account of happening to share some aspect of their experience with you, nor are you necessarily responsible for anyone else that happens to share some aspect of your experience. We are individuals, and we will continue to be so no matter what you discover about yourself.
I like think of myself as a feminine looking guy regardless of if that's reality and since I can remember I've compared how I look to females rather than males. However, I question sometimes if it's more than that and if I'm possibly trans or nonbinary.
I don't think it's very common for cis guys to compare themselves to women.
One of the things that I found out when I was researching trans theory in preparation for making my post was that
cishet people usually do not question or even think about their identity at all, which was a shock to me. The overwhelming normative narratives in our culture create a context where questioning your identity can be significant indication that you are not cishet.
Is this meaningful in your case? I don't know. You know better than I do.
The former, I personally feel like even if I started to embrace that would possibly fuck my life up in ways beyond my control if I committed to it and I'm not sure I see that situation changing.
Even if you do find out that you are trans, that does not indicate exactly what transitioning would mean for you, or even if you are going to decide to transition. It is most definitely not the case that there is a monolithic trans regimen that you would have to abide by. Again, this is about self-discovery - do what is right for you.
There's also the possibility in my mind that this won't fix anything and might actually make things worse for me. That's often how I feel about questioning actually, in the end I feel I must simply bury it because thinking about it is only going to cause me problems and it often does.
I don't think that just
thinking about this causes problems. I think that obsessing over it, or having unfulfilled desires, or experiencing invalidation, etc. causes problems.
Something that I an absolutely sure of is that repression causes problems. Because even if you find out that there's something going on with you and your identity, not knowing about it is not going to fix any problems. In my experience, that just makes the suffering vague and incomprehensible. For me, even just realizing something like this is a huge relief, before even taking action to assuage it.
But I will say it's not new or coming from anyone in particular. I had a longer than usual period of questioning more recently which is why this is coming up at all but.
If the roots of your questioning are long-reaching, that can be another indicator that you are not totally cishet.
So, at least for how I feel now it would either be cis or plain trans, and aside from the latter only being down to questioning as far as I know, I'm not sure if I want to give up my male "side" either.
This is a really complicated line of thought, and I'm not going to tell you that it doesn't make sense. If you want to be either a man or a woman, that is for you to decide. With that being said, I think that it would be helpful for you to take stock of what being a man or being a woman really means.
I don't want to get into too many details, but while I haven't questioned this too much I also feel like even if I came to the conclusion that I am trans, it would result in either me being possibly permanently closeted about it (which I imagine would be even more stressful with that specifically in my mind) or I'd be open about it and potentially lose respect from people that are basically essential to my literal survival currently.
Survival comes first. Always. Take care of yourself, please.
In terms of being closeted: this is also complicated as hell, but keep in mind that a person doesn't have to be totally out or totally closeted. Most LGBT people, from what I understand, are actually somewhere between, where they are closeted in certain contexts and out in others. This is definitely the case for me. Some of my closest friends do not really know what's going on with me. I'm not out in my workplace. But even then, knowing who I am and finding the few contexts in which I'm able to fulfill that part of myself is immensely relieving and rewarding. For some people, this means only in online contexts. For some people, it means only in their own home. For some, only at a certain hangout or in a certain subculture.
It is brutal and unfair that people face conditions where they have to weigh these options. But many find a way to express who they are even in poor conditions. As I said, though, survival comes first. Don't jeopardize yourself.
This, however has recently made me question if the reason why I don't question it much is for that reason, because I've long had the mentality that it is not worth thinking about.
The conditions that a person is in can absolutely inform their mindset about even something as personal as their gender or sexual identity.
I was unironically hitting on guys in college and I still didn't have the wherewithal to consider what this meant for my supposed cishet-ness. It took literal years of things like this before I actually thought about how I would communicate this and realized "oh, wow, I'm bisexual".
I had no dependable access to LGBT narratives, and I was surrounded by overwhelming and unbelievably unhelpful cishet-normative silence.
I've also long on and off been interested in things long considered "female" example: making your nails pink or wearing a dress.
These things may be considered "feminine" by others. What really matters is if you consider them to be
for you.
It does not mean anything by itself in my opinion as I have said before, but I also almost always choose to play as female characters in games. I'd just brush this off as normal were I only playing normal games and did I not play around with the idea quite a bit in vr even. Long weird story short, in some way the idea of being female interests me. However... I can't be sure it doesn't go beyond that, "crossdreaming" may be an acceptable term for where it doesn't go beyond that. Though, I was already aware that I like the idea of being female before this.
I experience something similar. Not the same, but similar.
It can be really hard for a person to adapt when they've known a person by another pronoun their whole life and if I ever decide something about myself, even if it's just that I'm flat out trans female, I don't want to be particularly insistent on it. This is speaking for how I feel and no one else though and it's not saying anyone else is doing anything wrong with how they handle pronouns, I'm just saying how I feel about it.
This is totally understandable! If pronouns aren't that big of a deal for you, then that's fine. I'm not super hung up on pronouns, either. I understand when some people are, and I respect that, because it means something to them. But personally, even though I prefer they/them, I understand it if someone says he/him. (I wouldn't necessarily hate it if someone called me she/her either, but I don't identify as a woman either.)
Also, I don't much care for "egghunting" but it has happened to me a lot. Even as I've already established I don't care for it which happens even from those I consider close. An egg being someone who doesn't know or doesn't want to admit they're trans yet, implying people someone may try to point it out to them.
Among the more responsible front of queer advocates I've seen, there seems to be, for want of a better metaphor, a rule much like the Prime Directive from Star Trek: to not interfere with the natural development of another person's identity. There are a lot of unhelpful thought processes, especially among younger queer people, related to impulses like winning allies and securing social groups and gaining woke credit or whatever. It's not good for anyone when this happens - not even good for the queer community. The health of the community, as I've tried to hammer home through this entire post, is based on people being able to be themselves, whatever that turns out to be. Providing help when asked for is wonderful, trying to crack eggs is not - especially since not everyone is an egg.
With that being said, and with the huge caveat that I do not know the context of your experiences with being egghunted: if multiple different people are apparently clueing in on you being trans, that might be significant. It also might not be. The only person who can determine that is you.
There's probably so much more I could say about this, but I had a lot of this already typed up from like weeks ago and I'm a bit tired and for some reason I just feel like getting this out there already. If there's any questions for me don't hesitate to ask.
Thank you so much for sharing. No matter what comes of this, being able to be open, even a moderate amount, is a big thing. Some people never even get to this point. Take as much time as you need to think through everything - or not think, if you just need rest. As I indicated when this forum was first made, I will try to be here for everyone when they need it. What that means right now is up to you.
