Transfem

fwiw this sounds like pretty much exactly the trans experience. ive had almost all the thoughts you shared. dont sweat if you dont have the stereotypical feelings people associate with being trans fem. everyone has a different experience and theres no one right way to be trans. it sounds like you did enjoy being on hormones, and you arent enjoying being off them. id say start them again and just see if you stop enjoying them. you wont get any obvious permanent changes for a while unless you get really lucky with your boob genetics so you can always stop if you change your mind. from what youve said i doubt you will. its ok to want this. you can give yourself permission to do what makes you happy. i know how hard that can be, but you deserve it.

Don't tie HRT to being trans. If you enjoy HRT, take HRT, you can figure out your gender later. Is there anything about HRT you're hesitant about? Because it sounds like you're unsure about being trans, not about HRT.

It also sounds like you're more afraid about some abstract idea of being "wrong" rather than concern about how you would feel. If you think you'd be happier taking HRT, that's a pretty good reason to do it.

You can stop taking hormones whenever you want to. It's not like you take a single injection and suddenly you're beyond the point of no return.

Of trans people who decide to take HRT, it's about 1% that end up regretting it. And even if you are in the 1% that ends up regretting it, the worst that happens is that you now have a lovely pair of tits. And doesn't everyone want a lovely pair of tits?

At the end of the day, most people who get as far as trying hormones probably are trans. But how that looks on people can vary greatly. For example i believe that the reason it took so long for my egg to crack was that i don't much care for makeup and highly feminine clothes. So it's pretty easy to get in my own head and tell myself that I'm just a straight man. But, the truth of the matter is that I just see myself as more of a butch (Futch is probably more acurate) lesbian than a harajuku princess.

If you think you feel better doing something do that thing until you stop feeling good about it. And HRT doesn't have to be about gender. After a fair amount of gender affirming care, I realized I'm not a woman but I just feel more comfortable in a body with breasts and no penis. I'm not a man or a woman, I'm me. I'm a dragon (whatever that is, who knows, I don't care). I don't think I would have gotten to this point without pursuing HRT even though I felt ambiguous about the potential physical changes when I started.

I can't tell you if you are trans or not, but I can share my experience with HRT that started similar to yours.

When I first started HRT I was worried about not being trans enough. What if I was wasn't trans and I just got attached to the idea of HRT solving my problems. I was also depressed. Years before HRT I tried treating the depression without any mention of possibly being trans. It didn't work. I decided to try HRT without worrying about the depression. When I went to the informed consent LGBTQ clinic I was afraid they would tell me I couldn't have HRT. I realized that I would be sad if that happened. I decided I would try DIY HRT if I couldn't access hrt through the official channels. I was prescribed HRT and started with pills to take twice a day. My depression got better. That lasted for 2 weeks. I started getting treatment for depression and it took a while to notice the effects. At one point I stopped my depression medication and noticed all of the old habbits I slipped back into. On the medication I wasn't noticeably better, but when I stopped I was obviously worse. I got back on the medication.

Now, after 2 years of HRT, I am starting to taper off of the depression medication at the recommendation of my psychiatrist. Things are going well. I'm happier. I now care about myself and want to improve things. I started skincare and haircare routines. I'm losing weight. I have done several projects to improve my quality of life and have several more planned.

HRT was the right choice for me.

Only you are the expert on your own experience but what you have written here and in your previous brain goblin post is consistent with transfeminine experience and with our desperate pretransitional need for assurance, for signs, for authenticity, for a certainty to wield as truth against our own self-doubt. I had an experience, a revelation, which altered my self-theorization with respect to gender in a transfeminine way, changing the emotional context of my gendered memories, and placing me in touch with a traumatic realization that things didn't have to be this way, that I could have been living a woman's life all along, but afterwards I didn't want to trust myself, trust that this was indeed the kind of experience from whence one's gender is acquired, and preferred to wait for some unknown something to afford me additional insight by which to justify transition to myself and the world. Some of us are more gendery than others and there are many paths to self-knowledge, but if your experience is similar to mine, how long do you want to wait? What finally pushed me over the YOLO ledge was feeling that whether I was a trans woman or not I still wanted to start HRT and transition, thinking that surely only a trans person would want to transition, and trusting that I would find whatever certainty I needed along the way. In retrospect, searching for some true core gender identity didn't really work for me but embracing my own agency and my process of becoming definitely did work. Recently I've been reflecting on whether the insecurity over seizing the means of our own self-production is a Capitalism thing. I kinda think you have a case of Capitalism.

I was always pretty sure I was gonna go on HRT after coming out (they/them) but definitely had similar doubts. In the end i started because i wanted to. I wanted to look more fem. I spent a year being more fem which was the best time ever but still tough. Now i'm 2 years on E and i love it! I started slow and orally but planning on changing to gel at my next appointment. I'm lucky and would do diy if it wasn't accessible.

Only you can know if it's right for you. When i read the effects HRT would have they sounded great lol if you want the changes HRT brings there's a good chance you're gonna feel better. It's a big decision though and it does affect how you're seen in the world. Depending on where you live that can be scary.

If you feel you're headed in the wrong direction you can always change course. It's your life. Trust yourself.

Mia Violet's memoir is called "Yes, you are trans enough." I was maybe 4+ months on HRT when I read it, and it really helped me to corroborate my feelings focus on what was most important to me in my transition.

There are other great memoirs out there but that was the one that hit me the most.

The other thing that super helped me figure things out was therapy.

I wish you peace in your journey of self discovery. It can be a very daunting thing to face.