This hit me like a week ago. I straight up panicked. I still kinda am. I don't know what to do. I'm fucking terrified. How do you learn how to be a girl in your forties? I don't even know how to do makeup, every time I tried it looked like shit.
I thought I was a femboy. A kinky weird femboy with a supportive girlfriend that didn't mind the occasional dressing up. This is probably way too much for her. I think it's too much for me. But now that I know this I can't not know it. It's like my subconscious just came out of nowhere and was like, "Hey you know that quirky thing about you? Well it turns out that's entirely you, and you're miserable trying to deny it. By the way everything in your experience tells you that people will hate you for it, and the state is actively trying to harm people like you. Also crazy people will probably want to kill you about it Byeeeeeeee!"
What do?
Edit: Thanks everyone for all the helpful comments. All this is still big and scary right now, but I feel a little better about where I am now, and the first few steps. This is a good community here.
Congrats on cracking through your shell, former egg!
I know it's scary, but you're gonna be okay. There's an internet-full of trans sisters, brothers, and others who are eager to help each other up. You'll be on this side of the conversation sooner than you think.
The most important thing to know off the bat is the Egg Prime Directive, https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/am-i-trans
After that, the most important thing is to be true to yourself. There's no one right way to be trans, it's up to you to decide how open you want to be with your identity, whether you want medical assistance to transition, etcetera.
It's definitely not too late for you, I started my transition in my late 30's and I've seen trans folks who only got started in their 60's. Learning to be a girl is something you can do at any age and there's lots of resources for it, but equally important will be the unlearning of internalized transphobia and habits that don't serve you anymore.
So, just relax, take a breath. Spend a few minutes meditating on how weird it feels when the relief of finally acknowledging the dysphoria is combined with the fear of how trans people are treated by normative society. Let the initial wave of panic, excitement, and existential dread wash over you. Then, start thinking deeply about what you want from life as a trans person and how you'll achieve it for yourself. Everything else will flow from that~.
This right here. my instincts are all off because every external voice told me i was wrong my whole life. Like I was always bad at tests because any time there was an obvious answer I had to question the wording or the context because me feeling right about something is always wrong.
Those aren't instincts, they're self-defense mechanisms that become habitual in people who have been raised to believe that they can't trust their own feelings.
But you've already broken through the wall of that prison and into the light of self-awareness. Now is the time to start sweeping up the rubble and deciding how you want to use the newly liberated bricks. You're free now~.
That isn't a thing.
It absolutely is. It's okay to encourage people to explore their own identity, but interpreting signs and telling people who they are or should be is unhelpful and rude.
It is.
Some folks call it the Trans Prime Directive instead, but the lesson is the same.
The single most invalidating experience is to have someone else try to tell you who you are, so as trans folks for whom that experience is an ongoing and nigh-universal source of trauma, we should avoid repeating that mistake even when the fact of an egg's identity is obvious to us.
Better that they come to the realization themselves belatedly than to have it forced upon them.