Sometimes I find myself wondering how my life might have unfolded if I had been born a man. This feeling didn’t appear out of nowhere. It has been quietly following me since I was a child, long before I had words like gender identity, self expression, or self discovery.

I remember watching a movie where one of the characters was a girl who dressed and acted like a boy. When I asked my mom about it, she told me the character was a tomboy. Something clicked in my head. I thought, that’s it, that’s what I want to be. I loved how boys seemed free from so many expectations.

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They didn’t have to dress up for every occasion or change their hair all the time. They weren’t pushed toward dolls or kitchen sets, even though I enjoyed those too. I loved running outside, getting dirty, chasing bugs, poking around in the dirt, and just existing without feeling watched.

My grandma used to call me “Mari macha,” which roughly means a manly girl. I almost wore it like a badge. I always played with boys and avoided girls, partly because the girls bullied me and made me feel like I didn’t belong. With the boys, I felt safer. More myself.

As I grew older, not much changed on the inside. I gravitated toward more masculine clothes even when my mom hated it. I acted a bit masculine too, sometimes without realizing it. I hated my voice because people said it sounded like a boy’s. It was confusing. I hated being a girl, but I also hated looking like a boy. I felt stuck in between, uncomfortable in my own skin. Out of curiosity and discomfort, I would sometimes try to make my chest look flatter. I have always had a larger chest for my body, and it never felt like it belonged to me.

During the pandemic, I leaned even more into dressing masculine. When I started middle school, I finally cut my hair short and kept a pixie cut, something I had dreamed about for years. Around that time, I identified as a lesbian and presented as more masc. People noticed. I naturally acted protective and a little flirty toward women, and it felt right then.

Later on, especially toward the start of college, I swung in the opposite direction. I started dressing more girly, not because it felt right, but because I felt guilty for dressing boyish. That guilt has always been there, even when I know what makes me comfortable. Around that time, I met my current boyfriend. I realized I wasn’t a lesbian after all. He likes feminine women, but he doesn’t mind when I dress more masculine sometimes. He even likes short hair, so that part of me doesn’t feel like a problem with him.

Still, after entering a straight relationship and spending years trying to reconnect with myself through trauma and healing, these thoughts won’t leave me alone. I keep wondering who I would be if I were a boy.

There are clothes, situations, and social expectations that make me deeply uncomfortable, and I can’t always explain why. Sometimes certain content or fantasies trigger that question even more, not in a shallow way, but in a way that makes me imagine myself differently, living in another body, another role, another version of myself.

I tell myself it might just be a phase. I know I struggle with self esteem and identity, and maybe this is my brain searching for answers. But it doesn’t feel random. Back in 2022, I even asked my mom if I could get a double mastectomy because I didn’t feel good about my chest. I questioned whether I might be gender fluid or non binary, but those labels never fully fit either.

What I do know is that I struggle to see myself as a girly girl. Even when I want to be one, when I try makeup or very feminine clothes, I feel awkward and almost like I’m wearing a costume. It feels like it doesn’t match who I am on the inside.

I don’t have a conclusion or a neat answer. I just needed to say this out loud. This confusion, this curiosity, this discomfort has been sitting in my chest for years. Writing it down feels like finally letting myself breathe, even if I’m still figuring out who I am and where I belong.

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