I lost a few of my teenage years to identifying as a man

I lost a few of my teenage years to identifying as a man because I did not want to be seen as or be treated like a woman. It’s more common in UK schools than you would think; I can count several other girls who also secretly identified or socially transitioned to a boy in secondary school before going back to living as a woman.

I still feel the urge to go back now- in a way, it would be easier for me to live my life as a man (after passing) than struggle as a gender nonconforming woman.

The appeal is there and it doesn’t help that I hate my body. I hope this is an adequate answer. I am currently 18 and remember first wanting to be a boy when I was about 12-13 until I was 16.

I have tried discussing it with friends and it’s actually quite common for lots of girls to recognise that nonbinary identities are deeply rooted in misogyny and that we are losing a whole generation of tomboys. I haven’t really spoken up about it much as I’ve only recently started looking into gender critical spaces but hope to possibly do more in the future.

I got thrown out of a group chat for discussing my anti-porn stance (I know this isn’t related to gender identity but the opinions are prevalent in gender critical spaces). I am on a discord server where everyone is biologically female but more than half of them do not identify as women. If any of them even knew a sliver of my views I would be metaphorically burned alive. It’s a shame since they are all decent enough people.

Grace, 18 year old West London