What do I need for validation?

Three years ago I entered the confusing world of gender. It was a place four years ago that didn’t exist in my world. I lived my entire life governed by binary gender rules.

… and then suddenly my world collapsed. I discovered I wasn’t binary, I was transgender.

My female brain and my male body have been tearing me apart. I have been struggling between the two warring camps. “Can I stay a guy” versus “Do I need to be a woman?” They are constant arguments that have haunted my waking hours for over two years now. I have listed the pluses and minuses of each multiple times. I have sought out external female validation through a dozen makeovers and each time I try to balance myself out doing something macho to prove I am a tough enough male. I cry more and get angry easier. It is a constant struggle.

I have read a lot of angry opinions from women, particularly feminists, that transwomen are men representing the worst of society’s perception of what a woman is. The worst I have read is that transwomen are only men in dresses and that they reflect a man’s perception of femininity.

That may be very true or it could be true that it is an attempt to simply reflect the female image that will best purge the male self image that was forced on them from the moment they were born. We were expected to show no fear, be aggressive, act dismissive and feel no pain. Everything hard and nothing soft, never give in and never surrender.