I’m comfortable being a woman with my lady parts. I also like to pretend. I told people I was male (transmasc, specifically) so that I could freely experience attraction to just men without having the “straight” label.
Whatever I was, I did NOT want to be straight, so presenting as a trans guy helped me feel better about myself. I could be a gay man. Then, I was a non-binary demiboy (either gay or bi but would only date men).
I felt like a girl in real life. I still do. I didn’t feel dysphoria nor a desire to transition in any way, neither socially nor physically nor anything. It just felt relieving to be a gay trans guy, but that still made me trans even though I didn’t identify as male nor did I ever see myself as male, right?
(I see myself as a woman and always have, I don’t have dysphoria. I identify as a woman who wants a penis. I think I’m moreso attracted to the idea of having male parts than actually seeing myself as a guy, but like I said, it relieved me to be gay and not straight.)
long story short, I’m a woman slightly attracted to the idea of herself being a trans guy or having a penis.
I think people would be upset about dishonesty, particularly if you present yourself as a gay trans man, which most people will take to mean you don’t see yourself as a woman, for example. If they learn you are actually OK with your assigned sex at birth and you were pretending to be a trans man, I could imagine they would be upset because you were dishonest.
I can see why people would think it’s dishonest, but is it actually dishonest, or just unexpected?
I think even a lot of trans people don’t really grasp things like gender fluid and bigender, so it’s easy to do bad reasoning like “different gender in person => lied about gender” under the assumption that people only have 1 gender.
From OP:
From this I get the impression they are being dishonest. The exploring, gender identity, etc. isn’t the issue here, the issue that will upset people is the pretending when it’s not disclosed that it’s pretend. It’s fine to explore and role play, but not in a non-consensual manner when it involves other people.
I agree completely that OP might have some complex gender stuff going on, but that’s not really what makes this dishonest or problematic. Even if OP later realizes they are actually a gay trans man, the point is that they were intentionally presenting themselves as something they don’t think they are now - that’s where the dishonesty is.
My brain just skipped over that the first time, oops.
no worries - I figured you might have missed part of the post or something 😅 I swear as I get older my reading comprehension is slipping (and I make so many typos now too) 😭