u/pingupong1

CW ⚠️: mild violence mentioned, mental health (not graphic), also posted on r/trans

I (ftm, 18) have had a bit of a shit experience with coming out. It took two attempts, almost 6 years apart, and both ended with violence against me — albeit mild. I’m thankful that my parents have now come around, but now I feel like I’m the one struggling with my identity more than ever.

I came out with more finality a few months back, and the result was that I was disowned by a parent on the spot. I then got disowned/re-owned multiple times over a few days. I got frustrated, cut my hair, ended up with a concussion because of it. Thankfully, it blew over and things returned to normal(ish).. but part of me regrets it. Being able to finally transition feels like a weight lifted off me, but now every time I think about my trans identity I can hardly think about anything but the rejection and fear that I felt. I feel so ungrateful for saying this but it’s as though my parent’s initial reaction has warped how I see myself to such an extent that I question if this is right for me. They may not agree, but they’re no longer stopping me from transitioning and I am aware not everyone has this privilege.

It just doesn’t feel completely worth it, and it really has me questioning myself now. Shouldn’t I be happy to finally be more authentic? Am I not actually trans because I have regrets now? Truthfully, I fell into a pretty bad depressive episode after coming out and dropped out of the education I was in — now I feel like I’m trying to put my life back together via comically small fragments. I go in the wrong room in my house and I swear I can still hear the ringing in my ears.

I’m self-funding HRT and hope to start in a few months, but now I have doubts. I don’t feel better for coming out, in fact in a lot of ways I feel more trapped than ever before and have never wanted more to just… start fresh. Somewhere, anywhere, I’m not sure I care. I feel so overdramatic, my coming out was not that bad in the grand scheme of things, and yet I feel so incredibly alone.

Has anyone ever regretted coming out? Is this a sign that I’m not trans? Did I fuck up my relationship with my family for nothing?

I’m an adult and have just updated to 26.4 — now have a notification that I can’t get rid of telling me I need to prove my age. Problem is, I don’t have any of the accepted forms of ID (can’t drive medically, don’t have a credit card and passports aren’t accepted).

Other than the annoying bright red “1” on my settings, I haven’t actually noticed any changes to my phone with it despite not verifying. So, does anyone know what it actually does? Is there some sort of grace period? I can still see TV shows/films on Netflix that are 18+ and I’m wondering if they’re going to be restricted to me at some point because I haven’t verified? Will I not be able to access apps such as Reddit (18+ in the app store) after some time? I assume it blocks adult websites but that’s not an issue for me personally. That said, controversially, I believe adults without access to these forms of ID also deserve to be allowed to access the same internet as everyone else.

It’s incredibly frustrating because so many other young adults also won’t have driving licenses nor credit cards, I’m definitely not the only one affected here. Due to the nature of my disability I can’t even apply for a provisional to use as an ID, I can’t help but think this is a pretty significant oversight in enforcing things like this. I’d appreciate any suggestions, I’ve done some searching and found out about these Citizen Card things (never heard of before now) so wondering if anyone has one of those and, if so, has it been accepted?

Accessibility aside, how are people feeling about this concept as a whole? Part of me thinks “Oh, that’s great, children aren’t going to be able to see content that could be harmful” (Gen Z, have grown up on the internet and seen all sorts I wish I hadn’t unintentionally) but then I’m also thinking a) if they want to, they will, Gen Alpha is even more tech savvy still and b) is it really worth the restrictions on adults?

Then again, assuming the majority is going to be able to access it, if it’s just one age verification to apple, surely that’s safer than having to trust multiple platforms with age ID, so is this actually preferred? (Although I’m not sure if you have to verify with individual platforms as well, have never actually been asked to verify my age on anything other than microsoft bizarrely until now so out of curiosity would appreciate anyone who has done the verification’s input with an answer to this).