Hi RaeRae !

Thanks for writing to AlterHeros.

If you say your main problem is self confidence, you may want to work on that. I won’t say if a transition is a good thing or a bad thing, because only you know the answer. If you really feel your true gender isn’t to one that you were assigned at birth, you can go and start seeking information about transition. Depending on the place you live, there are different rules or steps that could applied for you to make a transition. However, if your lack of self confidence probably goes deeper than your gender, transitioning will not make it disappear. A transition will of course helps you, but will not make you overly confident, in my opinion.

But for the moment, you may try to improve your self confidence. There are a lot of possibilities : you can see a therapist, try new arts or sports that you like, become a volunteer in a organization, in order to succeed in a way you are comfortable with. Improving self confidence can be very long, but it’s a good way to start with a fresh look over yourself. Moreover, self confidence is important because it makes you feel better and it helps you to do some things (new job, meeting new people, attending new classes,…) that could be great experiences for you.

And, for your uncle and aunt, there is no obligation for you to tell them right now. If you think you are not in security as a trans person in that house, you can wait. If you feel that somehow they would be supportive, or if there is no way you could live in that situation without telling them, go ahead. But if not, I think that something very important is that you already have allies. Those allies (your mother and the person you love) could support you in times not always easy.

Hope it helps,

François, for AlterHeros