@
Spectrafyme
Nah I get it, no worries. :)
@
ScenicScience
Hey it looks like people maybe lost your post in the shuffle? But I will try to help if I can.
Labels are only as good as the comfort they give you. If a particular label isn't making you feel more comfortable, you aren't required to use it. From what you've written, I would be inclined to use words like "transman," "transgender male," "AFAB (Assigned Female at Birth) transgender" "FtM (Female to Male) transgender," etc. But those are just the labels I would come up with, that doesn't mean you have to use them if they don't feel right for whatever reason.
The "transgender" part of those labels doesn't mean you're not a man. All it means is that the society or culture around you is using made-up criteria to decide what is or isn't a man, and obviously those criteria aren't right 100% of the time. The whole "man trapped in a woman's body" is a phrase that I (and a lot of trans people) really don't think is a good description of how we feel. It's more like, "I'm a man that society thinks look so much like a woman that I have to pretend to be one." It's not denial to know that you are a man. Some transgender people choose to undergo medical procedures that help make their bodies look the way they want them to, but also so that their bodies line up with society's criteria for gender, too.
It's also okay to be a man who has strong parenting instincts. Again, this is another one of society's made-up criteria--there is no reason having a child-rearing instinct has anything to do with being a woman. Some women don't have any at all. Some men want to take care of babies all day long. It's also okay to be a man who has "feminine" gestures or who does "feminine" things. I know plenty of men who like to wear make-up and bikinis, sew, scrapbook, play with babies, bake, and lots of other "feminine" things. Some of them are trans, some aren't. It doesn't belittle their gender in any way.
I'm so sorry that you're in a place where you cannot be open about this. I promise you that it can change. There are other people, lots of other people, who are going through what you are experiencing. There are ways to change how you look so society sees you the way you want, or so that you look the way that you feel you want to look. There are men and women (both cis and trans) who will know that you are a man and be attracted to you. And there is a slow, steady push to change society, so that no matter how you look or act, if you say you are a man, society will accept it. There are pockets of society out there right now that are like this, and they're only going to get bigger and stronger. Some families will be accepting, some won't, but it is possible to build your own family, too, one that understands and accepts you.
I don't really know how to end this or where I'm going with it, but if you want to talk any of this out more, through PM or on here, please do. I can try to find some resources to point you toward too. I get where you're coming from, or at least I think I do. It's incredibly painful to know that society isn't seeing you the way you know you're supposed to be seen, and to have gestures or habits that only make that worse (god I don't know what I wouldn't do to magically make my voice deeper). It's hard to figure out how to be safely out, what that looks like, who will accept you and who won't (I'm still closeted with family and mostly closeted at work). About the only thing that has gotten me by is finding people who felt the same way as I do.
