Image CW: selfie; multiple ec: alt-text essay

Post CW: dysphoria; normative social systems; longpost

I know today isn't #transitiontuesday, but I'm posting a #transitiontimeline anyway. This one is special for me. I'm wearing no makeup, no distinctly feminine outfit, and I've done nothing with my hair except pull it into a bun. **And there are visible changes!!** I feel more femme, I see myself as more femme, and it doesn't require substantial effort anymore.

I wanted to share these photos because #transitioning is messy. It's long, it's slow, it requires a ton of effort and constantly managing #dysphoria , and **it works**. I feel better about myself today than I ever have in my life, despite the huge amount of change I still hope to undergo.

Fedi helped make it happen. I joined Mastodon shortly after hatching with a million questions and no idea where to start searching for answers. What I found here was a welcoming community of people, many of whom were making amazing progress in their own transitions.

I spent the past year learning and growing, becoming more familiar with who I truly am, and want to be. I've made friends who have changed my life in unexpected and beautiful ways. I've shared **myself** in ways that would have been unimaginable prior to hatching. I feel compelled to recognize this community for all the support, growth, and #transjoy it has provided me. Thank you, my dear, dear friends 

I also want to acknowledge how difficult this process is. So far, I've spent a year painfully extricating my gender experience from the cisgender, heteronormative environment in which I was raised. I've spent two months now making sense of how my approach to relationships has been shaped by the mononormativity that pervades modern media, advertising, social systems, and American culture. And after some intense conversation last night (that went wayyyyy past my bedtime), I'm realizing that even my understanding of love was propagandized by my upbringing. The process of unmaking old habits and shaping new, healthier ones is excruciating. And recognizing how much of **my** life was withheld from me by xenophobic people and systems is frustrating to no end.

So thank you, Fedi, for saving my life, in the sense that without your help, I would never have taken ownership of it in a way that lets me be authentically me, and shape my future independently from, and in spite of, my past. You are **ALL** amazing and beautiful.

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

From curly-haired 18 year old to curly-haired 40 year old, with a few other small shifts in presentation along the way  

#TransitionTuesday #Selfie

Screw you Pamela Paul
Screw you @nytimes
And screw all you dudes who climb up in my Instagram DMs who I’m sure some are delegates at the #RNC !

Gender affirming care DOES work.
All the major medical associations agree and confirm it is THE best course of action for transgender patients.
And I’d bet my pea-sized prostate on that!

#TransitionTuesday
#Trans. #NYT

Did someone say #TransitionTuesday ?

It's been a while, so what the hell. 2008 (pre-transition, pre-HRT) vs 1-June-2024.

#TransitionTimeline #trans #transgender #TransJoy