Manuela MalasañaI always had a masculine streak. As a teen that became what I would now call mild dysphoria. In 2008, at 19, I came out to my friends as a trans man; the response was strongly negative and I quickly recanted. Only slowly, furtively over the next decade did I examine this part of myself. At ~29 I was able to conclude that I am a woman. But how much faster I would have known if I could have explored this without rejection, how much more time I could have spent enjoying my womanhood. Just a thought
I’ve told this story before so this isn’t some new revelation, but it’s worth bringing up again especially in light of people saying “if this trans stuff was around when I was young I’d have ruined my body!” if it was around when you were young you would have figured out for sure what you did or didn’t want with your body. Are you sure you even know now?
on the flip side, some have said to me “if you have any dysphoria at all, you must really be repressed or in denial about being a man.” This is wrong. I’m in my mid-thirties. I have spent a lot of time on this. I know what I’m about. Trust me, as you desire that others trust you
related: I find being asked to state my pronouns in front of strangers IRL to deeply aggravate my otherwise manageable dysphoria but in such instances I offer no protest because my life story is none of these people’s fucking business. Can we make pronoun circles die? alternatively next time I am made to participate in one can I die?
MidnightRyder@Xibanya Keeping in mind, I'm white cishet male, so grain of salt involved here, but: I'm always confused by the idea of putting people on the spot for pronouns. I've been trying (and only partially succeeding) to eliminate he/she/etc. from my standard usage. I can't imagine that somehow it should be OK for me to force (or even ask) someone to reveal pronouns. Sorry, that assholes put ya' in that position.
@MidnightRyder I do want people to use my pronouns she/her rather than they/them if they are aware that that is my preference so I think it isn’t necessary to eliminate gendered pronouns entirely, but yeah I think if someone is intentionally unambiguously presenting as a particular gender, you should go with that until given a reason not to
@Xibanya Good to know - while I highly doubt we'll cross paths in real life, if it ever happens, I'll be sure to use she/her :-)
Woozle Hypertwin@Xibanya Ye gods, I could have spent three less decades in abject misery and not taken so many wrong turns trying to do the things that other people insisted would help me feel better, if only this "this trans stuff" had been around in 1980.
Eff all the second-guessing gaslighting. 
jubilee@Xibanya yeah I recently even saw someone (apparently?) run this experiment pretty quickly in a few months with "ah actually no."
Tess Snider@Xibanya I find this all very relatable, and maybe I'll tell you about it, someday.