If any #trans or #enby folxs out there had stories to share about your egg cracking ,(figuring out your gender) especially if it was a long or drawn out process id love to hear them.
(Had a day if going back and forth about whether or not im deluding myself in even trying. The versions of yall in my head were very good at dissuading me of that notion with kindness)
(Remember privacy settings if you need to, and boost if youd like).
@EverBeyondReach
So I didn't know that trans was a thing you could be for a while, and then I thought it was just something that people did to be on TV talk shows, but I remember one day reading about those TV talk shows and someone saying, "Men who want to be women who are lesbians? Why not just stay a man?" and realizing that I totally got it. Of course gender and sexuality aren't the same thing. But I didn't want to be a girl, did I?
So then I spent a long time not being a girl and being really terrible at being a boy. And I'm huge. I'm a giant of a man. Broad shoulders, strong, tall, thick of thew and everything. And it didn't make me happy. I felt distinctly unmanly.
And my social agenda suffered because I felt so trapped by masculinity. I tried being straight and I couldn't do it. I tried being gay and got really worried because while I didn't dislike other guys, the idea of being sexually attracted to them was utterly foreign. I thought I was a bigot.
1/
@EverBeyondReach
I thought I was secretly homophobic. And I did a lot of theater in high school and college, so I was around a lot of gay guys, and I liked them a lot, so that made me feel incredibly guilty.
So I basically retreated from the sexual world. No dates, no dances, no parties. But I was incredibly sexually frustrated. So I trolled chatrooms online looking for I don't know what. And I found that "pretending" to be a woman was a good way to get attention from men. So I did that.
Except I made friends with people in this female persona, who was good at talking to people, sexually or otherwise. Who was okay with her sexuality. Who was okay with a lot of stuff.
And so I passed online. For years. Decades.
2/
@EverBeyondReach
But I thought I was just, I don't know, doing whatever I had to to be social. It wasn't all about sex anymore, but it was still social. And anyway, I was lying. I was catfishing these people with whom I'd become friends. Good friends. And I felt terrible about that.
Meanwhile I'm still lousy at being a man. Not just a stereotypical man. And I was learning more about transgender people. I would joke about making an ugly woman though, so no one had to worry about me transitioning.
At some point I read that tweet that cracked a thousand eggs and it made me think, "Huh, I guess most men don't go around worried that they'd make ugly women." But it didn't crack my egg.
I met my future spouse and they, she at the time, were patient enough with my hangups that we were able to become romantic, but sex was still kind of weird. Good, but weird. And gender... their previous ex had been closeted trans. It broke up the marriage among other reasons.
/3
@EverBeyondReach
At that point I was still lying to myself and them. Still passing secretly online, but unwilling to consider it as such. And I love them and didn't want to hurt them, so I just disassociated. Made it go away.
Then my spouse came out as ace. And NB. And I met some trans people and just got strange happiness about them being their authentic selves. And I investigated myself and discovered that, holy shit, I was trans. I mean, come on, look at the signs I had been ignoring, right?
But it wasn't one moment, and it's still a process. Coming out to my spouse was a big step. Choosing a name was one too. But I still have good days and bad days. I'm still mostly closeted offline.
I hope that extremely long-winded reply was of help to you. Thanks for listening.
4/4
Estel
Gwen the Trans Balrog