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 It's hard to make a story out of it because there was a lot of compartmentalizing involved.
I must have been ~12 when I realized something like "I wish I had girl parts" (I think it was after experiencing it in a dream). From then on it was just something I knew about myself.
Similarly I first learned that transition was a thing when I was 18-19 and I saw a documentary. It was immediately obvious that I wanted to do it, and from then on that too was just a thing about me.
1/
@EverBeyondReach But I didn't think I was trans, or talk to anyone, until age 29. In those ten years the knowledge would slip in and out of different boxes in my mind.
Like around age 19 I knew I wanted to transition and was planning my future accordingly (even though the only path I could imagine was "get a high paying remote job so no one has to know what I'm doing" which wasn't realistic at all).
2/
@EverBeyondReach ...But I was also seeing a psychiatrist every week for depression stuff and I didn't even ask myself if I wanted to tell her. At those times I was just a cis guy and the knowledge didn't even exist in my mind.
Then around 22 my theory was that everyone has male and female sides and I was probably 50/50 so there was no need to change anything (which makes no sense yeah).
3/
@EverBeyondReach ~25 I wasn't leaving home anymore and I fully expected to die in a couple years when my savings ran out. So there was no point in thinking about the future. I was a disembodied mind on the internet, playing female chars in MMOs but using he/him pronouns because that was "normal". I'd lie awake at night thinking about getting reincarnated as a teenage girl and redoing my life right, or getting a sex-changing bite from a vampire. But I didn't think I was a trans person.
4/
@EverBeyondReach At 27 I was on social aid, working unpaid "reinsertion" gigs and living a full adult's life for the first time, and it wasn't that bad. There was a high from talking to people again and being treated as an equal, which made the required masks easy to wear. I got fit for the first time. And being a "guy" in manual jobs is nice because you can just stop thinking about your appearance - let your beard grow until you can't see your face, wear your work clothes everywhere.
5/
@EverBeyondReach At the same time the nightly daydreams were still there and would often turn into crying myself to sleep, because sometimes I just felt *so* lonely. And I'd been making good progress with my new therapist but we were getting to a point where I understood there was an entire personality I was constantly pushing down, and we wouldn't get much further until I faced it.
6/
@EverBeyondReach Also at the same time Youtube was introducing me to actual trans thoughts and philosophy instead of the usual canned story (I swear I didn't go looking for it it all started from trying to understand what the hell was up with gaming spaces post-gamergate). And that's the soup that made things start to change.
7/
* I found a (new to me) understanding of trans identity as something independent from transition. You're trans both before and after your transition, and there are non-transitioning trans people. That meant I could actually allow myself to think about trans experiences in terms of "us" instead of just "them".
8/
* I was in a position where people wanted me to get better, and that required good therapy, and that required me to be honest. So I was able to tell myself that I owed others introspection and authenticity. That was the complete opposite of what I'd learned growing up as an ND teen, that it was my duty to cut off every part of me that didn't fit in.
9/
* I learned a lot about trans subcultures, with many people writing about how their relationship with society at large might be complicated but at least in their own community they were completely accepted. The idea that maybe I wouldn't have to fit a societal ideal as long as I could find other people like me was completely new to me.
10/
* I had a good, trusting relationship with a therapist for the first time in my life. And my therapy was stalling because I was refusing to put some things into words.
So I first told myself I should maybe mention what I was thinking about, you know, in the interest of progress. Just to see what she thought about it.
11/
Then by the time of my next appointment that had turned into "I'm going to lie through my teeth if I have to, because god dammit I'm getting on HRT and I've learned enough about the system to make it agree".
Then she listened to me with an open mind, and I didn't actually have to lie, and sitting on the bus home thinking about my upcoming diagnosis (yeah we still have those) and contacting an endo was the first time I realized, wait, this is it, I'm a trans woman!
12/12 phew
Estel
Sasa