Here’s the thing you need to know about people who transitioned as adults: their transition is probably a truly epic saga. They might be the most basic person ever, and they might not tell you their story, but it’s there.
Maybe it’s about the extremes they reached running from their dysphoria. Maybe it’s an intricate web of relationships and pain and sorrow. Maybe it’s an internal tale of descending into themselves to battle daemons that society itself cursed them with.
Transition is wild, yo.
@Willow I sat on this for a while! To be honest, I'm still piecing it all together. My memory is strange (maybe an aphantasia thing).
Mum says, in hindsight, there may have been a few signs when I was very young, but I don’t remember those. My earliest memories which stand out were probably when I was around 10. I think I was fine in the day, but at night when I was left to my own thoughts all I felt was a deep wrongness, and I often cried myself to sleep.
Fast-forwarding a bit, I remember taking a day off school sick, and when I was alone in the house trying a few things on. At the time it just seemed like curiosity. Around then I started to wonder if I was gay, but I'd get caught in a loop of “Am I gay?” -> “No, I can't be because I like girls!”. I tested that out a bit, including a bit of exploratory flirting, but that didn't work for me.
Around when I started my undergrad degree I was reading transformation stories and imagining that for myself. In my head it was a kink thing (somehow, even though it wasn't a sex thing). By the end of my undergrad I was having dreams of being a woman (often pregnant), and grew my hair out. I remember queuing at an ATM and when I turned to speak with my friend a guy in the couple behind us quietly said to his partner “It's a guy!”. I loved thinking I'd been mistaken for a girl but felt a bit gross about being so obviously a guy when my face was seen…
Vivian, Venus Pirate 🏳️⚧️
Aura Everitt