Ivy Reesewhenever someone says "i always knew i was trans" i feel myself curl up and grow a bit of shell.
i never knew i was trans. i barely do now.
i went 40 years without being able to accept this about myself. i have now — and it's fucking great, and i love it — but it still feels so precarious. so slight. like someone could lean down and gently blow, and it would fly away.
cis folks don't matter. they can do whatever, i don't care, they can't take this from me.
but it hurts and scares me — still — when trans people say "i always knew". it seems like such a universally shared trans experience, that it almost feels like a requirement. one that i'm failing.
"i always knew" — such confidence! such security. perhaps it's this confidence and security that leads these trans folks to be the ones who tell their stories, and that's why all the stories i read are by people who feel this way.
maybe there are post-realization trans folks who haven't always known, who don't feel so secure, and so they don't tell their stories because they're scared of losing it.
there definitely are pre-realization trans folks who haven't always known, who will never figure it out on their own because they don't see themselves in stories. i was one.
nm