Requiring that I erase my past, to present a consistent and current identity to the world is a violence.

I have not always been a woman. My being a woman is complicated. My old name was still my name. My time as young man taught me a lot about being a man in our culture. My time as a woman has taught me a lot about it too, and vice versa.

If you want to argue with me about whether I'm _currently_ a woman, however, we will have to have a very nuanced conversation. Any blanket statement about whether trans women are women without the context of how gender and our notions of sex are socially constructed is a non-starter, as is a conversation that doesn't include us.

Gender construction cannot be applied to us without our participation.

@aredridel Thank you. My past is a complicated place that is only informed now by my gender in hindsight. I didn't even feel "wrong" until nearly 30... :-) So...yeah. Thanks. <3
@aredridel While I personally do feel that I was always a girl (or at the very least never a boy), I think it's destructive how the "born this way" narrative is used to justify being trans. There are many ways of being trans, but the dysphoria is equally painful. Thank you for sharing a different narrative.
@aredridel agreed, I have the same issue with referring to my birth name as a "deadname". There was no death, merely a phase change.