Transgender
Content Warning:
Contains mentions of gender dysphoria, body dysmorphia, and transphobia
Hello. My name is Vivian, and I am a trans woman
Transgender?
My gender identity is different than the one that was assigned to me at birth.
I am a woman
But from as early as I can remember, people called me a boy, a man.
They made it out like this was a statement of reality. That there was nothing deeper to these ideas. That to question them would be like questioning that the sky was blue. That it was simply a fact that I was a boy.
This "fact" was wrong
Dysphoria
I wasn't allowed to be a girl
Sure, if I had pushed for it, maybe.
But I wanted to be good, I wanted to be liked.
I wanted to follow the rules. I didn't want to be bullied
So I buried the voice in my head.
I learned to live as a boy.
I never asked to be one.
I felt out of place within masculinity
It never felt right, I never felt right
But I felt I had no choice
I tried to be happy as a boy
People wanted this of me. They told me it was who I was.
I wanted to please them
I hoped if they were happy, I could learn to be happy.
But I still wanted to be a girl
As far back as I can remember, the idea of being a woman would appear in my head.
I'd search again and again for some spark of dysphoria about being a woman. But there was never anything.
I knew I would feel fine, if not better, if people saw me as a woman.
I ignored what I knew.
I was afraid of being a girl
I knew what transgender people were, but I was so terrified of being hated, of being persecuted, of being despised for who I was... I couldn't let myself think about it.
I was too scared of what I'd uncover if I did.
So... I convinced myself I could never be a woman.
Questioning
I still had the urge to learn more.
I was desperate to learn about the experience of being transgender.
I wanted to know about their experiences. I wanted to know what it was like, what they felt
It all felt extremely familiar, but I stayed convinced I myself couldn't be trans.
I didn't hate my body, not yet. I just couldn't think about it. It was just this wall.
I knew my body didn't feel like my own, but I refused to process why.
I started to process why.
When I got to college, I was finally in an environment where I was able to start picking these things apart
I was lucky to live with a person that was very comfortable pushing back against the expectations of gender.
And I started to realize just how wrong my identity felt
Incongruence is a good word to describe what I experienced. Everything about my gender identity was incongruent.
My understanding of my identity was wrong and malformed. I kept trying desperately to live within the masculine, but it never fit me.
I failed to be a man. I couldn't do it
I desperately desired a more feminine presentation, but I couldn't get myself to do that either.
I remained convinced I could never pull it off. That I'd be rejected if I tried
By 2023, however, the masculine was crumbling apart. I knew I hated it, I knew I desired the feminine, and my ability to ignore the obvious was getting weaker and weaker.
By the middle of the year, one day it just... snapped...
Among those who saw me as nothing more than the man I had pretended to be, I realized something.
If I didn't transition, I was going to die.
I saw the void before me, and I knew what it held
I dreamt that night of being a woman, of waking up the next day and that having always been what I was. Living in that body, in that identity.
It finally felt... right. More right in that dream than I had ever felt in my body before
Transition
After this... things were a blur for a while. I knew I was trans, but my process of coming out was split between two worlds.
In the physical world, everything was slow. Over the next year, I slowly bought more feminine clothing, I let my hair grow out. I tried to be more feminine. Every step towards it felt right, but getting myself there felt impossible.
In the digital world, I transitioned as quickly as I could. A new name, new profile pictures, new furry art, a new online self. It felt good, but I struggled to feel confident in this new identity.
The digital spaces helped with finding myself. But in the physical world, my loathing for my body continued to grow.
This split existence was tearing me apart
The hormones inside my body were causing all sorts of havoc in how my body worked and felt. I began to hate my body more and more. It felt wrong, it wasn't mine, it wouldn't listen to me.
The solution was obvious... but the process of getting there, of committing to this life... it took me a while
By 2024, about a full year after admitting to myself I was transgender, I came out to my family.
They were thankfully supportive.
I sought an appointment with Planned Parenthood, and through the informed consent program I started taking feminizing HRT in September 2024. I wrote this little poem about liminality of identity that night before taking the first dose.
I've felt... a lot better these last few months since starting it. There's a lot of stuff I'm still unpacking, all of which you can read through on my blog, heh
I feel less and less like I'm stuck in the body of someone else. I feel like... me... more often than I've ever felt that before
I still have a long way to go. I still have a lot of things to do. A lot of people to come out too. Being myself genuinely and earnestly is... hard. But I'm trying
Transitioning... hurts. It's the best thing I've ever done for myself... but it hurts. At times it feels like I'm dying, that I'll never rise again. But joy demands pain, and as long as I can, I'll get back up again the next day as best I can.
Transitioning requires growth. And growth can get messy. But I will tend to the garden that is my minds thoughts and emotions
A Promise
I have a long way to go before I'm living as earnestly as myself as I was in that dream. But I will get there
I won't give in, I won't surrender, I won't back down.
I'll never, ever, go back.