There’s so much stuff that would feel weird and stereotype-y to see someone else do and think, “they must be trans!” but when I think back on myself doing them, my only thought is, “oh, so that’s what that was about.”
There’s so much stuff that would feel weird and stereotype-y to see someone else do and think, “they must be trans!” but when I think back on myself doing them, my only thought is, “oh, so that’s what that was about.”
Attempting to make a proper response because I do wanna participate properly. Out of a mountain of moments, I can think of two glaring moments that are jaw-dropping obvious to me in retrospect:
High school me: "Without any pre-existing idea of what it meant to be trans, I wrote a short story that included a magical being who started existence as a woman, fragmented herself to have a male side, which I don't remember exactly why she had to but it was for protection from some other god. So throughout the story this being had warring male and female aspects and eventually the female aspect grew so powerful that she subsumed the male side entirely and she was made whole again."
Also high school me: "Wow I'm so creative. I pulled that idea out of absolutely nowhere and had zero subconscious input on any of my creative ideas. And I love the character so much that I'm going to use her name as my profile name in online spaces. Just because I like the name a lot, no other reason. Anyway time to needlessly suffer with unidentified dysphoria for well over a decade"
The other is the time I was group pressured into trying on a dress in middle school and I didn't care about wearing the dress as much as it was too small and not fitted for me and looked awful. I had to pretend I had an upset stomach so I could hide in the bathroom with the fan on and quietly sob over the thought that I would never be beautiful. You know, typical cis problems.