This post is a discussion of Shou Arai’s manga, “At 30, I Realized I Had No Gender.” However, feel free to just answer the question in the title if you’re not interested. I’m wondering if anyone here transitioned in their 30’s or 40 plus.
Shou Arai is an intersex person from Japan who is somewhat well-known in the local queer scene. Arai lived the first 30 years of his life as a woman before transitioning into a man. I’ll be using he/him pronouns to describe Arai, as those are the ones he uses in the manga. The LGBT movement in Japan is obviously different than it is in the West, so some terminology doesn’t fit exactly. Arai is physically intersex, having physical characteristics of both sexes. He is also described as trans, non-binary, or agender at times; however, in this case agender is translated from something that more closely resembles “between genders.” Having read the manga, I personally feel that the term agender doesn’t really fit in the Western sense, and I believe the title is more in reference to “I am without gender because society doesn’t have a name for people with genders like me” rather than a true absence of gender.
Like Poppy Pesuyama, Arai considers himself a manga essayist. This means that the manga is primarily expository rather than narratively driven. Unlike Pesuyama, who wove their exposition into an overarching narrative, Arai foregoes narrative all together. Instead, each chapter of the manga is based on a topic or anecdote. Some chapters are even just Q&A sessions with other queer people. Often times, Arai is just giving practical advice about being queer. Despite the title of the manga, Arai actually wrote it when he was nearing 50 years of age, so he 30 years of female experience and about 20 of male experience by that time. Quite a veteran queer!
Here's a list of the topics he covers:
As you can see, the majority of the manga is devoted to aging while queer, which is why I was drawn to it. Frankly, I think some of the advice that Arai gives might be a bit antiquated, but he is real af. I think that some of the chapters were hard to read for me not because the subject matter or presentation is heavy but because he clearly voices a lot of the small things we worry about when aging and queer. In particular, the chapters “If I had aged a woman” or “Is it impossible to be a young girl” are a little rough if, like me, you’re transitioning late in life. Other chapters just discuss aging in general like body measurements, choosing glasses, facial sagging, or having a big head lol. In general, he’ll discuss an issue and then provide a way to try to mitigate it or think about it differently, and he’s always real about what’s actually achievable.
The manga is a real grab bag of tough thoughts, which I’m gonna list here:
mild dysphoria
Having smile lines, growing unwanted facial hair, trying to manage your aging so people don’t just identify you as male, wishing you had transitioned sooner so you would’ve had better skincare, being jealous of people who started hormones early, having no memories of being young in the gender you want, being easier to present masculine when you’re older, having a weird mismatched body, using clothing to present femme but feeling dysphoria when you take them off and see your masculine body, changing your clothing style just so people identify you correctly, having a non-binary heart while still presenting in a binary manner, confusing looking femme with looking young, getting too old for sex, and many, many more!
Overall, I think that the manga is rather formalistically boring. There’re really no characters, and the art is fairly basic, so there’s nothing really to latch onto. Unlike other queer manga I’ve read, this one didn’t really move me; however, I think it’s bursting with important and helpful content, so it’s worth a read if any of this interests you.
personal dysphoria
To be honest, despite the fact that it’s really light, I found myself quite bothered by a lot of it. For me, a lot of my dysphoria comes more from my age than my gender. I’m closer to 40 than 30 these days (much older than Arai when he transitioned), and sometimes I can’t help but think I’m a man playing dress up or that I missed my window to transition or that I’m going through some midlife crisis to make me look younger. I also acknowledge that there’s more to being trans and queer than being pretty, and a lot of transfemmes are really obsessed with youth and beauty, and then I just feel guilty for boiling down gender to being pretty. Anyway, I know all of these things aren’t true, and it’s just societal ideas that I’ve internalized that are causing me dysphoria. I can’t help thinking it would be easier to just age male, though. I wish I had the awareness that kids nowadays get, but back in my day (at least where I lived), trans literally wasn’t a thing. We had no language or conception of it. In fact, I'm remembering now that when I came out to my wife while bawling, I kept repeating, "I just didn't know we could do this [transition]" >.>
Anyway, I wanna hear from the younglings too, but this post is for the geezers like me. Have any kind words? 
Some of the topics in that ToC are depressing or comical. "I want to quit wearing suits" lol. Generally it sounds like the sort of useful, informative advocacy Imogen Binnie was writing orange book in contrast to, like some trans autobiogs from the 20th century. By no stretch a bad thing.
however
But oh shit, the age and dysphoria stuff you said... wew.
First off pls disabuse urself of this idea that women in their 30s or 40s cannot be attractive, you paint being in your 30s like it's the death knell and you're about to turn to stone! Generally speaking, if you're taking it, estrogen tends to make you look younger; my wife is of course in her 40s but sometimes gets carded when we're buying alcohol, and she is beautiful. (She will lie and say she's not, but) If this were some sort of midlife crisis plan to make you look younger, (and it's not, men who have a midlife crisis of youth tend to slam testosterone therapy, lol) it'd work very well! Elaborate bit!
There is no "too old to transition" and you are not precluded from being beautiful by age, or "a man playing dress-up". I think it's entirely valid to mourn not having transitioned earlier, less for the "youth/beauty" aspect and more because it can suck taking that long to discover who you are.
There's a real ageism thing going on here though, isn't there? Your little segment makes me wonder if this manga does not have severe brainworms. I mean, smile lines? Laugh lines and crows' feet are something I like, personally. I enjoy that feeling happiness manifests on our faces. The idea that aging makes it easier to present as male... lol lmao. All women turn 40, age doesn't really make it harder to present female.
Of course it's worth keeping in mind, I came out as trans when I was 15. I am the incredibly lucky young trans person, living comfortably thanks to the struggles of those who came before me. One of my favourite things about my beautiful marriage is living life with a wife of a different generation, our experiences and takes are complimentary and often contrast.
I will forever value the experiences of trans comrades older than me.
Anyway I'm 12 and what is this
(I know you @'d me because it is a trans manga, forever grateful, waow ✨)
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I wanna be clear that I do think women my age are very attractive. In fact, I don't even want to look like a woman in her 20s. I want to look my age. The dysphoria more comes from nearly 40 years of testosterone.
Yes. It's ageist and has brainworms lol. I don't take everything he says as true, but I appreciate someone vocalizing the way many people feel because it's less lonely.
Sis, come on, you know it's not the same when talking about cis women. It would be a different story if I started HRT 20 years ago or something, but my body has developed in a masculine way.
ANYWAY, you're right about everything. I'm just airing out my brainworms. I know they're brainworms, but other people have them, too, so maybe this will be helpful to someone.
Thank you for your support
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Ohhhhh okay, more about the T, well that's a lot better than thinking all women turn to dust after 30 or whatever!! Thankfully estrogen can lessen a lot of the effects of T. Hair softening or near disappearing, skin softening, squishier cheeks, weight distribution or even hip tilt altering your figure, loss of upper body musculature if you want, it's awesome actually, can make huge differences.
This is like you struck a rail spike in my brain with lightning, because whenever I'm reading something aggressively selfhating like a Light From Uncomnon Stars, or even a Manhunt, I'm always left twirling my hair and wondering if, even though it's important for people to relate, leaving shitty brainwormed sentiments in your fiction unchallenged does more harm than good. This really activated my almonds.
Quick,
what's "developed in a masculine way" mean? I don't think any body development precludes you for presenting femme, but go off!!
Happy if my open-mouth-insert-foot comments can help literally at all
good thread btw.
Yeah maybe.
I'm not gonna answer this because it's clearly a trap designed to target my own toxic conceptions. Good try
I only post bangers!
Too smart for my tricks
but having, say, an inverted-triangle build or small hips does not preclude your presenting fem. No body type does, actually, which is rad, and there are things you can do both in bodily and wardrobe terms to get a look you want.
also
since Estradoll is like, 30something? I'm waiting on her showing up to this thread tbh
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Oh god, protect me from her positivity!
You KNOW you NEED IT
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I'll parrot what Ash has said, I have had my body hair stop growing completely, and most of my shoulder muscle atrophied.. I still can lift but I surprise people more now lifting all the shopping bags at once by myself because I an unassuming.
I'm gonna keep lifting weights and maintain muscle after transition. Sorry, but the muscles will stay
Should, it's always funny seeing the taxi driver near shit a brick when I lift 6 full shopping bags myself
Falsehoods! but I will concede this once
But I do agree on feeling I waited way too long but you're here now.. look forward not back..
I'd wear a suit, or any other clothing, not really a skirt or dress person tho as you know. Nice black dress pants and maybe a shirt or something I dunno.. you know I just wear what I find comfy too so lol But then I'd be military boots too lol