This got posted here a while back and I watched it then and it really is a great video. It really changed how I think about being trans. Before hand I was very much in the camp of "I was born trans and always have been, I just didn't know it" but now I believe that I decided to transition because I knew it would make me happier, not because of some intrinsic property. The idea that there is some "essence" of gender and some people have the "male essence" and some people have the "female essence" is kind of silly to think about and while I would have never worded it that way that's basically what I thought. It creates a lot of worry and dysphoria though, because I was always anxious that I didn't really have that "essence" and I was just lying to myself that I did and one day I might find out that I'm a fake. But if no such thing exists, that's a much more freeing situation. I can be a woman not because I was "suppose" to be one, but just because I want to be one. And being happier as a woman is the one and only one justification that I need to be one, I don't need to prove anything about "really" being one.

I also really relate to the life of the main dude character. I ended up dropping out of college back in 2019 and was in an incredibly similar situation. I thought college was going to finally be it, when I start living my life and being me. But I was still the same person I was before and I was still too shy to talk to people or go to clubs or make friends and I ended up just withering away and dropping out. The next few years I lived at home and basically did nothing but play EU4 and sleep. The only thing that got be out of that horrible hole of NEETdom was the hope of transition. I decided that I was going to do whatever it took to get on HRT, and that motivation was the only thing that allowed me to piece my life back together.

I'm back in college now and for the first two semester of this attempt I was basically doing the same shit as the first one, just being too shy to talk to anyone. I've been getting good grades but basically haven't had a social life. Seeing a character with such close experiences to me really made me look at myself and realize that I was just making the same old mistakes again and that I couldn't do that. Since seeing this video the first time like 4ish weeks ago I've really been trying to reverse that and be more social. I've got to a couple club meetings and while I'm no social butterfly I have been improving and now there's people on campus who recognize me and like talking to me and I like talking to them.

I'm really glad I saw this because I feel like it helped me improve myself.