OnceInOnceSet posted:
I think we've all been there. After you crack™, a lot of things make sense. A lot of feelings fall into place and mechanisms you've had for coping with Dysphoria, which you didn't know you had, become plain. That's how it was for me. But soon after, I started to get another creeping sensation.
How did I not crack sooner?
Integrating into Trans spaces and talking, the prevailing response I've gotten is more or less, "Hello sis! What took you so long?" And to an extent, I got it, but I always thought perhaps at times it was a little exaggerated.
As of today, I can't complain.
I'm moving. Very excited, starting a new job soon. And so I've been cleaning out old boxes that have been in my closet and, in some cases, not opened in years, since the last time I moved was so hectic and I never unpacked them in the first place. And in one of the boxes, I found my old journals.
As a girl forced to pretend to be a boy, I had learned not to call them 'diaries.' But that's what they were. I jotted things down on and off starting in Elementary school. I'd go through phases where I'd write an entry once or twice a day for a couple of weeks, to a dry spell, off and on again. And reading through them, I finally understand how obvious my brain was being. Here are a few gems, all of which are 9 years at least before I cracked and came to terms with my Trans identity. On a related topic, if there was an Olympic Medal for denial and compartmentalization, I think I'd be the Michael Phelps of it.
Ahem:
- "The news today was talking about Transgender youth. My parents were watching while I played TF2, and I overheard my Dad muse, aloud, "That's strange. I had no idea people like that existed." Audibly, in the back of my head, I thought, "Your son is one of those people." I don't know why I thought that."
- "I had a dream last night. In it, I stood in the bathroom of the [OLD HOUSE STREET] house, looked myself in the eyes, took a deep breath and said 'I am Transgender.' I'm not Trans, though. It was a weird dream."
- "I was chatting with [NAME OF TRANSMASC FRIEND FROM HS] because I'm sort of confused by them. Why would they want to be a boy? Being a boy kind of sucks, don't know why someone would WANT this."
- Also, an honorable mention to this gem from the 11th grade, which has got to be the Egg equivalent of 'I'm not X, BUT-'
- "Got into a fight with [NAME HERE] today during class about bathroom bills. Got heated. But I guess if I turn out to be Trans one day, it'll be good to have that issue taken care of."
On a related topic, the journals had some drawings of how I imagined myself if I was AFAB. Which was something I knew I did a lot from Elementary School until College. I still technically do that, but now it's less "oh neat I drew myself as a girl" and more "these are my transition goals."
Claundough replied:
I distinctly remember going on tirades when I was younger about how "gender is arbitrary" and that "people overreact about it" because I just figured that everyone else experienced gender as an il-conceived glob of arbitrary nothingness vaguely correlated with whatever existed between your legs. I viewed my own gender as something worth escaping, as it "weighed me down from a higher plane of understanding with respect to a more neutral spectator's role in society". I openly admitted to the fact that I only identified as male out of convenience. I also hated exclusively being around men, hated male secondary sex characteristics, lived in constant fear of what puberty would do to my body, and never once questioned how incompatible those attitudes might be.
There were so many layers of repression that I just accepted without thought. My egg psychology should've been studied in a laboratory for future generations.