Finding Oneself

PREFACE: I wrote this JUST after I came out to myself. I’ve tweaked it but it's sort of just a very raw stream of thought. I’m in a much better place. We’ll get to that I swear!

This is not the first time I’ve done this. To try and communicate with the world through writing online. Letting people in on my life and interests and share the things I care about. Share a little piece of myself that might make connections with others.

It never worked.

I wanted to express myself so badly, to connect with some kind of community. But I failed. Over and over again.

I didn't know who I was.

I knew the context of me. I knew of the things that happened to me in my life. I knew the things that interested me. I knew these tangible real things I could point to. But looking inward was a confusing mess. There was what I was openly comfortable sharing with people, and a towering shadow. There were things partly shaded but still visible like my love a sex toys of all kinds and boutique cannabis. But there were deeper items that I haven’t explored. Up until recently I had no intention of turning on the light exposing what was hidden. I actually didn't turn on the light myself, lightning came in the form of weirdly poignant YouTube content. Which struck me and showed me everything I was hiding.

I didn’t know what to do with this information. I couldn't share it with anyone yet. But it felt incredibly urgent. I feel like my whole life up until that point just got framed in a way that finally made sense. It never made sense before. My identity never made sense before.

But what did make sense was that I’m actually a woman. I am fucking transgender. Holy shit. How did this not come up before now?

If asked, If I’d wanted to be born a woman the answer would have always been yes. That’s not a new thought to me at all, I've known that about myself for a while. It’s been a point of frustration for me since puberty, though it was never super debilitating. I just tucked that thought away, since I didn’t see anything I could do about it. I had no trans representation in my life. I’m not even sure what that would have looked like at the time. I did not know transitioning was a thing. And I probably would have been too scared to explore the subject too much. But now that I think back at my life I can see all the ways me being trans seeped everything.

I always felt like I related to women better. I had a lot of female friends growing up. Even the male friends I had were often pretty feminine. I played with women's toys and watched girlie shows, though not remotely exclusively. I acted differently from my male peers, but not so much that it was ostracising. Did I get made fun of for being feminine? For sure. But kids in my town were going to simply make fun of you for being gay, they wouldn’t even think to bring up trans-ness. And I had a lot of security in knowing I wasn’t gay. I do consider myself bi now, but I digress.

I knew I loved women. A lot. I loved the way they looked. Loved the way they dressed. Long dyed hair. Messing around with cool nail styles and makeup. I was pretty jealous of the freedom to do these things, or at least to be encouraged to do these things. It never crossed my mind why I was jealous. Wanting to be with them, and wanting to BE them are closer concepts than anyone tells you.

They don’t tell you shit about being transgender. Cis people don’t think about it. They can’t conceptualise it. I have vague memories of the subject coming up. To which maybe my female friends saying they wish they had a dick for a day. Or the guys saying they wish they could switch for a day, if that. And there I am thinking, why for only a day? Why would anyone want to be a man? I felt stuck to it. Resigned to it.

But now I know that it doesn't have to be that way.

Now I know I can be free.