Member-only story
Girl, In Progress
Like many trans people early in their transition, I have been struggling with my identity. Or more specifically, the validity of it.
When I first started to transition I felt very similarly to other trans women I’d talked to — that if I did not achieve 100% “conventional femininity” at all times, then I was not valid and would have all my pretty things taken away permanently.
Do Not Pass Girl, Do Not Collect Gender Euphoria.
Since I know I’m not a man, I ended up slipping into more of a state of gender flux/fluidity, and even that was hard to reconcile initially. It became a struggle to find a piece of solid gender ground to stand on.
“You’re just confused”, came the popular refrain — except it was my own brain saying it to me.
Yet, whenever I felt safe and/or comfortable, I tended to feel more feminine, more girly. Likewise, when I felt unsafe and/or uncomfortable, I ended up being pulled back past any progress I’d made and back into “no, you don’t just get to change, you have to be who your family thinks you are!”
So, as I’ve begun to zero in on what things make me feel dysphoric and fake, and what things make me feel euphoric, I ended up having a bit of an epiphany that is helping me.
