I hope this is the right place for this. It seems so. These are just a few of my own personal experiences with being Trans and my subsequent opinions on those experiences. I am in no way an expert on trans or how to "be" trans.
How do you know?
It's different for all of us. For me, I just knew. I had a harder time understanding why people kept telling me to put a shirt on and stop trying to follow the boy's groups everywhere. Those were, in my mind, "my" groups. Eventually society drilled "you're a girl!" deeply enough into my head that I actually started to believe it. Needless to say, this was extremely short lived and I'm over that now.
Coming out.
This went over about as well as a meatlover's pizza at a vegaterian meet&greet but I still refuse to change my tune and just "be a girl."
The Gender Binary.
Even as a trans person I have to admit, the gender binary or rather the awareness of it is something entirely new to me. I was raised like most people seem to be. "If it looks like a boy, it's a boy. If it looks like a girl, it's a girl." I admit I'm just as guilty as anyone else of misgendering people. I tend not to do this twice, not intentionally but having been there myself, I can certainly understand the struggle some cis and for that matter other trans people suffer with this. Gender is drilled into our heads from the moment we start expressing any form of self awareness. "Those toys are for boys. That activity is for girls. You can't do that honey, that's for boys/girls." It's a mantra that becomes a core belief and shaking off old belief systems and habits is pretty hard.
Transitioning.
There seems to be a common belief, even amongst the trans community, that "transitioning" means fullstop surgery and the whole works. Not all see it this way, naturally, but it is a thing that comes up. The inability or for that matter choice to not undergo surgery or HRT doesn't make you any less of a man/woman. Surgery and hormones are dangerous and shouldn't be undergone just for the sake of caving to peer pressure.
Dysphoria.
Dysphoria or lackthereof is another big buzzword I commonly see crop up in the discussion forums of what does or doesn't make one trans. Not everyone is extremely uncomfortable with their own bodies and for that matter not everyone hit the ground being comfortable with them. I'm going to let you guys in one a little secret, one transman to the whole world. Women used to digust me. Lady parts were the grossest thing in all of grossville. I just figured "I'm gay and this is natural."
It wasn't, well, that wasn't entirely the culprit at least. As I started getting packers, binders, and "proper" clothes, my body became less of a prison and more of a halfway house. I'm still not attracted to ladies, this hasn't changed and I'm not sure it will ever but if porn comes across my Tumblr dash somehow or is spywared into Google adds, I don't go recoiling off my chair because "Eeww, eeww, ladypocket, eeewww!"
This has subsequently made dealing with other "biological quirks" of my vessel a lot easier. I still don't fully identify as trans*, even to this day. I use it because it's a term that in no way bothers me and it's a thing that I understand but to me, I've always just been a man with an estrogen problem.
The Transition.
When I first jumped into this pool I admit my view of transitioning came down to "Buy gender appropiate clothes, get gender appropiate hormones, get surgery, change name, boom. You're done baking!"
It's so much more then that and I've come to realize along my journey that the transition isn't just for me or in anyway all about me. Is eventually being comfortable in my own body a big part of this? Certainly. But I'm not the one changing. I'm already who I am. The world is transitioning around me. Perhaps this is arrogant and shallow of me, but it's the rest of my community that is being made to see things in a new light as I cement my own understanding of myself.
I am just a man. I was never a ma'am. Sure, I may look like one but it's alright, world. You have my support and I'll be here, waiting for you and guiding you as you transition.
