Hi everyone!
I'm Sophie and I'm 20 years old. From New Zealand originally, but have just moved to Australia to make the $$$ for the
doctor.
I grew up out in rural NZ and just did my thing when I was a kid but noticed I definitely wasn't like the other boys, which I sorta just acknowledged and moved on until around about when I was 10 and gender became like this huge thing among the kids at school and I got very confused and eventually figured out I could be trans. Unfortunately for all parties concerned, my older brother picked that exact time to go off the rails in a big golden-brown kinda way and pretty much tore the family apart, something that 10-year old me internalised as my fault for being different. So I tried with all my might to repress those kinda feelings and ended up at an all-boys private high school, which was not the best place for me, but I drank the kool-aid about family and honour and heterosexual colonial masculinity for a couple of years.
Unfortunately, that made me very, very depressed, which wasn't that fun. Eventually I realised that the trans feeling weren't going away but because of my circumstances I felt I couldn't do anything, so I took a leaf from my brother's book and started partying myself into an early grave - sneaking out at night, drinking, smoking, weed, oxycontin, ecstasy, speed and then coming home at 5 am, having a shower and going to school - which was fun while it lasted, but made everything feel worse in the long run.
Eventually I finished school and went away to another city for university to transition, but I was basically a shell of a human being by that point and ended up spending that year drinking myself very nearly to death, ruining my social life and dropping out. After I dropped out, I went back home and fell back into old habits until a trans friend of mine had very horrible things done to her (by perpetrators who were expertly not-apprehended by the local cops) and I freaked out and ran away to a different town, enrolled in a different university and tried to put my life back together. That worked for like 8 months, but I got really depressed and flunked out and ended up going back home. However, I learned enough about not-screwing-up-my-life to do ok, get employment and start saving money, which I did for about 18 months. Then, about 2 months ago I had a very unpleasant but illuminating acid trip which illustrated that I could take the risk of failing and move somewhere else again to try and transition and be happy or die unhappy and hollow at home.
So I took my savings and bought a plane ticket to Australia!! and here I am.
I've only been here two weeks, but I'm having the greatest time. I'm staying in Sydney at the moment, but will be moving to Brisbane soon because Sydney is ludicrously expensive to live in. Luckily, I work in cafes and bars, so there's no real shortage of work for me in either place.
So, that's most of my story, I think. I've got friends in Brisbane scoping out a 1 bed apartment for me, because I really want some space for my head - I've spent so long being defined by my fear of other people's expectations, or by depression or repression, and have so thoroughly rinsed many of my earlier memories out of my brain (life lesson: don't spend 8 months locked in a room alone drinking wine), that who I actually am is a bit of a mystery to me, so exploring that is something I'm trying to do at the moment.
I'm trying to find a style that works for me at the moment - I've always loved sportswear, both for clubbing and for sport and I really love the kinda zef/chavvy thing Paris Lees does, but am not sure I can rock it. Also, I got into the outdoor rave scene back home and those kind of indoor rave aesthetics are looked down on in the doof scene. I've also started running to slim down and working out specifically to get an ass because I'm not on hormones (I had a very bad experience with a doctor my first time round at university and am kinda scared of them) and until I am and they start working I just don't have any ass at all. And I'm considering going vegetarian, but I'm not really sure why.
I basically want to spend the next year of my life getting very good at looking good and then probably try plug myself into the medical system. Then, either work or (go back to university and then work), get FFS, GRS and maybe a little bit of other work done and then travel and party for a while, before settling down.
Other random stuff about me - I like to read lots, fiction and nonfiction, but mostly nonfiction. I like sci-fi, but only when it's soft. I love the X-Files, Buffy, Veronica Mars and OITNB and have a serious thing for early-2000s music video aesthetics. I'm pretty political, a social democrat when I'm discussing politics at Christmas and a libertarian communist the rest of the time.
Despite being quite a cynical person, though, the world is still a special place for me because of two reasons. Firstly, this planet really is beautiful. I love nature. Walking through forests and plains and wilderness has always felt spiritual for me. There is so much genius and beauty in plants and birds and fungi (I'm not used to seeing animals other than birds in forests), and life and joy. The ocean is so huge, so vast and so old and so powerful - waves turn sheer cliffs into sand. Mountains are so desolate and striking and beautiful and pure, yet so inhospitable that it feels like gods live there. And cats are just a whole 'nother level of beauty.
The second one is people. People are beautiful and exciting and unusual and dumb, like cats. I mean, people do terrible things to one another and to the planet and to themselves, but I honestly believe that's not an inherent human trait, because people at there best are amazing and brave and powerful.
Anyway, that's me. Hi!
edit: oh, and my handle is an ani difranco reference, in case you were curious.
