hey Everyone!
I've been reading your stories and admiring your photos, and now I'd like to introduce myself a little bit. I'm currently in my late twenties; I've wanted to transition for the past ten years; and I've identified as female as long as I remember. A bit of fear and thinking it wasn't possible to pass kept me from starting earlier, but now that I'm older, more confident, have the LGBTQ university support resources, and have insurance that covers HRT and SRS, I've decided to finally begin on my transition. Of course, I lament not starting sooner (I would've had to do less damage control), but I would also lament waiting any longer (prolonging the deep dissatisfaction with remaining this way).
Of course I'm a bit scared at the prospect of having to display myself throughout the process of transitioning to my professors, colleagues, and students. I wish I could disappear, transition, and then return, but that simply isn't possible, and I'm in a very accepting community (as far as I can tell, and probably one of the most accepting places to transition), and I enjoy my research and studies. I'm a phd student.
I would recommend anyone in high school or community college to consider transferring to any one of the University of California campuses, which have great insurance, mental health, and community resources for trans students. I did my undergrad at one UC campus, and now my PhD at another, and they have both seemed like wonderful environments that would very much support a transition while providing you with an excellent education.
I enjoy thinking philosophically about what it means to identify in a particular manner, and what it means to appear in the manner that we identify.
As for what I have yet to look forward to: hair removal, starting HRT soon (just waiting for endocrinologist referral to finish processing), FFS (which I think would have to focus on brow, nose, and Adam's apple reduction), and GRS/SRS (which would relieve incredible dysphoria). Finances are very tight on a graduate student budget. For hair removal, I plan on trying a bit of self electrolysis. Student health insurance covers HRT and SRS, but I have to look into a way to convince them to medically cover FFS or perhaps I can find a way to afford it (taking a loan or going abroad for less expensive costs).
I actually admire the look of many cisfemale models that embrace some androgynous or masculine features, so I don't entirely mind a bit of masculinity, as long as it is passable. I find Freja Beha Erichsen absolutely beautiful. I think Barbro Andersen is another particularly beautiful woman.
About a week ago I got to meet Carmen Carrera, who was absolutely nice and pretty. She seemed a lot more genuinely pretty and a lot less sexualized gorgeous in-person, which was nice to see. She was inspiring to listen to about her story as a trans woman.
I've always felt trapped and wronged by two things: (1) my mortality and (2) being born physically a gender incongruous with the gender I was born mentally. Now, I can't become immortal, and I've begrudgingly accepted the inevitability of death, and recognizing that inevitability does lessen the pain of feeling trapped by my mortality. However, regarding the other issue, I can actually transition and correct the problem. Previously, I've felt trapped by my apparent gender, but it has been quite mindblowing and beautiful to dress up like a girl and look in the mirror and feel an immense amount of comfort. It is absolutely wonderful to think that a passable transition might be possible with contemporary technologies and procedures. Being that I am condemned to being mortal, it gives me every more reason to change what I can change with that one life that I have, and to make what feels incongruous about my presented identity dissolve in the metamorphosis that is transitioning.
As motivation, I've begun to keep the image of a moth throughout this process, where I am presently a caterpillar that will soon begin feasting on life sustaining estrogen and anti-androgens, slowly developing feminine characteristics, and preparing to hatch and reveal itself in a fully transfigured form of femininity. I hope to one day be able to provide support for others confronted by the difficult decisions and issues related to transition.
