things that have surprised me about gender transition

2023-06-25

I realized I was trans about a year ago and have been out for the last 6 months. Somehow all these reflections on my experience have been simmering in my mind for the past few days, so I figured I would write them down here.

i started passing faster than i expected

As far as I can tell, people consistently see me as a woman now. People who don't know me generally call me ma'am, young lady, or just don't refer to my gender at all. I still get called "sir" once in a while, but it is becoming rarer and rarer.

I think I have been quite lucky in this regard, as I have blond hair (so my facial hair is hardly visible) and my face is relatively androgynous. Hormone therapy has helped a lot and my reflection still catches me by surprise for how feminine I am now.

people have generally been supportive

I feel so lucky to be surrounded by such amazing friends and coworkers. My partner in particular has been really supportive, making me feel pretty and reassuring me during my mental breakdowns. It took a couple months for people to adjust after I came out, but now everyone in my life calls me Lili and use she/her pronouns consistently. It's honestly hard to tell if they really see me as a woman, but I've accepted that it doesn't really matter either.

Perhaps I shouldn't have been so surprised about how supportive people would be. I think through this transition I've realized how conservative my upbringing has been relative to my current surroundings, so I model people as being more upset than they are. I've realized too, that people's opinions don't matter as much in professional life as I have protections against discrimination in my US state. I think it does help that I pass too, so that I deal with less issues with strangers.

All that said, I have had to cut a few people out. In particular, my mom has been rather unsupportive, refusing to acknowledge my name or really anything about my transition. I debated with her about trans topics and my decisions a few times, but I realized after a few months that neither of us would change our minds and that it was just causing me emotional pain. I have had to stop talking to her entirely. I have generally drifted away from people that kept using my old name as well.

transitioning is expensive

Transitioning costs so much! It is costly in time, energy, and money. This whole process has made me think a lot more about how much money I will make in future jobs and how much time I have left for personal pursuits.

Things that take up time: shopping for new clothes, learning makeup, reading up on trans issues, going to doctor for blood tests and hormone prescriptions, getting electrolysis/laser hair removal, changing name on everything, picking up prescription

Things that take up mental energy: mental anguish of questioning a deep part of your identity, keeping up with politics enough to survive, new anxieties about presenting feminine, thinking about how my voice sounds, rethinking your view of gender, arguing about your identity with unsupportive people, sometimes anxiety about being "clocked" as trans

Things that take up money: clothes (by far the biggest expense), makeup, laser hair removal ¹, therapy sessions, voice training lessons, possibly surgeries down the line

This is a tough process. This part is where my privilege shows the most. I'm lucky to have a flexible job so I can allocate some time on weekdays to some of these (then catch up on work on weekends). I'm also lucky in generally having a resilient mentality so that I could overcome the new mental effort. I'm lucky too to be able to have some savings to support my increased monetary spending.

I know some trans women who have given up due to the high expenses in time, energy, or money. Many must prolong their transition, painful though it may be, in order to gather up the resources necessary.

my genitals don't bother me too much

.. and neither do conversations about genitals.

From other accounts, I know it can be a sensitive topic for other trans people, but honestly when the topic came up I found that I didn't mind talking about them. I think I'm pretty open about sex in general with anyone who asks, though.

Honestly, I don't really think about my genitals very much day to day. They are what they are. For me, they are most relevant during sex. I did have some hangups about them for a bit, but then came across Julia Serano's view that each of our bodies are really for our own pleasure. After spending the last couple months internalizing this, I feel what genitals you have doesn't even matter that much. I love how in trans communities, you can meet someone and not know what they might have under their pants, and it can just not matter.

the biggest barrier has been my mind

Of course there have been other challenges (as described above), but the biggest challenge by far has been in overcoming my own thoughts.

improved understanding of gender

It is embarassing to admit, but my internal model of gender was rather simplistic even a year ago. It made me easily swayed by arguments from both transphobes and trans activists, which put a lot of doubts in my mind. To overcome this, I had to read a lot and build a sense of what gender meant for me. I read a few essays and by transphobes along with their critiques. I have long considered myself a feminist and thus the idea that I am portraying a reductive view of womanhood by transitioning held me back after reading these viewpoints. For overcoming this, it was most helpful to read Julia Serano's "Whipping Girl", in which she dissects femininity more finely and shows how including trans women leads actually instead to a more expansive view of womanhood. In fact, many cis women get excluded by transphobic definitions of gender. At this point, transphobic views seem just cartoonish to me in their depiction of gender, they have become funny.

My conception of gender has expended further from interacting with many more non-binary people over the past few years. Over the past year, I have become much more aware of how their expression challenges our gendered society. They have helped me internalize the reductive nature of gender itself and how ridiculous oppositional sexism can be. After considering it, I did reaffirm that I am just a binary woman (and not non-binary). Still, seeing non-binary people disregard gender expectations in personal expression has really inspired me to worry less about "passing" as a woman and consider more how I express myself.

becoming comfortable with feminine expression

Another issue has been in being more comfortable with more feminine expression. I was somewhat comfortable with it before, having shopped in women's section a couple of times, but never pushed to items perceived as unambiguously "for women" before, just wearing sweaters and coats that might pass as men's clothes. I had to get used to wearing women's clothes over a period of months. At first, wearing a set of women's jeans and a sweater in public gave me terrible anxiety. After a few outings, I got used to that and started trying out camisoles and jumpsuits. It took 9 months of this kind of habituation for me to confidently wear a dress outside. I'm still a little hesitant about wearing skirts.

I was really worried about people being biased against me for seeing me as a woman or even just for feminine expression. There were two answers to this problem. First, cis women deal with this bias all the time but don't transition to escape it.² Second, I can feel the bias but as far as I can tell it has not been career limiting so far³. It may be too subtle for me to notice, perhaps people around me aren't too biased, or perhaps my unique skills make me more immune to bias effects. I'm not sure, it's often hard to notice it at an individual level. In addition, the bias that I felt has been weirdly affirming instead, as they at least perceive me to be a woman.

acceptance has to come from within

I sometimes still do get looks for my clothes and a few odd comments, but it's not a big deal anymore. Similarly, I've learned to accept my body for what it is. I'm a tall blond woman with a (somewhat) masculine face. So what?

Acceptance of yourself has to come from within above all. It is easier if society accepts you too, but it is absolutely not the same. Some women look stunning, but are trapped by self-criticism. Some women are often misgendered, but don't care or even relish in it as they see it as a challenge on gender norms.

#trans