I should have put it together earlier or seen that something else was possible for me years ago, but I’ve been so repressed due to the time and place I grew up in. I can trace back to my youth times where I enjoyed dressing in femme clothes in private and was close friends with girls as a young child.

Those feelings would come and go over the years and I convinced myself that I was just a man who was less masc than a lot of guys and tried to just live with my head down. I have spent much of my time with my head elsewhere, in books, in games, in TV, inside drawings or music. I had grown up in an environment where anything slightly in that direction was “gay” and being gay was basically the worst thing you could be. I still liked girls so I thought I was just a little funny somehow and it wasn’t worth thinking about for fear of anything else. 

I spent the next couple decades living a relatively “normal” life, going to uni, partying a lot,  developing a career (somehow) even having a couple long term relationships which ultimately flamed out due to my own unhappiness. There were some good moments in those years but if there was any recurring theme, I was dissatisfied with myself and felt inadequate, like something was always missing.

It wasn’t until a couple years pre-covid in my mid 30s that I started to experiment with presenting myself differently in public(still cis though no big deal), wearing makeup and slightly more femme clothes, painting nails etc. At this point I had only existed as a cishet dude and was just starting to consider other possibilities figuring…I didn’t know what I was. I still didn’t know anyone who was trans and didn’t understand that that was something that could apply to me… I was just giving myself some room to express myself. I started to feel actually kind of good about where I was at and finally started to fix some things about myself, like exercising and going to a doctor for the first time in forever. Unfortunately that wouldn’t last very long.

Covid hit like a ton of bricks and sent me into a hole of isolation, depression and drinking…I’ve thankfully been able to remain employed at a good job but i’ve spent the last few years doing a lot of dissociating and not caring for myself well. 

I’m on the other side of that now...but after some damage was done. I’m making better efforts to be healthy again but it’s hard. I still drink frequently. I spent a lot of my life as a twinkish looking person with fun hair and clothes, attempts to embrace my masculinity to a greater degree over the years have left me feeling like I’m wearing a mask that doesn’t feel right, or like I can’t live up to it in some way. Now navigating what aging as a man is doing to me, having to see that in the mirror is making me hate myself.

Things have not been great so I’m being medicated for depression now. I’ve been going to therapy (first time for everything) and it didn’t take too long after that began for me to finally admit that this internal conflict is meaningful and isn’t something to be ignored. I cried my eyes out on my way to therapy after looking at old pictures of myself in makeup. I outed myself as trans to my therapist that day. 

I feel like if I transition now I’ll be kind of busted looking, and it’ll be a shock to people who have known me for years but I don’t think I’ll be happy with myself if I don’t try. I’m scared and at the same time I feel foolish and like I was robbed of a bunch of years and I wish things could have been different. So… here I am. 

Still not totally sure what I am, NB/femme feels like the right direction. I had my first laser appointment today...shit hurts. I think I want to do HRT but it might take me some time to access that. I still will have a lot to work on otherwise like voice and behaviour things…and some of that maybe I don’t want to change. Maybe I will be forever clockable and somewhere in between. I worry about being accepted as someone who’s transfem and still attracted to women, although maybe I could be pan, idk how things will feel later. At this point I guess I feel that’s a better place for me to be than where I’ve been at, even if it seems weird to other people. 

If there’s anything good for y’all to take out of this… for all of you that know who you are: that’s a good thing whatever you decide. Don’t be me and ignore what’s inside of you. Thank you for reading and for being here.