So, uh, hi. I’ve never posted here before, and I’m not entirely sure how I wound up here to begin with, but, well, details. I’m here for, well, maybe some advice but also to share some positive news when so much is going on in the US and UK.
On some level, I’ve known I was trans since, god, probably 2006…but for various reasons I never really moved forward with things, instead trying on various personas and occasionally crashing into severe alcoholism, then basically spending 2017-early/mid 2024 as a miserable urban hermit, just autopiloting to and from work. At that point, something in Baldur’s Gate 3 of all things tripped something in my head, the drive to Do Better. This led to taking better care of myself, vitamins, better antidepressants, some lion’s mane, and…well, it wiped out the fog that had been in my head for so many years. And without that fog, and refusing to drink again, I had to eventually do something about the black hole of dysphoria.
The first people I came out to were my three older sisters, on US election day. Yes, I know, I’m a comedy genius. But, you know what? Fuck US politics, I’m not letting some shits in Florida and Texas scare me into hiding another 15-20 years, and I live five minutes away from the state with the strongest LGBTQ protections in the country, in case things get dumb and shitty.
Since then, I’ve…actually a friend made a list, one second. “you went from very nervously mumbling that you thought you were maybe kind of trans to me to, what? Shaking off the post-election doom and gloom? Doing a bit of DIY HRT and confirming, 100%, this is what you want? Coming out to basically everyone you know? Starting therapy and getting good things out of it? Reconnecting with lots of friends you’d kind of ignored while you were depressed and dysphoric? Meeting up with IRL and online support groups? Finding an HRT (or GAHT, I guess) specialist, then starting on HRT for real? All in about 30 days?”
And even better, nearly everyone I’ve told has been nice at worst and incredibly supportive at best. My boss outright laughed at someone trying to out me, my co-workers have said how much more alive I look and seem, and I actually, gasp, have friends now! Socializing and talking to people is fun! I’m the closest I’ve been to two of my siblings in…ever, probably. I just can’t believe how much having the right hormone for my brain has helped me in every way. And whatever challenges lie ahead, actually being ALIVE for the first time is pretty damn amazing, and makes things a lot more manageable!
Oh, and I was texting back and forth with said siblings, and signed off with a “love ya!” at the end. Both of them were stunned: apparently I’ve NEVER told either one I love them before. Ever. Yeah, this is the real me. Any lingering doubts I had vanished that moment.
I’ll stick a question on here. One of the people I’ve been hoping to bring to…well, maybe not happy, but at least accepting, is my mom. Thanks to shitty right wing TV, she seems to be hung up on all of this being a sex or fetish thing and not much else. Assuming she’s willing, would something like the page on biochemical dysphoria (that’s the one that’s closest to my personal experience) from the Gender Dysphoria Bible be a decent thing to get her to read?
Oh yeah, the image. It’s just a couple of pins I stuck on my vest at work. They’re so cute that even the couple of chud-types at my job love them, though they probably have no clue what the colors mean.
Thank you! I’m kind of amazed people have managed to put up with my endless questions and random outbursts of The Nerves and what even are emotions this is hard. No, seriously, my brother in law (who’s a cop from Texas, go figure) has been incredibly nice and wound up talking about how he had to carry me around the USS Lexington when I was, like, eight, and oh, oh dear, here come a few years of tears.
I’m still stunned that I’ve never, ever told my sisters that I love them before yesterday. I guess I’m not completely shocked, because my parents have always been…frigid? emotionless? and that tends to color how you interact with other people, especially close relatives. But still, damn.