A few of my friends (Brooke, Mia, Ava) have written about their experiences of gender lately. I think I have a pretty unique take on this whole gender situation; this is a collection of interrelated thoughts that folks might find interesting but isn't meant to be comprehensive.
"gender identity"
A common narrative for transfeminine folks goes something like this: I am, or want to be, [something closer to] a woman, therefore I will take certain concrete steps to transition (name, clothes, HRT, whatever).
That does not match my experience at all!
I have known something was up with my gender, but not exactly what, for a long time (9 years at time of writing). But, I didn't have the means to do anything about it for a while. I did not reflect on this at length. I just started doing stuff that felt like it might help my gender dysphoria, at the time when it felt necessary.
Changing my name and pronouns helped (at different times), HRT helped, clothes didn't help much but they can be fun to play with, and so on. I'm growing out of this mindset; if I kept doing this forever, I'd probably never get bottom surgery.
Practically speaking, I don't have an independently grounded sense of gender identity. I know I like being called "she," my brain works way better on estrogen than it ever did without (this has easily been the most important piece for me), and HRT's physical effects have made me pretty happy thus far. These are pretty normal things for women in our society, even if they manifest a little differently, so I'm comfortable calling myself, and being, a woman.
There was a very brief time period early in transition in which I tried on a bunch of microlabels to describe my experience of gender, but none of them really fit, and certainly none of them were helpful in understanding myself.
doing everything backwards
Not that you'd be able to tell from the way I normally speak, but I started doing voice work (not consistently, but I did start) all the way back in summer of 2017. I changed my legal name in late 2020, started HRT in 2021, and only started consistently describing myself as a woman in 2022. (This had some super weird implications — for example, I went by a new name at work before "coming out" at all!)
My sense of style has developed a bit but I don't often feel the need to intentionally present feminine — I often dress masc, I've never worn makeup, etc.
The theme here is, these didn't really feel like decisions I made — just things I had to do to keep going. Anything I did felt like the smallest possible step to alleviate frankly debilitating gender dysphoria at the time. Transition hasn't felt like a cohesive thing for me (maybe a common experience, but in a much different way for me), and wasn't something I made a decision about at all. It's only recently that I've started thinking about transition as a process I can take deliberate steps to advance in.
actually it's like, fine
Part of the reason I did what felt like the bare minimum at every step was because I didn't know what other folks' reactions would be. At this point I realize that cis folks are often oblivious to what you are doing unless you explicitly tell them, you don't have to explicitly tell them, and most folks don't care anyway.
This is a pretty common experience, but this is all to say, if you want to change your name or start HRT, that doesn't mean folks will know you're transgender. They only know what you tell them and will not often assume anything else. (Your mileage may vary. I have a pretty gender-neutral name and didn't change my presentation much when I started HRT.)
You also shouldn't feel pressure to conform to the trans community's ideal of what a trans person should be or do. I sure haven't, and it's worked pretty well.
being ~visible~
"Passing" is not my goal (to the extent that I have goals at all). I recognize the usefulness of the term for some folks, especially those with certain safety concerns.
"Visibility" isn't really my goal either. The term has a lot of weird connotations; often folks talk about "visibility" as something we do to garner sympathy from cis people, and I'm not really about that. Lily Alexandre's Trans Day of Vanishing is an interesting exploration of similar ideas, although I certainly don't agree with her about everything.
All that said, I have found that not actively trying to pass has been good for me — other trans folks seem to be more comfortable around me (and will sometimes reveal that they are trans when I wouldn't have otherwise known, which has made me significantly more comfortable in some spaces — you know who you are, thank you!). And I am not pressured to dress in a way that cis folks will unambiguously read feminine, which feels freeing!
There is of course something to be said for representation too — I would like to think the occasional trans person who is just finding their footing will see one possibility of their own future in my path. I don't act with this in mind, it just flows naturally from "passing" not being a goal.
anyway
There's not really a conclusion here, but if you want to talk more about this stuff, email me.
I will probably edit this post as I think of more things.