When you go years as a very small child thinking you simply are a girl—in a “why do I have to use a different bathroom from the other girls” way—and you the rude awakening that you’re different, it’s just such a . . . massive shock. I never really got over it, I guess.
No one prepares you for that or helps you understand it. The thing that made it feel real was how both boys and girls began treating me as more and more different as we hit ages 8+. As kind of both but kind of neither.
This kind of thing is a big reason why I see “transsexual” as my lifelong, inborn identity. Being able to look at my always complicated, non-dualistic experience of gender and realize “these are transsexual experiences, I had unmet transsexual needs” has helped me A LOT
I remember reading a trans girl on LiveJournal who talked about being out in high school, and the way she said “being transsexual really hurts.” That made me feel so suddenly part of a bigger world, so able to finally think clearly and feel deeply about who I was.
I had my transsexual girl way of talking and standing and walking and feeling and crying and laughing and everybody saw it from day one. And now I can look back and acknowledge that, say “this is a real kind of person, I actually existed” and give it a NAME
The day I started being able to do this was the day I began to feel like a future was possible for me
Yes. Being transsexual really hurts.
Reading @taliabhatt.itch.io’s writing and having convos with her earlier this year about epistemicide and the sheer horror of epistemic violence really helped me verbalize just how deep a part of our oppression this is, this culture of gaslighting and crazymaking about your own existence.