Every edition, I repeat a mantra: everyone is their own person; you are all valid; decide your identity for yourself. These words are true, but they are born of experience, lived out by myself and shared by others. To explain what I mean when I say what I do, I’d like to talk about my experiences growing up.
I was too afraid for too long of what my identity might mean. I feared the effects of hormones if I “got it wrong”, and stressed about how people would treat me. I shelved my worries by foolishly waiting for when a doctor would diagnose me as trans or not.
In high school, when I told people I was bi, I was pressured to change nothing, do nothing new, be “normal” - in short, recloset and deny my identity mattered. I felt obliged to pick up terms like "MtF" that suited others fine but me not at all. I bore the pressure of stereotypes built of me, for me, by people with no experience in my shoes.
Imagine life fifty years ago. In most societies, LGBT+ people had no representation or media presence. You’d lack the words for your experience, or anyone to say them to, but you'd still be you, experiencing your identity. You’d still be able to find a way - through creating your own terms, through art, your fashion, your relationships, your body - to demonstrate your identity.
I want people to find themselves, and their preferred presentation of their own identity. Does your identity fit you, or do aspects feel external, artificial, different? Of course, this isn't carte blanche to disrespect or erase others. I don’t stop using words like LGBT+ I find clunky when referring to others who identify by those terms. I am going to try and find a word that describes my "dysphoria" better than dysphoria.
Nowadays, I tend towards seeing myself as a woman whose puberty happened to give me more hair, longer legs, and a deeper voice than most other girls. I’m working on transition, but I’m learning to love myself in the meantime. I am mostly effeminate, with a definite masculine streak. I am quite dysphoric, but that comes and goes, and sometimes, I’m more comfortable and happy in my gender than not. I am a trans woman, in my own way. I do what I want to do, not what is prescribed for me.
All of these characteristics vary in every person. There are trans people with and without dysphoria. There are people attracted equally to all genders, and attracted differently to different genders. Some use the most “modern” terms for themselves, and some are still content with “outdated” terminology. Some want to do everything under the sun to display their identity or to change, and those who want nothing to change when they come out. Message: That’s all all ok. So long as your identity is what you want, you aren’t hurting anyone in how you live, and you feel like you.
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