I lived a chunk of my life as a closeted trans woman, wishing that I could be trans so I could transition and blend in.

I transitioned, and became a loud and proud queer instead :P

Where do you come from, and where you wanna go this time?

Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Seriously though, first I found out I was interested in men (thought I was bi at first), that made me start seeing more lgbtq-related stuff. One day I found someone saying they were “questioning their gender” and I was like, “what is that supposed to mean?” So I looked it up.

A few weeks and an existential crisis later, I finally figured out I’m a woman.

Later on I realized the feelings I’ve always had for women weren’t really attraction. but envy and admiration. (And yes, I know those are not mutually exclusive.) So everyone assumed I was a man attracted to women, but in reality I’m a woman attracted to men. I did a full 180 and yet, I’m still straight. Ain’t that something

My dark and brooding backstory? Idk how deep to go into it, but I can give the cliff notes of what lead up to my transition. (It ended up longer than I expected, apologies)

All my life, I’ve had a deep admiration for women. I didn’t actually have a sexual awakening until I was like 22, so very late compared to most of my friends. I just felt this extreme envy of the opposite sex, and I was like “this must be what other people mean by attraction” lol. I spent most of my years feeling like I didn’t fit into my box. When my dude friends talked about girls, I just could not relate at all. I couldn’t get into the macho, masculine role it seemed like I was supposed to fill. I did musical theater in high school, and was exposed to the wider gamut of gender expression and sexuality through it, since in my experience theater communities tend to be pretty diverse in that way. I saw friends transition, but I didn’t think it was something that was actually possible for me.

When I became an adult, moved out and was living with friends, that’s when something inside me clicked, the hormones turned on, and I was overwhelmed by a new side to life I hadn’t previously been experiencing. I got on dating apps, went on many dates, had one or two short term girlfriends, but I found that my heart just was not in it. I liked girls, and still do, but again I felt like something about this dynamic I was inserting myself into wasn’t fitting.

During this period, I also spent a lot of time on grindr talking to various dudes and meeting up, having encounters, etc. Grindr is a wretched place but it felt like a very low-stakes environment to experiment with all these new feelings I was having. After a while, I found that I still couldn’t shake the feeling that people were expecting things of me I just couldn’t gel with. Like “if only I could have gay sex, but like, as a woman, you know?”

I found that I was so much happier with myself when I got rid of all my body hair. For some stupid reason though, I thought my friends would judge me if they saw me like that, so when we made water related plans I would get anxious and let it grow out until that event was over. I felt like I had to balance the times when I could be myself with the times I needed to fill the expectations of people in my life.

All of this time, I was DEEPLY unhappy. I had been unbelievably anxious and struggling with major depression for most of my life, and so around a few years ago I started to seek help and try to improve myself. I got therapy, learned I was experiencing OCD, got medicated, and suddenly didn’t feel insane all the time. I made new friends, filled my life with social events, and felt less alone. I tried new substances, accidentally had an extreme mushroom trip, and felt a strange, detached clarity I didn’t imagine was possible.

All in all, I started to live happier, and no longer caught up in these wells of depression from which I could not escape. Finally I was unburdened by baggage that had been weighing me down for so long, and with my newfound clarity of thought, I could start looking at my life and piecing things together. I’d had the DIY HRT resources open on my computer for a whole year, but now I had the mental fortitude and courage to do something about it, combined with a support structure I felt confident in. I made an appointment at Planned Parenthood and I never looked back.

Finally I feel like I “fit.” I can be myself all year, and not have to worry about if I’m not performing masculinity enough for the people around me. I just feel myself, and I feel free. I have never been happier.

My sister and I would play together all the time. We were each given toys that went with our assigned genders. She and I both enjoyed playing with all the toys.
“No, [sister’s name], you can’t play with Bionicles. Those are for boys.” - parents
“That’s weird.” - 6 year old me

“No, Kayday, you can’t play with dolls. Those are for girls.” - parents
“That’s weird.” - also me

“No, Kayday, you can’t dress up in girl’s clothes. That is wrong. It makes God S A D.” - parents
“Oh geez, don’t want to do that.” - me again

“Don’t walk like that. Don’t talk like that. Don’t stand like that. Don’t sit like that. Don’t cry like that. Don’t feel like that.” - everyone I knew
“Geez, this sucks. Oh well, better try harder and be a g̸̰̯̰͒̑ó̵͇̺͉̈́͋ó̷̜̓͝d̴̢̡͕̓͗ ̷̨̟̮̌b̸̖͙̅͆ó̴͍̾y̸̧̎̃.” - me

“Why are you standing with the girls? Go play with the boys.
Why are you pretending to be a mom when you play house? You’re supposed to be the dad.
Why are you growing your hair out? You won’t look masculine enough.” - everyone
“Gosh, it is exhausting being this man-person. I wonder when I’ll figure it out. All the other boys seem to be fine with these boy-rules.”

much later, adult me:

“Huh, so that’s what being transgender means. Interesting, wish I could do that. Oh well, guess I’ll go back to telling queer people they can be saved from hell if they just choose to deny their sinful urges and follow Jesus.”

much later, married adult me:

“Oh. OH. Fuck.”

“Hey, wife? I’m uh… trans.”
Her: “I love you.”

Story is still in progress.

I grew up in a rural area so I was completely unaware of queer people until around 11, when I discovered trans porn on a shock site. I liked it, but its presence on a shock site made me feel like I should be ashamed and I repressed myself for years.

As a child I was always more interested in girl toys than boy toys. I also never really got along well with boys, and girls were not interested in playing with me since they assumed I just wanted to mess with them. Due to that I didn’t really have many friends so my parents put me in boy scouts which did not help. I almost always just clung to my dad entire time instead of socializing like they wanted me to.

My parents also made me go to a catholic “faith formation” program once or twice a week for about 10 years which I absolutely hated. It was even sex separated to make it even worse. The last two years of that they were preparing us for confirmation so they wanted us to pick a saint’s name. I had a really hard time picking a guy’s name as I didn’t like any of them, but I noticed that I did like some girl’s names. I tried picking one of them but they really did not like that and they forced me to pick a guy’s name. I started questioning them and pushing back against their shit which they also really did not like. I eventually stopped showing up and I never ended up getting confirmed.

For some reason, I never questioned why I liked the girl’s names and disliked the guy’s. At the time I was very depressed and was dealing with my family who were upset at me for being an atheist, so I guess that’s why.

A year later I started antidepressants and for a few months I was actually happy until school started back up again. Suddenly I started to notice that I was envious of women for some reason and it was making me sad again. A month or two later I had a thought about being a girl that was very loud and stuck in my brain. I was very confused and afraid at first but I eventually started experimenting with my gender and about a month later I accepted myself as trans. I didn’t really get to come out on my own to my family, because my mom got suspicious of my femininity and figured out on her own that I’m trans. She kind of accepted me at first but it took her about two years to fully come around to it.

It has now been about 4 and a half years since I accepted myself. I’m also now 8 months on estrogen and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. :3

Father of a young man who used to be my daughter. All of us a good with it, my parent & family are a bit…old fashioned about it but they live on a different continent so…yeah.

The only thing that bothers me is my nephew & his wife are on thier second kid & every pipes up about the gender reveal party & how much they don’t care “as long as they are healthy”

It should be noted he went back to finish US High School & dear madre & sister in law made my son wear dresses when he clearly did not want to…good times.

He’s back here, in school, living wirh his brother & recently took a mentoring course with a tattoo shop…I’m happy to say he put his first 2 tats on a human that just happen to be me :)

Keep it up kids, we love you!

I always knew I was different, but I was never allowed to be after a certain point. As a kid, I didn’t really care if something was “girly”, and my family held onto the thought it was something I was going to grow out of. I never did.

As I grew older, it became more “No, you can’t like this, you can’t look like this, stop thinking about that”. All I really had was my dad, who was in a different state, and I really felt like I couldn’t get away to him, away from the ones who were making me feel so awful.

Just before my teens, my mom got with a transphobic, homophobic abusive piece of shit. They were together for years, and nothing I did was right. I had his idea of masculinity physically beaten into me, with her dragging me back every time I tried to get away, because I didn’t want to lose her.

That led to years of depression, and repression. Of crafting this person who wasn’t me, just to fit in with this ideal that wasn’t ever mine. My dad made the offer to become my full time parent after things got so bad it all just came bursting out.

After that, things did get a bit better. I got to explore my sexuality, got involved with theatre, started feeling like I was getting to know myself, but I kept pushing away the rest. The side of me that was screaming so loudly that the reason things felt so good was because they were right.

It took another 20 years of dancing around the subject with myself to finally sit down and have a talk with someone about things. It opened the floodgates, everything felt so terrifyingly comfortable. That was a little over 2 years ago. Now, while I would say I’m far from done, I’m getting better. I feel like I still find new things that have been there all this time, and I’ve really built up the confidence to go out into the world more as myself. I feel like I’ve started figuring out what I’ve wanted all these years.

My story? Which one? lol

Okay, I’m gonna try to keep this somewhat short. Before we begin, I’d like to note that I’m a 90’s bitch. Okay, on to the story.

So when I was a little kid, maybe around 5, my grandparents were babysitting me at their house. My grandpa was on the couch watching TV, my grandma was doing something in the kitchen, and I was sitting at the table behind them having a snack. Whatever was on TV, I don’t remember, but I do remember something.

There was some news segment that came on, and I think it must have been about a trans woman having had bottom surgery. My grandma was shocked and appalled, exclaiming stuff like “Now why would anyone do that?! Chop his penis off like that?!” And my grandpa was also appalled, and I think he loudly mumbled some transphobic stuff in disgust. Well, I sat there at the table behind them thinking stuff like “Wow. I completely understand wanting that. But I guess that’s not okay, so I won’t say anything.”

The End. lol. I have to stop there or it’ll get dark.

So yeah, bottom surgery has been on my mind for quite a while. I’ve got more stories, but I think this is good for now.

When I was young I was very rebellious and did not follow gender stereotypes, I had long hair and I dyed the ends bright red. People (my teachers) didn’t really like that and they often would tell me I must be a girl because boys don’t do stuff like that. I find that kind of funny because I did a lot of terrible things that according to their sexist logic girls wouldn’t do (like severing my chromebook from their enterprise enrollment (twice with two separate Chromebooks) so I could do what I wanted). Few years later I was diagnosed with an androgen deficiency and I would need to take testosterone or wouldn’t continue developing properly. I didn’t actually take it both because it made me feel sick and also because all the shit my teachers were saying made younger me think I was going on E and it would make me a girl. So I just didn’t take it, and still haven’t, that’s future Riley’s problem.

Years later in 2021 towards the end I learned about Agender and Isogender and those really resonated with me so I started using those but I also never really stopped identifying with male and still very often use he/him pronouns.

What story?

i’m a drifter. just blew into town. heard this place was pretty tough.