Earliest Transgender Memories, pt. 3 + On Hormones, pt. 8

I was trying to remember yesterday how old I was when I first typed “I want to be a girl” on the internet. I would put it around ten or so, give or take a year or two. This would’ve been in the late 90s or early 2000s.

Back then, I don’t remember ever reading the word “transgender.” I actually don’t remember reading that word until sometime this decade. I came across loads of other words, though. Cross-dresser. Shemale. Tranny. Transsexual. At least MtF is still around and relevant, though I remember seeing M2F more back then. Oh, how language has evolved.

I never learned about the distinction between gender and sex(uality) until my freshman year of college, circa 2008, when I had an anthropology teacher who was super interested in transgender studies (so many strange coincidences in my life). I remember her explaining clearly then that gender is what you identify as, regardless of birth or genitalia. Then she showed us a bunch of pictures of some very attractive models, telling us that some were transwomen and some were natal (08/19/2019 edit: cis) women. She had a good time, everyone laughed, some redneck dudebros made lewd comments.

Anyway, that was a completely unrelated aside. Back then, the “transgender issue” was not nearly as well-studied or understood. I remember seeing a cartoon picture of a duck looking down its shorts, with the symbols for male and female in a thought bubble above its head, along with a question mark. I remember a ton of heavily-fetishized porn. I remember coming across Susan’s Place in its early days, and I remember coming across a site with a banner at the top that said “So…you want to be a girl?”. It was this last one that stuck with me the most.

This website was all about transitioning, what it meant, and how it was done. I read about early SRS among other things, but most of all, I read about HRT. I read about the possibility of taking estrogen, even though my sex was not female. And everything I read made sense.

It was something I wanted, desperately, but also something which I had to keep secret above all else. I kept it secret through middle school, as puberty started to hit in its weird way and I started to develop breasts and have lesbian dreams. I knew that the longer I waited, the less it would affect me, but I kept it secret nonetheless.

“There’s always the future, and I’m young yet.”

I kept it secret in high school, when those same dreams intensified, and when…other things started to happen that I can’t write about here.

“There’s always the future, and I’m young yet.”

I kept it secret in college, even when I felt a true liberation in going out with my friends to a showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show, dressed in (terribly tacky) drag I bought at a thrift store.

“There’s always the future, and I’m young yet.”

Wait, how old am I? 23? I still have a little time. It won’t be as good as it could’ve been, but I still have time. So I moved across the country, windows shopped women’s clothes online, and deeply considered illegally purchasing hormones online. AND YET, even here, even now…

“There’s always the future, and I’m young yet.”

I could go on, but it’s getting a little repetitive. What’s the point here?

Even before puberty, I knew I wanted to take estrogen, and I knew the importance of age in how it would affect me. I also knew I would never, ever be allowed to seek such treatment, so I repressed the urges as best I could. So well, in fact, that I now find myself sitting here, all of 28 years old, dumbfounded at how quickly that time evaporated from me.

And so, so sad that I am only now doing something about anything.