Thank you for another highly impactful piece. Since I woke up last week, I've looked through my past to see indications of the incongruity that led me to last week. Like you, I wanted to play games using female avatars, but I usually felt guilty about doing so. I didn't want to intrude into "female space." I knew a lot of the female avatars had male humans behind them, some of whom were intruding for purposes that were actually intrusive, and I didn't want to be mistaken for one of THEM. More importantly, I didn't want to be one of THEM.
Writing has always been a way for me to live vicariously. When I start writing a new story, my impulse is always to write my protagonist as a woman. I've hardly shared any of them with anyone, though. I remember a social media account years ago about "men writing women." Most of the submissions were so over the top, I couldn't believe anyone would actually publish or post something like that. But I shied away from sharing my work because I "was" a man writing women. I feared that my perspective would be ridiculed, which was a huge barrier because I needed to be accepted by other women.*
I guess my writing has always been an important part of my narrative identity. Stories really do define humanity, from the simplest one-line jokes to the profound examination of the human condition from authors such as Terry Pratchett. (Have you read Monstrous Regiment? At the time I had no idea why I cried so hard at the end.) It lifts my heart that I can finally write my own story the way I've always needed to write it. It's not a vicarious adventure anymore!
*It still feels surreal when I say *other* women. I'm still anxious about being a *real* woman, afraid of being mistrusted by those who have always lived as women. But my fears are gradually falling away. I had dinner with some friends on Saturday, who accepted my new name, complimented me on my somewhat awkward attempt at eye makeup, then passed the evening as if this is how it had always been.
I'm glad! And I have read Pratchett's entire ouvre many times; MR was a delightful book, but I was always such a sucker for the Vimes books, and especially Cheery and the Dwarven trans revolution. That's and Tiffany, of course.
How could I forget Thud! It's such a human failing to feel "I denied it to them because I couldn't have it." I have to re-read that one now. The first times I read it, I felt for Cheery in her need to belong while being her authentic self, but it's going to mean much more now.
The Vimes series was my favorite, but it so narrowly edged out Granny. "People as things" has long been at the heart of my philosophy. (Aside, for others reading this, Granny Weatherwax stated with her characteristic absolute certainty that the root of all evil was treating people as things.)
Oh my Goddess, Violet!! I read your words, and I see myself in what you've written. You've expressed exactly how I've been coping and what I've been feeling!
You and I are of an age (I'm 56 tomorrow). So when I tell you that the majority of my trans-femme sisters are in an online Discord community (Trans Spotting) you will understand that the current technology has made finding community so much easier than it would have been if we had embraced our femininity at any earlier age. I have IRL women in my life who have also embraced me as I am (including my adult daughters) and for that I feel very fortunate!
I also adored Final Fantasy Tactics as a kid—I love Agrias to this day, but shout out to Reis for being a dragon and keeping her dragon breath even after she turns back into a human. I made a point of levelling Reis a lot so I could use her alongside Agrias and kick butt.
But to the main point of the article: 100% all of this. I went through the standard narrative identity reconstruction, raiding my childhood memories for evidence of my womanhood. But I feel it's a bit odd in my case—I had *essentially* two narrative identities, an identity of myself as a woman formed at 17, and an egg shell of a safe male-passing identity that protected that self-understanding, and it was the egg that had to be convinced to be a woman in order to begin transition at 31. After that, the wound between my two identities healed over and there was just one narrative.
I wasn't plural, but I think I was on my way there. I know plural trans people and for some of them transition was a matter of a fully-formed female head mate asking the egg head mate to step aside and let them take control.
I wish I'd grown up in a world and a time where these narrative gymnastics hadn't been necessary, where I'd just gone to my parents after the first time I pulled on a bra at 13 and said "I need puberty blockers yesterday". But I got here. I'm incredibly happy. The dead-eyed grimacing teenager in my very similar high school photos is gone.
We definitely do not have a spreadsheet entitled, "There were no signs," and we definitely do not update it every time we remember something else that fits the narrative.
Aug 17, 2023·edited Aug 17, 2023Liked by Doc Impossible
Thank you so much for writing this. Since I figured out I'm trans, I've constantly been looking for 'signs' that I might have missed. When I think about it, I believe the reason I did it is because I was (and still am) terrified that if I didn't have them, I might not really be trans. This piece made me think more deeply, and I realize that it's also because many transmasculine people are dismissed as "girls who want attention", and I really didn't want to fall under that, so I scoured my memories to find a trace of the person I've become, so if anyone questioned me, I could go, "Ha! You fool, I had Gender Experiences™ at a young age! You can't dismiss me like that!" I also do think I've made up a few of the gender memories in my head and forced myself to believe them to prove to myself that I am, in fact, trans. I see now, much more clearly now that I've read this, that even if I didn't have those Gender Experiences™ at a young age, I'm still trans. I'm feeling so relieved right now that I don't have to have had those experiences/moments. Thank you so, so much.
I do always feel a little alienated when there are so many people of a similar relationship with gender who all have similar experiences to each other, and I don't. I think it was also my way of trying to fit in.
Aug 14, 2023·edited Aug 14, 2023Liked by Doc Impossible
The more I read and talk to trans folks, the more I realize how much my own story differs from so many other trans women I know.
I always knew.
I knew deep down from when I was a small child, and the process of that knowledge surfacing was so long and gradual that I didn't really notice. I can point to a specific moment - September 20, 2020, on a specific bit of sidewalk in northwest Seattle - as the moment I knew I *had* to transition, but I knew I was trans long before that.
Video games are a common theme, and yes, I mostly played female characters when I could. Not always, but most of the time. Morrowind was the first game where I remember being able to choose my own appearance. I downloaded all kinds of mods, and I made this small, beautiful Breton woman with long braided hair as my character. She didn't look much like me, but she did look pretty great. I remember thinking the typical thing at the time - if I'm gonna spend 100 hours with this character, I want to like the way she looks. But I also remember thinking, on a conscious level, that I wanted to *be* her, if only in the game world. I chose a female character because I wanted to experience the world as a woman. Morrowind came out in 1999.
A few years later I was in a bookstore, and I pulled a copy of Chick for a Day off the shelf. It was an anthology of writing by men imagining what it would be like to be a woman. I felt this zing of lightning through my body like, YES, I can't imagine anything more amazing than being transformed into a woman. I didn't buy the book, because what if somebody *saw*, and it probably wasn't even all that insightful, but I still remember that moment like it was yesterday.
I read stories about trans women, even had friends who transitioned, and every time I thought, that could be me. I could imagine myself getting HRT and surgery and living as a woman, and I felt this comfortable longing that in another life, with a different set of choices, that could be me. I was in that state for maybe twenty years.
I thought it was a choice I could make, but I didn't have to. Except I absolutely had to.
That moment on September 20, 2020 was when I finally let go of all the reasons not to transition, because trying to be a man was killing me. Part of me wishes I'd figured myself out years before, but I understand that that's not how these things work. My path to that moment was long and winding and weird, but it was the only way to get there.
For me it was Phantasy Star and Phantasy Star II (and later Shining Force II, which is similar to FF tactics, but the PS-series is what endures for me), where I found female protagonists to identify with.
Personally, I really enjoyed revisiting my personal narrative, in the light of a newfound strong suspicion, that maybe I was trans.
And I really enjoyed reading this essay too! Thank you so much for writing this, and your other thoughtful pieces. They really help!
Thank you for another highly impactful piece. Since I woke up last week, I've looked through my past to see indications of the incongruity that led me to last week. Like you, I wanted to play games using female avatars, but I usually felt guilty about doing so. I didn't want to intrude into "female space." I knew a lot of the female avatars had male humans behind them, some of whom were intruding for purposes that were actually intrusive, and I didn't want to be mistaken for one of THEM. More importantly, I didn't want to be one of THEM.
Writing has always been a way for me to live vicariously. When I start writing a new story, my impulse is always to write my protagonist as a woman. I've hardly shared any of them with anyone, though. I remember a social media account years ago about "men writing women." Most of the submissions were so over the top, I couldn't believe anyone would actually publish or post something like that. But I shied away from sharing my work because I "was" a man writing women. I feared that my perspective would be ridiculed, which was a huge barrier because I needed to be accepted by other women.*
I guess my writing has always been an important part of my narrative identity. Stories really do define humanity, from the simplest one-line jokes to the profound examination of the human condition from authors such as Terry Pratchett. (Have you read Monstrous Regiment? At the time I had no idea why I cried so hard at the end.) It lifts my heart that I can finally write my own story the way I've always needed to write it. It's not a vicarious adventure anymore!
*It still feels surreal when I say *other* women. I'm still anxious about being a *real* woman, afraid of being mistrusted by those who have always lived as women. But my fears are gradually falling away. I had dinner with some friends on Saturday, who accepted my new name, complimented me on my somewhat awkward attempt at eye makeup, then passed the evening as if this is how it had always been.
I'm glad! And I have read Pratchett's entire ouvre many times; MR was a delightful book, but I was always such a sucker for the Vimes books, and especially Cheery and the Dwarven trans revolution. That's and Tiffany, of course.
How could I forget Thud! It's such a human failing to feel "I denied it to them because I couldn't have it." I have to re-read that one now. The first times I read it, I felt for Cheery in her need to belong while being her authentic self, but it's going to mean much more now.
The Vimes series was my favorite, but it so narrowly edged out Granny. "People as things" has long been at the heart of my philosophy. (Aside, for others reading this, Granny Weatherwax stated with her characteristic absolute certainty that the root of all evil was treating people as things.)
Oh my Goddess, Violet!! I read your words, and I see myself in what you've written. You've expressed exactly how I've been coping and what I've been feeling!
One thing that has been almost overwhelming, in a good way, is how quickly I've found sisters. Our shared experience really binds us.
(In an entirely appropriate, safe-for-work sense, of course.)
You and I are of an age (I'm 56 tomorrow). So when I tell you that the majority of my trans-femme sisters are in an online Discord community (Trans Spotting) you will understand that the current technology has made finding community so much easier than it would have been if we had embraced our femininity at any earlier age. I have IRL women in my life who have also embraced me as I am (including my adult daughters) and for that I feel very fortunate!
I also adored Final Fantasy Tactics as a kid—I love Agrias to this day, but shout out to Reis for being a dragon and keeping her dragon breath even after she turns back into a human. I made a point of levelling Reis a lot so I could use her alongside Agrias and kick butt.
But to the main point of the article: 100% all of this. I went through the standard narrative identity reconstruction, raiding my childhood memories for evidence of my womanhood. But I feel it's a bit odd in my case—I had *essentially* two narrative identities, an identity of myself as a woman formed at 17, and an egg shell of a safe male-passing identity that protected that self-understanding, and it was the egg that had to be convinced to be a woman in order to begin transition at 31. After that, the wound between my two identities healed over and there was just one narrative.
I wasn't plural, but I think I was on my way there. I know plural trans people and for some of them transition was a matter of a fully-formed female head mate asking the egg head mate to step aside and let them take control.
I wish I'd grown up in a world and a time where these narrative gymnastics hadn't been necessary, where I'd just gone to my parents after the first time I pulled on a bra at 13 and said "I need puberty blockers yesterday". But I got here. I'm incredibly happy. The dead-eyed grimacing teenager in my very similar high school photos is gone.
We definitely do not have a spreadsheet entitled, "There were no signs," and we definitely do not update it every time we remember something else that fits the narrative.
🤭
Certainly not! Nor Google doc with a list twice the length of the screen, how unthinkable!
Thank you so much for writing this. Since I figured out I'm trans, I've constantly been looking for 'signs' that I might have missed. When I think about it, I believe the reason I did it is because I was (and still am) terrified that if I didn't have them, I might not really be trans. This piece made me think more deeply, and I realize that it's also because many transmasculine people are dismissed as "girls who want attention", and I really didn't want to fall under that, so I scoured my memories to find a trace of the person I've become, so if anyone questioned me, I could go, "Ha! You fool, I had Gender Experiences™ at a young age! You can't dismiss me like that!" I also do think I've made up a few of the gender memories in my head and forced myself to believe them to prove to myself that I am, in fact, trans. I see now, much more clearly now that I've read this, that even if I didn't have those Gender Experiences™ at a young age, I'm still trans. I'm feeling so relieved right now that I don't have to have had those experiences/moments. Thank you so, so much.
I do always feel a little alienated when there are so many people of a similar relationship with gender who all have similar experiences to each other, and I don't. I think it was also my way of trying to fit in.
I'm really glad that this gave you some comfort! That sort of thing was my hope, in writing it.
Thank you for putting into words what this later in life trans woman has been unable to articulate. 💜
The more I read and talk to trans folks, the more I realize how much my own story differs from so many other trans women I know.
I always knew.
I knew deep down from when I was a small child, and the process of that knowledge surfacing was so long and gradual that I didn't really notice. I can point to a specific moment - September 20, 2020, on a specific bit of sidewalk in northwest Seattle - as the moment I knew I *had* to transition, but I knew I was trans long before that.
Video games are a common theme, and yes, I mostly played female characters when I could. Not always, but most of the time. Morrowind was the first game where I remember being able to choose my own appearance. I downloaded all kinds of mods, and I made this small, beautiful Breton woman with long braided hair as my character. She didn't look much like me, but she did look pretty great. I remember thinking the typical thing at the time - if I'm gonna spend 100 hours with this character, I want to like the way she looks. But I also remember thinking, on a conscious level, that I wanted to *be* her, if only in the game world. I chose a female character because I wanted to experience the world as a woman. Morrowind came out in 1999.
A few years later I was in a bookstore, and I pulled a copy of Chick for a Day off the shelf. It was an anthology of writing by men imagining what it would be like to be a woman. I felt this zing of lightning through my body like, YES, I can't imagine anything more amazing than being transformed into a woman. I didn't buy the book, because what if somebody *saw*, and it probably wasn't even all that insightful, but I still remember that moment like it was yesterday.
I read stories about trans women, even had friends who transitioned, and every time I thought, that could be me. I could imagine myself getting HRT and surgery and living as a woman, and I felt this comfortable longing that in another life, with a different set of choices, that could be me. I was in that state for maybe twenty years.
I thought it was a choice I could make, but I didn't have to. Except I absolutely had to.
That moment on September 20, 2020 was when I finally let go of all the reasons not to transition, because trying to be a man was killing me. Part of me wishes I'd figured myself out years before, but I understand that that's not how these things work. My path to that moment was long and winding and weird, but it was the only way to get there.
For me it was Phantasy Star and Phantasy Star II (and later Shining Force II, which is similar to FF tactics, but the PS-series is what endures for me), where I found female protagonists to identify with.
Personally, I really enjoyed revisiting my personal narrative, in the light of a newfound strong suspicion, that maybe I was trans.
And I really enjoyed reading this essay too! Thank you so much for writing this, and your other thoughtful pieces. They really help!
This post came at a very opportune moment for me.
Reading your blog cracked my egg a few months ago, and I can't thank you enough.
I'm 34, and always knew I was different, but stories like yours have helped me understand the reality and validity of my trans identity.
I'm so glad! Congratulations!