I went to my first laser hair removal appointment at the beginning of January 2022. I started feeling like I could pass April 2021. I noticed significant breast growth August 2020. I started HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) sometime around April 2020. I realized I was really trans, when my egg cracked, July 2019.
There certainly were signs that I was trans before 2019. I hated my prematurely receding hairline at 16. My straggle of facial hair bothered me. I hated my shoulders and embraced the natural curve I had at my waist.
I remember wearing wigs and dresses in videos for my high school classes, as a joke of course. A year before I realized I was a woman, I was wearing makeup regularly, mostly eyeshadows and highlighters.
I hate the phrase “born this way.” I don’t particularly subscribe to the notion, because what if I wasn’t? If I weren’t “born this way,” would I be any less deserving of my right to transition? Clearly, however, there are signs that some precursors began my path to where I am now. Or were there?
Am I merely looking back on these occasions and looking for the answer from the future? It feels too pretty to find these events of my past to connect perfectly with who I am now. It feels too medicalized, too science-y to adequately describe.
I don’t particularly think human emotions can adequately be explained by science, nor will they ever be. I don’t want that explanation.
I don’t find these explanations to be of any use. I am the living proof. My transition is, and should be, proof enough for people to accept that I am who I am. So what if it was nurture that caused me to become a woman? I find no solace in that answer than I do in being born like this. I’m a woman because I said I’m a woman.
