Six Months Into Estrogen, I Think I Want to Be A Girl

There's always been something with my looks.

 I think it started as a kid. I had severe asthma and buck teeth. My parents liked to have my hair cut very short, and I only started being able to push back on that a few years ago. Even as a little kid, without much in the way of worldly understanding, I knew that I hated how I looked. I knew I was traditionally less appealing than others around me.

And then when I was getting around to fixing that stuff, puberty stopped and I gained a bunch of weight.

It's not some mind blowing thing to drop in like, "woah, everyone, check it out! I'm a queer person who's had a complex about their looks!"

It is a little bit of a different story when I've been injecting estradiol weekly since early February.

I think I have really vain and unrealistic standards of gendered beauty, but solely for myself. The rest of the world, I don't really struggle with that. But for me, obviously there's something different. Obviously I just wasn't meant to be trans, because I wouldn't pass right. What, you don't think you'd pass other person? That's just societal standards of bullshit, screw that. But for myself, I can't seem to nail it in.

I think I tricked myself into transitioning.

I said "oh, I know I'm something weird, but I'd never pass as anything but a guy. I'll use he/they and identify as genderqueer so people know I'm a little off, but I don't have any expectations of myself". Never anything that could make me actually have to see myself as something I obviously could never be.

I think I'm really really attracted to queer people, and that probably skewed my perception a ton. I'd look at all my trans friends at college (trans fem, trans masc, non-binaries, gender fluids, the whole bunch) and say "woaw, they're so effortlessly trans. I could never be that". As if every other trans person on the planet is destined to be hot, and there's a singular outlier which happens to be the person covering the data.

 After a while, I dipped my toes in the pool. I just want to be more androgynous, that's all. Nonbinary? Yeah sure, that's me. Undefinable. I can set my expectations wherever I want.

And what's a good way to get more androgynous? Well, I'm starting from man. So I should transition in the direction of woman.

When I told my partner about starting HRT, I brought up multiple times that it was "just for androgyny". Obviously I wouldn't transition like she had, like our other friends had. I couldn't do that. I was just messing around, that's all.

And then it started working. And I started liking the things that worked more than the rest.

When I got called "young lady" or "miss" at work, I'd perk right up. Even more than when I was called "they" or "them", the actual pronouns I was supposed to want to hear. And even with that bright flashing sign, I still convinced myself I was just happy because it meant I was androgynous enough. 

But it was still so hard. 

Then there was this weekend. This weekend where everyone kept treating me like I was attractive.

I got stopped outside of City Market by a person who said, "I'm obsessed with your makeup".

I reunited with friends who commented on my outfit, my hair, my complexion. Friends who seemed like they actually wanted to spend time with me. Like I was one of them.

But this had to be a fluke. I had to be wrong.

So I set myself up for failure. Surely if I did my makeup all nice, got dressed up, and proudly held that up to the world, it would stop the fantasy. It had to end.

But it didn't people liked and commented such nice things under pictures. My partner complimented me so nicely. And even as I felt nervous going out to dinner, it was an amazing night. We had a lovely meal, and then walked the waterfront and sat for a while.

And when she said she loved me, and that I looked pretty, I believed her. 

It felt really easy. Maybe I'd want to be like this all the time. 

Is it really skewed and fucked that I only felt worthy of being a girl when I felt like the world found me attractive? Yeah definitely. But I don't think it's really about gender exactly. I think just the realization that I actually could be someone who people found cool and hot linked naturally into the simple conclusion of what I'd want to be if I really was worthy of being anything.

And after we drove home, and laid down for the night, I whispered in bed before my partner could fall asleep.

"I think I'm a girl."

And she accepted me. And I cried in her arms. And for the first time, I really think that I'm a girl.