aaro

there are so many firsts that i'm just never going to have as my true self. kisses, crushes, sex, relationships. so many life experiences with loss and victory and change and comfort. all of these memories, i (and i understand the internalized transphobia laced in this statement) experienced as a man. it's easy to say i've been a woman all along and that i was actually experiencing those things as a woman because i always have been one, but never being taught how to cry - not even having the hormones for it - changes the way you internalize and process the death of a loved one, to the point that it was necessary for me to start grieving all over again. never having shared so much as a compliment with a woman for fear that the interaction would be colored by the binary you sit on the opposite side of changes your ability to communicate with women, so much so that even casual interactions that are unquestionably positive keep me up at night wondering how much "masculine energy" leaked into the interaction because i never got to learn to interact with other humans the way that feels right for me. all these things that form your personality are altered. and you just... go on. sometimes you have energy to try and consciously change, sometimes you don't have that energy and you just have to watch as you hyper-analyze every movement and word, parsing out all the bits that feel like they wouldn't be there if you just learned to be a human right the first time.

and then there's the body stuff. i have a lot going for me - pretty wide hips for a testosterone skeleton, fairly conventionally attractive in a way that translates well in the right light. cute boobies - maybe a little pointy but it's a look. it fucking kills me knowing what i could have had. something that i believe is extremely common to the transfeminine experience is the desire to be desired. there's something freeing about living a life being praised and wanted for what you are capable of, what you can do, and what you have done, and then all of a sudden one day you get desired for just existing as you are. physical attractiveness is not the cleanest reason to be desired but there's something about the relation that feels so freeing and simple. and i could have had so much more of it had i just had the emotional tools to know earlier. physical beauty isn't worth but it changes the way you interact with the world and the way you interact with the world changes who you are. and you just have to accept what you have. this is just a distillation of the same privileges surrounding beauty standards women face, so truly in a patriarchal society, this desire is feels like part of the woman experience at its core, but it does hit somewhat different, i imagine. the reassurance that you'll find someone who loves you for you feels a different kind of hollow.

this is rambling, it doesn't cover everything and i'm not at my most articulate right now. might delete later who knows. just feeling extra down right now and needed to spill my guts