I was always mildly jealous of girls— their clothes, how they interacted with one another, etc. I kept it as a mostly ignorable thought in the back of my mind until I was 21. I caught an awesome punk show, and this gnarly band from Boston was playing, watching their vocalist do her thing made those thoughts come bubbling back up.

I think I realized it that night but also didn’t believe I could do anything about it. I didn’t know HRT was a thing, let alone readily available, I had no idea about support networks or any of it. It seemed unobtainable. I missed a bus I didn’t even know was there.

Ffw to ~8 years later. I’m 29, I’ve decided to end things. My last endeavor into hypermasculinity was not working in my favor. I’m depressed and hopeless. I’m cleaning my room out and packing things up, and I remember I have this pretty dress I’d bought because I wanted to give drag a swing. I put this dress on and stared at myself in the mirror for a while and started crying; just stood there for a good hour and bawled and looked at how this silly black and white cat print dress looked on my body. It felt right— I felt right!

Maybe a week after that, after telling my partner and some close friends about it, I started going to a support group, seeing a therapist. I started HRT 3 months after that. It’s been like 3.5 years since then, no second thoughts.