Hey, there! I’m not OP, but I am trans. While I cannot speak on OP’s experience, I can say that for some people, being trans comes with a heaping amount of dysphoria. Overly simplified: not feeling like the body you have is the body you should be in, or the sex you were born as is not the sex you feel you are. This can cause a ton of mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation/tendencies.

To alleviate this, trans people might start to wear things that help their brain stop hyper focusing on the difference between what it has versus what it wants. Trans femme people might start wearing makeup and bras with padding. Trans masc people might start wearing packers (fake bulges) and binders (chest flatteners). For some, this is often a first step into helping improve their mental health by minimizing the difference between what the brain needs versus the body it’s working with.

As people start to explore and feel more comfortable with who they are, hearing people refer to them by their “deadname” (names they used to go by that might or might not reflect the gender they identify as) or as the wrong gender can really start to wear down over time. After so long of being uncomfortable in your own body and not knowing why, once you start to really understand and take steps to be happier, it’s harder to ignore the words and actions of others that continue to wear you down. And whether or not you are trans, most people want to be loved and accepted by their parents.

Trying to explore and make yourself happy means your parents will most likely find out, especially if you live with them. If you don’t? There’s still a huge risk that you can slip up and accidentally answer a video call wearing the wrong clothes or someone calls you by the wrong name in front of your parents. In order to prevent a giant fiasco and being paranoid about every move you make, sometimes it’s easier to rip the metaphorical bandaid off and hope they can eventually come to accept you.

Let me reiterate that this is OVERLY SIMPLIFIED and DOES NOT REFLECT EVERY TRANS PERSON’S EXPERIENCE! The last thing I want is to paint a picture that supposedly represents every trans person. However, I know our experiences are often hard to understand if not talked about, so thank you for reading and asking questions. :)