Trans

I had a lot of trans thoughts growing up but like you I had no framework to understand it, so it wrote it all off as daydreaming an just general normal thoughts.

I think the first crack was a video by a youtuber called vihart about how she didn't initially get all the gender stuff, and then later realizing that just because she doesn't get something doesn't mean it isn't real. I think she also talked about how she might possibly be agender or something to that effect, and it resonated with me.

Still, I didn't really get the content fully and I didn't connect it to anything in my life beyond a vague notion that something gendery was going on. I also didn't really know yet that even if I was trans or anything that I could also do something about it. That felt like something for other people that weren't "normal" like me. I didn't really hang online in spaces where gender was talked about. Her video was the first true introduction to the concept of gender and transness I had.

Many years later I noticed that people on reddit were talking a lot about trans people. It also seemed people in the US were getting increasingly incensed about the topic. There seemed to me to be a pattern where anti trans people were largely motivated by finding transgender people icky, while pro trans people seemed to be motivated by freedom of expression and sometimes science. I was upset that I couldn't really argue for or against anything, so I decided to sit down and read some stats. Learning that anti-trans shit is all made up nonsense and pro-trans stuff saves lives made an impact on me, but it didn't crack my egg.

Memes did. I was subscribed to 196 on reddit, and the many trans and femboy memes for some reason I found very compelling. I later found egg irl and that comm also spoke to me in ways I couldn't put into words. At some point I also decided to read this site, and that really was what did it. I found it funny how relatable it was, and then memes kept saying very very specific things I had experienced myself, and I started panicking :P

I kept rereading the site over and over again and I took quizzes and I kept remembering things in my childhood that fit, and a month or two later I was fairly certain that I was trans. It was weird to have an existential crisis while hanging with my family and pretending like nothing hehe. A short while later I decided I was gonna get HRT and I started looking into that. I needed it as a final confirmation that I was truly trans, to remove all doubt. I knew I was never gonna be entirely certain if all I did was question for ages.

I at first identified as non-binary because I felt sort of like I was intruding or like I wasn't allowed to be trans or a woman, but I identified increasingly as just a woman until voilà! Here I am.

Bit of a long one :P Wish you a speedy recovery from your surgery!