A dream. I was at some sort of event and ended up wearing a dress as a "joke" which then escalated to me being assigned to do like street interviews at a sci-fi convention which transitioned into me just attending the con as a fully out trans woman (no HRT or surgery, can't ever have anything too nice in my dreams ๐). But then my dream took a really dark turn.
CW: public execution, facism
Then a group of facists stormed into the atrium of the con, tied a trans woman on her broomstick and sent her flying up toward the ceiling, causing her to slip and fall to her death. As a message.
I woke up shaking and in a sweat and my mind was racing as i drifted in and out of sleep for the rest of the night. I was a mess the next day, I felt dizzy, I probably shouldn't have been driving.
I was replaying my entire life in my head and just laughing at how oblivious I was. Some were smaller, coincedental things like always being closest friends with girls growing up or one time when I was a kid I kicked my leg up during a hug (a totally normal memory to be locked in as a core memory). Some were pretty huge clues like how much I was wrecked by I Saw the TV Glow (I'm just a really empathetic ally!) or using a character creator to make a version of myself as the final stage of the trans-pipeline meme ๐คฆโโ๏ธ
Looking back, I think the thought did pass thru my mind but I've just always taken a long time to realize things.
I slowly had been distancing myself from masculinity, trying on demi-boy or agender identities in my head (I know those can fall under the trans umbrella but they didn't feel like they "counted" lol, they were safer to my egg shell). I felt like I wasn't worthy of being a woman, I could only approach it sideways or by degrees.
I've been hanging around queer and especially trans spaces on the internet for a long time so I had as much exposure and knowledge as you can from that. So once the pressure had finally built my brain just had to shake me by the shoulders to snap me out of it.
I have a few sets of plastic playing cards that I've worn the ink off of
They make it easy to do a faro shuffle, it's sooo satisfying