I carefully cultivated masculine traits and interests to prove my masculinity and thereby disprove that I had any femininity.
Q: How does it make sense for me to think I could possibly be a transgender with such masculine traits and interests?
Q: As a trans person, do you consider gender important?
I suppose it’s like socks — for the most part, we put them on and forget about them, and everything is fine, until it isn’t.
Q: What does it feel like to wake up in a female body after living as a male?
Transition isn’t really about quick changes - hormones work slowly and other interventions (aside from surgeries) also tend to take time to develop and manifest. But there are a few things I’ve experienced which might be illuminating.
Traveling While Trans
I’ve learned that many people aren’t aware of the unique challenges and experiences that trans people face when making our way through TSA screening. If you’re cisgender and think that TSA screening is a pain, just wait!
Q: How does it feel to not identify with your assigned birth gender?
Not identifying with your assigned gender is one of the worst feelings I’ve ever suffered. I have never experienced any amount of physical pain which even comes close to the psychic pain. You don’t fit in. You might not even know why. You feel different, but don’t have any words to describe how or why.
Q: How does one explain gender dysphoria to cisgender people when they don’t understand?
For those who have never experienced it, no description will ever suffice. For those who have experienced it, no description is needed.
Q: Bathrooms and locker rooms and fitting rooms, oh my!
This week, I'm giving you a few questions which share a common thread - those gender-segregated spaces which have become a lightning rod for legislatures all over the United States!
Q: What do you enjoy most about being male/female?
Being a transgender woman, I’ve had some experience with both.
Q: Do women experience emotions more deeply than men?
It’s difficult to gauge the depth of any person’s emotions in comparison with another person, so I don’t think there’s a way to definitively answer this question. But I happen to have a relatively unique experience in that I’ve lived part of my life trying to uphold the lessons I learned about what it means to be a man, and now am living as the woman I have long felt and known myself to be.
