Scary Not-Nothing

Nagyunn: two. men. enter.

Nagyunn: twelve, actually.

Najin: not the point. Look, they're dead now and really whose fault is that?

Nagyunn: yours!

Also it is absolutely ridiculous to think that we can deem a work from a country where queerness is illegal less legitimate because the author has not chosen to publicly disclosed their identity. Authors who were forced to hide their names because of government crack downs on queer art have been questioned for not being openly #Ownvoices.

I'm passionate because I have experience with this issue. I was questioned as to whether I could write about trans people, while I had been out as genderfluid in my personal relationships for years. I just didn't think it was a strangers business. If not for pressure from outsiders, I may have had a better experience coming out on my own terms, but some of y'all ruined that for me.

Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.

So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.

sorry, i know it's odd to ask a stranger this, but the older folks i know just... we didn't have similar experiences with it, i've asked, and i guess i'm just hoping it's a more common experience than it seems. i don't expect there to be any fix other than endure it, but it would be reassuring to know i'm not the only one who's felt like this.

Hey, Anon. It's not unusual to feel disconnected from your past self, and to feel incomplete in some way. Physical transition in and of itself is seldom enough to feel happy as a trans person.

I feel like there could be a few things going on:

You're at an age where most people feel a lot of pressure to commit to being whoever they are going to be for the rest of their life -- getting serious about a career, starting a family, etc. People your age tend to feel like if they don't work out their place in society *right now*, they will have lost their chance at a future.

This is bullshit. People constantly change and no one has their shit fully figured out. You're allowed to continue to sample of different futures for yourself.

You're also probably asking yourself, "how do I know when my transition is *done*?" This is pretty common among trans people. There's a lot of self-reflection work to do -- especially take a look at who you are comparing yourself to, and why. And who you are transitioning for. How much does pleasing hypothetical strangers (a boss, a partner, etc) figure into your identity as a trans person?

You should only be transitioning for yourself. It should be a means to become at peace with your body, and hopefully to even love it. But thinking in terms of checklists can put you in a place where you end up feeling unfulfilled, even though you have done everything "right".

Transition goes as far as you want it to. No one has to do it the same way and you can even undo things if you want. Only pursue what makes you happy, not what you think is expected of you. Expect your feelings to even change over time, because transition gives us the room to emotionally breathe and dig deeper into the question of, "who am I?"

Even the concept of "passing" should be something you examine. How much of passing is gender euphoria, safety via invisibility, or tied to your feelings of self-worth?

I'm concerned that you feel shame about being trans in some way. You may want to talk to a therapist to help untangle your feelings here. A lot of trans people have at some point - or still do - feel shame about being trans. The world is full of messaging that says we're sick frauds, and gendered physical ideals can feel especially impossible to ever attain. It's easy to internalize transphobia.

I do think you should seek out more trans people your age, especially those of different genders. Follow those who can't or don't seek to pass. Follow those who have takes of masculinity different than your own. Consume trans art and history. Hang out with trans people in person. Really allow yourself to marinate in diverse gender experiences and expressions so that you don't feel so pressured to be just one type of man.

Embrace that transition, like all things, is imperfect, and that even binary gender can be a moving target. When I was younger, I used to think of my transness as a birth defect to "correct," but now I see it as a different way of moving through the world. And as binary as I consider myself, I also find myself more and more hard pressed to define what masculinity *is*, other than I simply know I enjoy partaking of it and being a man.

I'm someone who dislikes religion, but man, is the Serenity Prayer a banger:

"Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” 

If that isn't the trans experience in a nutshell, I don't know what is. And the key to that wisdom is learning who you want to be, including how much of that comes with within vs. from what you think is expected of you.

Tldr; You're 19 and still figuring a lot of shit out. Being trans puts you in hard mode for life. But the decisions you have already made and continue to make don't have to define you for the rest of your life. And the more decisions you make for your own happiness vs. someone else's feelings, the closer you get to feeling at peace.