dog

the note the riddler left for him:

which was followed 20 seconds later by this scene

Which itself was followed by this scene almost precisely 20 seconds later

And I don't mean that like you might say "man, everyone on tumblr is trans!" where you really mean "it seems there are a lot of trans people on tumblr".

Literally. Everyone is on hormones. Some people just get them for free from their bodies, and don't need pills or patches or creams or injections.

And everyone is transitioning: you're aging. Your body isn't frozen in time from the moment you finish puberty. It will change, it is changing.

And that's important perspective to keep, I think, because you own your body. It is yours. You get to decide if it transitions into one thing or another. One of those ways may be "natural" and easier, but it doesn't mean it's the only option.

Because it's too common to imagine this as nothing vs something. Like, you do nothing and your body doesn't change, or you do something (HRT) and it changes your body. And I think that framing is very wrong and contributes to reluctance, both internalized ("do I really want to change my body?") and external ("are you really sure you want to do this to your body?").

Because it's happening either way. Your body is changing. It will keep changing. You can adjust where it's going but you can't stop it, and it will happen even if you do nothing.

You're behind the steering wheel and the car is already in motion. You can decide to turn left or right, but whether you do or don't, the car is still going to go somewhere. That's not optional. And if you don't like where it's headed, you can adjust your course. But you're still going.

Transition is just a part of human life. You're going through it no matter what, and one option for transition being the easy one doesn't mean it's the best or only option, and it doesn't mean another option is fundamentally different or worse or strange.

If you're in your 20s, you are transitioning into your 30s. You can do that with one set of hormones or another. But you have to transition: that's just how your body does.