#clocking

I admire your courage, using your voice training voice with customers. I hardly feel comfortable even being around dollarama customers, and you just hit them with the voice practice. It's so cool, and you're so awesome for not being too scared to try! I pass at a glance, but my voice gets so low when I'm outside, so I end up scaring people with it lol.

I knew when we got stuff off the shelf near each other at the grocery store, you were right there and recognized me. Shorter, softer, smaller. I saw you see me. I saw you not know how to react. I wanted you to see me.

Before transition, while my struggle with dysphoria made me unable to make friends or function beyond just showing up and doing a job, or perceive myself in the mirror and take care of my appearance in any way... I was still strong in my very core. Online, where gender doesn't matter, I could always be the strong and supportive, almost parental figure for my friends. Offline - I had enough strength to go out and do anything, like watching a movie or going out to a mall or anything, completely alone. I grew up invulnerable, sarcastic, constantly safe and protected just in case.

But now I feel incredibly vulnerable. Feminizing HRT has made me emotionally unstable (even if happier on average), and changing my ID and girlmoding has made me feel very vulnerable and unprotected. And I am not talking about reasonable worries like walking alone at night, no. I am talking - unreasonable worries, like someone seeing a clockable feature, following me and beating me. Or being embarassed in a waiting room full of people with a mention of my transness out loud. Or something. And I am lucky enough to pass, so this is only made worse because it never gets confirmed. Constant fear yet no end in sight.

This fear of femininity that was beaten into me when I was a child has come back to haunt my every move, and the fear of being a trans woman that was created by media portrayals of us has only piled on top.

I just wanted to be cute and not feel dysphoria anymore... the only thing stopping me from detransitioning is my age - 22. I started young enough and was lucky enough on top of that to pass without surgery and all of the negatives would only get worse over time.

I am scared every time I go outside. It's been a month of girlmoding, when will this fear end?