#it badger

I ended up not keeping them on my headphones and pinned them to my backpack instead but you can enjoy my Magnet Moment I had today

2017 -> 2025

I realized I was trans in 2014, but the idea of transitioning terrified me. I was scared of my right-leaning family, scared of what I would look like, scared of how the government would treat me, scared of losing the feminism communities I was in. I made a lot of excuses for myself, like that I didn't care what I looked like, or how people talked about me. But the thoughts were always there, that people weren't seeing me. That I was a doll people projected their expectations on. In 2014, I changed my name socially around everyone but family, and cut my hair. I wouldn't correct anyone who misgendered me because I didn't make a big deal out of it, it wasn't their fault they assumed that I was a woman. I thought that that was all I would ever do. Hormones and surgery felt like something other trans people got to do, but I was just a lowly nonbinary person who didn't need all that expensive and frightening healthcare.

I did need it. I needed it to stop passively letting life happen to me and to start owning my body and my experiences. I started HRT in fall 2020, after moving 1,400 miles away from my hometown and family (who were shockingly very accepting when I came out via snail mail in 2021). I got top surgery three years later, and changed my name and gender marker right after. A year and a half past that, and I'm thriving. I'm finally the person I've always been. People aren't seeing the simulacrum of what they approximate me to be. And god it feels so good. So good to actually get to be a part of my own life like this. I'm still nonbinary, and of course I still believe no one needs too medically transition to be trans. But you can. You should. It could save you from blinking and it all being over.

There Is Still Time