why now?
Something I was asked by my doctor during my assessment was: Why now? Why look to pursue surgery now? Why come out to everyone and make these changes now? I turn 30 in just over a month. Iâm not a kid, or a teen anymore. Far from it. I suppose I should know who I am by now, should have had that figured out, but honestly do any of us ever really know who we are? Ever?
My entire life Iâve felt just... Odd. Weird. âOtherâ a lot of the time. Not just because Iâm a nerd (thatâs not helped lol), but I have never really fit in properly with the majority of your average girls or women. I felt the âodd one outâ amongst my family who were predominantly female. In offices staffed with majority women, I felt like a complete outsider. Iâve very rarely âclickedâ with girls and I get along a LOT easier and faster with guys. Any age, any background, any education level, getting along with guys was much smoother.
I put it down to âthey just donât âgetâ youâ. I didnât get the same feeling with my friends, male or female. We shared enough of the same interests, had the same sense of humour, liked the same things etc. But thatâs how it works right? The people you click and vibe with, you make friends with. Age was maybe also a factor in ânot gellingâ with other women. People also come from different walks of life.Â
âYou're not just a big weird freak, youâre just made from entirely different moulds, right? You canât get along with everyone?â
Itâs only within the last few years that I started finding out about gender issues, nonbinary specifically. The more and more I read into it, the more stats and facts and studies I absorbed, the more little bits of information, the more RELATABLE AS HELL the stories I was reading were getting... the more I started to consider; Hey wait a minute. This is all making FAR too much goddamn sense.
It took a while for things to start adding up to the point I started making changes in my life or thinking differently about myself. All the things I was learning, and how they related to me and the way I think and feel, started to change my outlook on myself. About 2 and a half years ago, I started thinking to myself:Â âRight. Iâm Nonbinary. This is me!â I tried it on, entirely privately, non-verbally. Itâs how I thought about myself. And it... fit. It worked. It felt right.
Some time later, I told my husband and a few very close friends âhey I think I might be nonbinaryâ or at the very least âIâm having very weird Gender Feelings you guys...â The ability to talk it out and bounce ideas and feelings off my friends, some of whom are trans themselves, has been utterly invaluable. Last year I made more baby steps towards accepting this strange new-but-not-new part of myself, that Iâd managed to finally put a name to. I told a few more people. I would drop it into casual convo. I made posts around pride week and national coming out day. The binder Iâd bought to wear for cosplay purposes, I started wearing on a more casual everyday basis. I -embraced- my masculine swings a lot more often and dressed how I wanted to dress, moved how I wanted to move, spoke how I wanted to speak. The way that felt most natural at that time. I stopped worrying I âlooked super butchâ or âlike a lesbianâ when I looked and dressed more masculine.
And it all felt - really good-.
Imagine youâve gone the majority of your life, thinking like.. âtheres just something not quite right here.â Itâs nothing causing you physical pain. There are no real symptoms you can put a finger on. âNot fitting in with womenâ, ânot being into girl stuffâ, âhaving body confidence and body image issuesâ, âliking to wear boys clothes/have short masc haircuts/wearing cologne/etc/etc/etcâ were all just weird little facets of yourself youâd had to live with and feel weird and âotherâ about.
And then suddenly someone goes: hey that weirdness youâre feeling? Thereâs a name for that. Youâre not just a freak! Youâre not different all of a sudden, nothing has changed, but aaaall the stuff that made you âyouâ, makes a heck of a lot more sense now that you can put a name on it.
This is not âWho I Am Nowâ. This is Who I Have Always Been.
It all started to make sense. Everything. I wasnât just weird. I didnât have to worry about âlooking like a manâ anymore. My dysphoria made SENSE. It sucked ass, and still made me feel like shit, but it made sense! Iâm not broken.
The biggest âclickâ and the thing that lit a real fire under me was New Years eve 2017. It was a themed party, and people were all in costumes. I went as a male character and wore my binder (Iâm going to talk a bit about costuming as male characters later because this is also Important I think). Iâd had a few drinks, and when it came time to take the costume off and get into something a bit more comfy after midnight (and because I was coming to the end of my binder time. I like to bind safely) I found that it was HEARTRENDINGLY UPSETTING... to take the binder off and âgo back to being girl-me againâ. Iâd always been really sad after a solid weekend of dressing as a man for male costumes and having to âgo back to normalâ but this was like an intense version of that feeling. That Iâd spent 29 years doing this, living with and putting up with âgirl-meâ. Like that version of myself wasnât the real me at all. That I was facing another year, approaching thirty, and that this was going to be how things were for the rest of my life unless I did something about it.
January 2nd I sent out an email to my chosen doctor (Iâd been researching it all for months at the back end of 2017 but done nothing about it) to try and book an appointment to pursue top surgery, which I told my husband about and we had a long discussion around.Â
February 4th I came out to my mum and my two sisters who had a lot of questions but were incredibly supportive. They told me that âactually that makes a lot of sense...â considering my childhood, and while they were worried for me from a âthis is a surgery you cannot come back from, I hope youâre sureâ point of view, supported me there too.
Last month I went a lot more public with my gender and Iâm trying to make more and more people aware of it, since I interact with large groups of varied people as part of cosplay and costuming. Iâve literally faced nothing but support (and questions of course, but Iâve got all the time in the world for supportive people who just want to understand things so they can better help and support their friends and others like me.)
Itâs been thirty years. And I still have a long way to go. But Iâve honestly never been more comfortable within myself and with every babystep Iâve taken towards hacking my way out of this shitty little âdesperately trying to conform to gender standardsâ chrysalis Iâve been trapped in for my entire life, the better Iâve felt.















