So like I was talking to the Gender Affirming Care clinic nurse as I’m FINALLY getting on T like I’ve wanted but been too afraid to do for over 7 years now, and she asked me like the earlier memory I can remember of knowing about trans people/being trans and I was like “yeah I was watching a doctumentary once about a trans women who was getting her bottom surgery and she was talking about how she was raised a boy and just ABSOLUTELY hated it and thats how she knew she was trans, and I was like 8 and sat there on the couch thinking ‘well that makes no sense, I would LOVE to be a boy’ and in hindsight that was probably a sign but I didn’t find out trans men existed until I was 13-14″
and so like I wasn’t considering it at the time, but THIS is what we mean when we talk about invisibility in the transmasc community. How much earlier could I have realized I’m trans if there had been any amount of representation of trans men in my life/in the media? How much earlier could I have alleviated this dysphoria? And because I was so deep in radfem rhetoric as a teen, I’d been convinced by others I DIDN’T have dysphoria and I was actually just insecure because of “mens beauty standards” like the answer was so simple and especially harmless as a child like all that would have changed would have been my hair and pronouns, and I suffered for so long not even understanding what the feeling was or being able to put words to it.
What do people gain by erasing our existence? What do people gain from our suffering?
