Extraordinary Machine

For the first few decades of my life, I didn't. I grew up thinking that nobody actually wants to be a girl, that it's just a sorry fate that gets handed to you and you just have to suck it up and endure it, and that everyone else is just better at it than I am. The fact that I was raised to think that all life is supposed to be like that didn't help.

When I first learned that trans men are even a thing at all (I was 12 or 13 and it was like 2006), my first thought was that it must be a very well-guarded secret, because if it was common knowledge that you can do that, the female population of the world would just collapse when 90% of women given the option to quit being one would simply quit. I didn't think I was trans because I was under the impression that all trans people have just Always Known about wishing they were the other gender. But I thought that I could trick the system into letting me transition anyway.

Ironically, the medical system of Finland at the time was under the same false assumptions as I was back then, and by lying exactly what they wanted to hear, I got the diagnosis much easier than I would have if I had been honest with my feelings. I got turned down the first time due to them deeming that I didn't want it bad enough - I had miscalculated, assuming that they'd flag me for acting too desperate to transition, but evidently I didn't act desperate enough.