One year ago I sheepishly bought Whipping Girl by Julia Serano. I picked it from the dusty bookshelves while no one was around and faced the book upside down on the cashier's counter. I didn’t want them to know that I was probably trans, or appear like I was questioning my transness, or even worse - some academic man who got off on studying trans women. Little did I realize that they would have to flip the book around to its cover in order to scan it. They gave me a quick look that read my body like I was going to read this book - cover to cover - and then they asked me for $17.99.
I read and reread chapters of this book many times and I apprehensively found my future self. Not only did I feel politically inspired by Serano’s trans manifesto (tranifesto anyone?), I learned a lot about what I could probably expect from taking hormones; socially, mentally, and physically. A friend of mine came out to me as trans a few years ago and told me that she had begun taking estrogen and T-blockers. I reveled in excitement for her and her journey, but perhaps felt a little bit of envy. I told her that I had always thought about using she pronouns, but that the time just hadn’t felt right yet. Eventually, in the summer of 2023 I finally felt like I was ready for the inevitable that I had been putting off for quite some time: being a woman.
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Living in Brooklyn for the last 3 and a half years, I have known many other trans people, and therefore have had my first real in-depth insight into what being trans is - and therefore what trans joy can look like. The truth is, I have been kind of, sort of, out as trans since I was about 18 years old. I started calling myself non-binary and using they/them pronouns. I liked wearing feminine clothing and having people see me as one of the girls rather than one of the boys (or neither of the binary options). Eventually I did start calling myself trans as a they/them, but I was still cissexual and the thought of hormones never really seriously crossed my mind, even at the looming threat of my gender dysphoria.
Jump to just last year, I was about to turn 23 years old and I was in Berlin. You might think that I am going to write about how Berlin showed me how being free in your gender is possible and trans joy can be achieved and yada yada yada. I know that Berlin has a wonderful reputation as this queer utopia, and in many ways it is a relatively good city to be in if you are queer or trans. However, I was not on hormones and I was dressing oh-so-femme. I was on the brink of beginning my girlhood journey and had been on and off mulling hormones for at least the 6 months prior to that moment. So I was confident enough to dress femme, but I was viewed like an absolute freak. Everywhere I went people looked at me like I was some crossdressing pervert. I experienced an ungodly amount of street harassment, something I had experienced even more of in Paris a few weeks earlier. People calling me a “f*ggot”, “tr*nny”, or asking me for sex, as if I could only possibly be walking around to appease other people's fetishes. What this trip taught me was that in order to be seen as a woman in this world, I needed to begin my hormone journey.
So, a few weeks later I came out to my family… again. I read them a letter that still remains as my first ever post on this blog here. I wanted to come out to the world by posting that piece, too. After coming out, I tried making an appointment at Callen-Lorde - a popular clinic that offers gender affirming care here in the city. They called me back while I was out with some friends and I removed myself to nervously answer. The good news was that they were taking new patients, the bad news is they were booked up until November. It was August.
Eventually, Planned Parenthood was able to see me within the following few weeks and I received my first prescription of estradiol (I opted for no T-blockers as I had read that spiro is outdated and you don’t really need it). It was the end of August and I finally possessed what I had been mulling over obtaining for the better part of a year. I was terrified. The world would never look at me the same again. I would never look at me the same again. But that is really all I ever wanted. It took a week of the pills on the top of my messy file drawer before I decided it was time - I was ready.
That day was September 8th, 2023.
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So today I am one year removed from the universe opening its doors to include me in it. An anniversary, or maybe even a birthday, to celebrate my first 365 days of girlhood. I’ve had many life lessons, but becoming a woman has been the greatest one. Here are some of the things (in no particular order) that the last 365 days of transition, growth, grief, and becoming have taught me:
I am no longer afraid of masculinity - being and feeling like a woman has allowed me to embrace the days where I just want to throw on a baggy t-shirt, a big pair of basketball shorts, or leave my nails uncolored. Because my body is a woman’s body and my dysphoria has gotten so much better, I feel more free to wear what I want because I still feel feminine. Also… I now admire healthy masculinity and actually marvel at the way that many trans (and some cis) men are redefining what it means to be a man in this world. I have a newfound appreciation for masculinity and a healthier relationship with men now because I have removed myself from it.
Boundaries. It is so important to have boundaries, particularly when talking about being trans to cis people. Many cis people will ask way too many boundary-breaking questions, such as: what was your name before Elle? How do you have sex? Are you going to get THE surgery? To sum it up, don’t ask these things. But to answer them for you now: My name before Elle is kept in a box that only myself and a few others know, I’m lucky enough to not have that name come up ever again. I have sex just fine, thank you. Maybe one day I’ll get THE surgery, but sex and gender isn’t all about genitals.
Honesty. Forcing myself to be honest with the fact that I am a woman has made me such an honest and fearless person. Because coming out and beginning this journey was one of the hardest things that I have had to do, it has made every little bit of honesty seem so insignificant in comparison. I love being honest. I love people knowing how I’m feeling. I love telling the people I love that I love them without being afraid. Fear stops us from living, and you only get one shot at being alive.
Confidence. This might be an obvious one, but becoming a woman (who I am supposed to and want to be) has given me so much confidence. HRT has made me feel so beautiful. Being who I knew I always could be has made me unapologetic, and therefore, confident.
Being a woman is divine, but it’s also a little messy - I say this on the heels of “brat summer”, which saw everyone embracing their inner brat. At its core, this meant being hot, sexy, and confident, but also being a little bit messy, a little bit rough around the edges, a little bit sad and existentialist. It challenges this idea that women have to, or should, be these neat and tidy, well-kept, people for men. Brat broke down this construction by saying that being a woman isn’t so simple. Being on HRT I have really felt that. In short: skin is clearer, hair is longer, eyes are bigger - I am more beautiful - but at the same time… feelings are stronger, questions are bigger, and crying is uglier. Being a woman is definitely being a little bit brat.
Your body can, and should, feel like home. Let’s face it, everyone has a complicated relationship with their bodies. For trans people, it is largely rooted in gender dysphoria. For a long time before HRT, I began to believe that I was destined to be in the body that made me dysphoric forever. Being trans and accessing trans healthcare has taught me that that isn’t the case. Your body can and should feel like home. Hormones do work, even if it is hard to believe that you could ever embody how your soul really feels.
You can be whoever you want to be / Transition is inevitable. Maybe this is a little corny, but transitioning has shown me that you can be whoever you want if you commit yourself to transition. This doesn’t even have to be in a gendered sense; if you want to change careers, change your lifestyle, become a greater person in general, you can. Transition is inevitable for everyone in life. Transitioning sexes and genders has taught me that this is just one of many transitions that I will undertake in my life.
Grief hits hard, lean into it. As someone who is only 24 years old, I can’t say I’m as well versed in grief as others who have lived longer and therefore experienced more than me, but grief is an integral part of life. With regards to my transition, there has absolutely been a level of grief despite the fact that I am so happy and content with who I am becoming now. There is grief for lost time - not living my whole life this way. There is grief for how relationships in my life have changed as a result of my coming out. There is grief for a childhood spent as a boy rather than a young girl. What I have learned though is that leaning into it and feeling everything is so important. Grief is an important process of acceptance and healing. It is accepting and healing from the things that hurt us. Leaning into this acceptance and healing and feeling everything is the best thing that you can do.
Hormones DO matter. Maybe this is also an obvious one, but it is important to note. When I was out as non-binary for 4 years, I downplayed the role that hormones play in sex and gender. Yes, gender IS a social construct (i.e. the meanings that we attach to man/woman and male/female have been created by society and therefore socialized into each of us) but there are biological components that make us feel differently. If there weren’t, trans people like me wouldn’t be taking hormones. They change the entire scope of how we feel, think, process, interact, and move through this world. Sure, you can argue that the estrogen/testosterone binary is limiting as it fails to recognize the scope of hormone distribution in human beings across this planet. That being said, hormones do make us feel differently, and trans healthcare shows us that altering them can create unlimited pathways to self-expression and depth of feeling.
More or less everyone plays with sex and gender. Yes, being trans is an experience and identity in its own right, but everyday cis people play with, and challenge, dominant constructions of sex and gender too. Women wear blazers and pantsuits, men paint their nails, cis women take hormones to deal with menopause symptoms, and cis people are the greatest consumers of body modifications as a whole. I don’t want to downplay the importance of being trans and why we are integral to society, especially in today's political world, but what we do to become ourselves is rather ordinary. It is not some crazy, mysterious, or taboo thing. Particularly because we access healthcare that is used by cis people, too, and we transition just like everyone else does in their lives. Gender transition isn’t so different from others process of becoming themselves.
All in all, I have been many different people throughout my life and I will be many more, but spending the last year building myself into the woman that I want to be has been unruly to the life that I was supposed to live. I have turned my life upside down in a way that allows me freedom to explore my body in ways that I would never know how. I am so grateful to be here, to be living this life, and to still be in the process of becoming all that I ever wanted to be. I love and I laugh and I cry all at once, feeling everything is what life is all about.
“Your body can and should feel like home.” Amen to that! Beautiful post, Elle - thank you.
Your beauty and confidence are radiant. Happy trans-versary, friend. It's been a good year.