Basil, United States (any)

“I will continue to have the strength necessary to avoid identity and follow this path."

Was there a definitive moment you realized you were trans? How old were you?

Senior year of high school, I went down the rabbit hole of gender and started to identify as non-binary more out of what I felt was a philosophical obligation than a genuine belief that the label fit me well. I did know that I felt increasingly uncomfortable with being a girl and that I could not see myself aging as a woman, and that having a career as a woman was terrifying to me. Once I graduated college and entered the workforce as a teacher, I realized that my life would not progress until I started testosterone, so I booked an appointment at Planned Parenthood. I was 21.

How soon after did you start to make changes? What were these changes?

At age 17 I told my friends I was nonbinary. At age 21 I abandoned that label and started testosterone.

Have these changes started to make you feel more comfortable in your life and body?

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What would you tell your younger self? Would you do anything differently?

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Is there anything else you'd like to share?

I don't think the standard narrative about trans men applies to me. I don't feel that I was always a boy on the inside or that I was ever "trapped in the wrong body." I have PCOS and my body started producing higher than average levels of testosterone when I was a teenager, causing me to start growing facial hair at age 16. I never tried to fight this and always embraced the natural changes T brought to me. Senior year of high school and throughout college I identified as nonbinary, but that was a very fraught time and I hated being nonbinary all of the time. When I would think too much about gender, I would develop a kind of "existential rage." When I graduated college and became a teacher, I realized that I had reached a point at which it no longer made sense to identify as nonbinary. I needed to accelerate my body's natural processes so that I could stop identifying as anything and move on with my life. This realization came to me suddenly, and after that it was a simple matter of booking an appointment at Planned Parenthood and starting T. I don't feel that this decision corresponded to any change in my internal concept of self, and I do not "identify" as a man. I feel that my decision to undergo the process which others would describe as "gender transition" was hardly a decision at all and merely an extension of my body's natural inclination toward hyperandrogenism. I understand this decision within the framework of Taoism. I believe that my transformation has very little to do with my decision to be nonbinary for a couple of years, and I hope that I will continue to have the strength necessary to avoid identity and follow this path. I am sometimes afraid of what is yet to come, but I cannot imagine any other way.

Have the gender-affirming steps you’ve taken impacted your overall happiness and sense of well-being?

Yes.