Reflections: One Month

Original Publication Date: 2017–12–14

I. Reception

It’s been around a month since coming out on Facebook. I’m very happy to say that everyone has reacted in a supportive manner to my posts and the news in general. It’s wonderful that the reception has been so positive, and that I won’t be publicly ostracised for being transgender. I’m extraordinarily grateful I live in a time and place where I can actually live the life I want to live.

Consequently, I’d like to take a moment to thank everyone for their support, and all the kind words and gestures I’ve received throughout the year. I’d particularly like to thank my close friends for providing a place where I could joke about not wanting to have a dick in one sentence and in the next complain about the hostility of my family. I’m not sure I could have made it through the year without you.

II. The Future

So, having come out publicly and accomplished my major gender-related goal for this year, what’s next?

Well, I’d like to start dressing and presenting more feminine. Funds are very tight at the moment so I can’t just go out and buy a bucketload of feminine-coded things. It sucks, too, because I’m in the US right now and clothing is relatively cheaper than in Australia. In any case, if I actually had money, the first thing I’d buy would probably be boots; I want something I can wear socks with that looks okay with jeans.

Coming across as more feminine would make achieving another goal easier: making the switch to women’s bathrooms. I’m staying in a hostel right now and so I have to do makeup stuff in the men’s restroom, which is awkward and weird for both me AND everyone else. Even when I’m not doing something as obviously female-coded as makeup I’m still stared at. I don’t like being in there.

Sadly, too, I don’t think I’m at the point yet where I’d fit comfortably in the women’s rooms. That being said, it’s VERY hard to gauge how people are gendering me right now. Based off a high degree of variation in the stares (or lack of stares) I suspect different people read me differently. But whenever people look at me for more than a passing moment I’m usually referred to as “sir” or addressed in some other implicitly male way.

From reading about the experiences of other trans people on hormones, people often suddenly hit a point where they’re gendered differently by the majority of people in public. It would be nice if that happens soon for me. That would be a wonderful Christmas present.