(Trigger Warnings for family rejection, sexual assault, childhood abuse, suicide, eating disorders)

Be warned that when you ask old people for war stories they will give them to you

A lot of what I’ve experienced can be summed up as sad but very good things have happened too. You deserve to feel excited and supported and not scared. I’m about 15 years into transition. Honestly, it’s been a mess but I’m doing pretty well now and have a lot I’m grateful for.

For historical context I’m in my thirties, as far as public judgment and hate goes, when I was a kid the popular discourse about trans people was literally just hateful jokes, overwhelmingly about trans women. Gay rights were high profile and there was always institutional stuff going on like DADT, DOMA. Trans people were invisible at best or just ridiculed. I know it makes me old to be like “things back then..” because media is not entirely different today but it really is stark for me, there wasn’t any effort at diversity or to keep people accountable. There were regular trans jokes on network tv, ads, kid’s media, everywhere. Politically, trans people are definitely in a weird position now and I’m very sad that that’s the case for our youth. We are human beings and not a wedge issue. I’ve been harassed for being queer and trans a few times but it’s super rare where I live. Last year(? What is time?) someone said something hateful to me and a friend, but we both thought, wow it’s been a long time since that has happened. I think on some level we also learned to keep our social lives clear of shitty people.

For me the toughest parts have been very personal. I came out as trans at 18 to some people in college and it felt really safe. I knew I needed top surgery, and that was the only reason I wanted to come out to my parents. So I did so in an email lol, and they barely responded, and were not supportive of surgery especially. In general I always felt alienated by my family and I didn’t think their support would mean a lot to me but it did, and I got discouraged.

A year later I was sexually assaulted, which started a huge spiral for years. I got PTSD on top of a lot of shame and self hatred from childhood, and for shitty reasons I felt like I had to choose between being trans and being open about my trauma, and in practice I chose neither. I pushed everything down and at 22 I tried to kill myself. Then I was in and out of the mental health system, fucking up relationships, isolating. I had friends, I even got married but I hated myself so much that I couldn’t understand why anyone was still there with me. Eventually I decided I had to medically transition. I felt shame and doubt about it but I figured that I really didn’t have anything to lose. Courage came up in conversations then too and I couldn’t imagine that what I was doing was brave because I waited so long to try again, and I fundamentally could not think highly of myself.

So at 27 I came out again to my family, they had the same discomfort and silence as before so I decided that I needed to emotionally let them go. Everyone else in my life was so happy for me. Began T, I was digging it, and I was also depressed, anxious, grieving. I realized around then that I had an eating disorder too. I got top surgery that year and I was overjoyed, which faded and I was depressed and anxious again. I was grieving everything, my family, the past 10 years, my childhood, my body, the people I pushed away. The next (and final) time I saw most of my family I felt like I was trapped in a burning building. When I got back to my place I almost immediately put together all the abuse in my family, including abuse that I completely repressed. I was shattered and nothing made sense, then everything made sense. I got better for a while, then got really messed up with alcohol for a bit.

I finally got tons of adequate therapy and for the past few years I’ve felt pretty good. Still up and down but I’m not out of control and I have self esteem. At times I am so glad I had this journey and of course at the same time I wish things had been different. I really don’t know how I’ve come out of it alive but I know it’s in part because I’m out and transitioning. It didn’t solve everything and made a lot of things much harder. It felt totally impossible and threatening because I knew I’d be ridiculed and rejected. I don’t need to be around the ridicule and I was already rejected. Resistance to pain really is suffering. And now honestly I’m glad that my family rejected me because it showed me who they are and the truth about why I hated myself. My relationships have been so beautiful because I know that I should maintain the good ones and weed out the bad. Also I’m real cute

All the advice I can give is to take care of yourself and get into therapy right now