This is the fucking energy right here.

I won't let anyone take away my life.

I'm going to share this love that I'm FINALLY able to feel with the people who matter to me.

I've felt the sun on my face, I will NEVER go back to the dark.

Trans representation matters. Trans stories matter. Trans voices matter because if just one little kid out there is saved from the lie that me and thousands like me lived through, it's worth it.

I don't want to trans your kids, I want to save the ones that need to hear that they arent alone.

12/?

Who I am now as a person is brighter, fuller, and in every measurable way better than the husk I was piloting before transition. I'm smiling as I make up for 37 years of lost human experiences.

I am living life, instead of simply existing... and this is what they want to take away from me?

11/?

Yet despite this entire wrong life I had lived, the pointlessness I felt every day, the emptiness in my fucking SOUL...it all just simply went away thanks to a daily little 2mg pill that dissolved under my tongue.

One. Fucking. Pill is all it took to be alive.

10/?

This quote from the article sums it up perfectly.

"I could barely even feel anything. I couldn’t cry when it seemed like I should be crying – it was like being estranged from my own emotions. Or, when I rarely did manage to cry, it was so overwhelming that I would completely lose it..."

9/?

And all throughout this, my world was grey. My life was not what I wanted it to be, despite being told again and again this is who I should be. I couldn't stare that existential dread in the eyes. How could anyone?

So I buried it, in the same dark place I buried thoughts about being a woman.

8/?

Im supposed to get married and start a family, right? Well my girlfriend is screaming at me to do that so I guess I need to. Men must do certain things in the bedroom, I guess I will too even though I dont enjoy it and something feels wrong.

If I'm suffering to make her happy, thats okay.

7/?

Men don't think about their clothes, they just wear jeans and a t-shirt. Okay, done, costume is on and one less thing to think about. Just swallow the disappointment you can't wear what you want and move on.

People tell me I should grow a beard. Men have beards, okay I'll do that.

6/?

It's a hard thing to articulate to others that you are faking being a human man. So you don't. And eventually you begin lying to yourself.

After all, people aren't born knowing how to do everything. They have to learn. So I guess I'm just having a hard time learning how to be a man and husband

5/?

...but when I looked in the mirror, I didn't hate my body. I didn't FEEL anything about it. There was a disconnect between my brain and this flesh suit that I piloted where I knew it wasn't right, but I didn't understand why.

So I tried my best to pilot the robot like I was supposed to.

4/?

I mean I knew I would rather be a girl if given the opportunity. I crossdressed, I replayed the Wall Market in FF7 50 times, I only played female characters in DnD, the scariest place in the world to me was the men's locker room...like the signs were fucking THERE...

3/?

Growing up, I was exposed to exactly one trans mainstream narrative:

"Trans people always knew that they were born into the wrong body. They look in the mirror and hated what they saw. They only played with the other gender's toys as a kid. They. Always. Knew."

...and that wasn't me.

2/?