Our society inflicts so much trauma on trans women.
The feeling that you're not good enough. Not pretty enough. That even other women won't accept you. The fear that you can't go out safely or even pee in peace. The stress, the anxiety. The missing experiences. The missing friendships. Lost time. A disfigured body and how hard it is to fix. The sheer cost and hardship of it all. The fear of having it taken from you. The knowledge that you can't have children of your own.
It all adds up.
In my experience, being aware at a young age only makes it worse because you're constantly swimming upstream. But there's no good time, no easy way to be trans in this culture regardless.
I was conscious of being a teenaged girl and tried to live like it, but even if you're lucky and validated by those around you, you come away with only a tiny fraction of the life experiences you're supposed to have. It can feel hollow.
And starting later just means more lost and missing time.
I see trans women in their 30s, 40s, and older desperately trying to catch up and emotionally working through things that should have happened to them decades earlier. It can be a messy process. But it's what society forces you to do. And then it mocks for you for it, no less.
But even having "always known," I feel like I'm made of scar tissue sometimes. That there's more damage than there is me even after all these years.
It's a very strange feeling having lived through a brief window of enlightened attitudes and ambivalence toward our existence, knowing under other circumstances, I could have transitioned as a kid, gotten blockers, etc. and passed seamlessly into the world as the woman I've always been.
It's even more horrifying knowing there are trans kids just like me who will be denied those opportunities or forced to flee their homes in order to have even a modicum of acceptance.
I have to believe that the GQP have over-reached. They've pushed too far, in too many directions, and they're going to suffer from it. Hopefully suffer a lot.
Unfortunately, it won't be everywhere. There will be pockets of resistance. The best thing we - all of us - can do is let those kids know there's better available, and that they have our support when they're ready for it.
