tldr; It's going pretty fucking good.
Let's get into the nitty-gritty under the cut, shall we?
I have a mostly cis friend group, though I'm slowly expanding my friends to more gender non-conforming folks. It's not lost on me that if I had other trans/GNC folx around me when I was younger, I might have transitioned earlier, but let's be real—for me, transitioning in my 30's rocks.
I'm not financially dependent on family or a spouse that is overly-attached to a role I have to play. My partner has been from the time we met fifteen years ago, queer AF and continues to be queer AF. I'm also in a senior independent contractor role, which despite its job insecurity doesn't have me sweating about microaggressions from my fellow coworkers.
Also, I'm a lot less insecure with people pointing out when I don't bind or using "she" all the time, despite me asking them to stop. Sure, I have dysphoria, but I think if I were a lot younger it would really fuck me up. Nowadays, I generally don't see myself as having anything to prove to anyone, so it's just a matter of how much time I want to spend on someone who's not getting the pronoun change.
Some cool changes
- Libido is way up. God damn, I just want to crawl all over the walls and eat people of all genders like some kind of sex snake. Luckily, I have a few very kind and GGG people in my poly-circle >:)
- Deeper voice. That's neat. I'm doing regular vocal training to keep some of my range and still be able to sing.
- Hair! I have a fun and scraggly goatee coming in. I shave it now cause it's patchy.
- Way less anxious/self-conscious. I underestimated how much hormone therapy would change the way I relate to myself. I think I'm attractive now, which was a 180 from before.
Some ....weird changes
- UTIs. I'd heard that low estrogen can affect your bladder functionality, and my own personal experience confirms it. Thankfully, I'm past the toughest part, but me and my urologist were seeing each other once a week at one point.
- I got a lot more uncomfortable with cis women's comments on men as "unnecessary" and "all fucking idiots." I broke up with my girlfriend, and though we remain friends, those are the kinds of jokes-not-actually-jokes she makes. If that was a man saying that about women I would have noped the fuck out immediately.
I had a weird conversation with someone who was co-organizing a women's (and nonbinary) coding group, and as a former organizer of said group, I told her why I left (being nonbinary masc and not knowing where I fit in cis women's perspectives) and she promptly said, "but you're totally welcome! ...I mean, as long as you're not....a guy..... you know."
At what point is it weird?
I identify as nonbinary masc or maybe genderfluid masc but not a man. But when I go into (mostly cis) women's groups I'm not judged by the identity I hold, but by what cis women think constitutes a man. Which like...ladies, I don't even fucking know what the definition of a man OR a woman is.
If I were to go to a gastropub and order a "deconstructed male" what would that look like? Beard hairs on an oversized plate? Filetted pecs with a sprig of parsely? Julienned trauma and stunted emotional growth?
I sure hope not.
I'd like to be an emotionally healthy and compassionate person.
I also plan on continuing being the accursed "Capital F Feminist" and getting a bee into cishet men's bonnets on how our society expects free labor from women, and how they can and should stand up to liberate others.
These are the kinds of things I think about, just four months in.
Or watch me in eight months do a post that says, "haha just taped my bro to a wall (platonically)."
It's up in the air, really.
*HMU if you would like to be the platonic bro I tape to the wall
