Published on 09/04/2024 12:00 by Evie

When Did You Know?

Sorry for the break folks, writer’s block work BS, and other things tend to get in the way sadly.

Introduction

This week’s return post is my first attempt at a narrative writing style in an attempt to both expand my writing horizons and possibly provide a more engaging format for both myself and for y’all. This piece is about exploring a question that I have been asked A LOT recently by medical professionals, mental health professionals, friends, family, and even a few strangers. This mythical question of “When did you know?“. The short and sweet of it is that I still really don’t know, and I may never really know. Identity is less like a discrete answer and more a continuously evolving amalgamation of our biological, psychological, and social conditions constantly balancing to find a point closest to who we are. So starting from there let’s actually give this a shot.

Also, big shout out to the amazing Samantha Mills for inspiration on this from her classic The Rabbit Test

Stage 1: Ignorance is Bliss

The year is 2000, and a mother is being rushed to the hospital in the midst of labor by her husband. He is furiously driving and trying to call the schools to let their first children know what is going on and who will be picking them up. They speed into the drive up entrance to the emergency room as a wheelchair is rushed out for the mother.

A new life has been brought into the world, slime covered and far more red than many expected. They are given a small amount of time to spend with their parents before being whisked away for medical checks and paperwork to be filled out and finished. The child is examined and operated on with great efficiency, and placed in a nursery to visit once the mother has recovered and they can settle the administrative tasks remaining.

Before the ink on the birth certificate has dried the child’s fate is sealed in a way that no one is aware of yet. A creeping shadow unearthed that will follow the new child to the grave regardless. Despite this the act is celebrated and announced to all those around.

“IT’S A BOY!”

Stage 2: The Awakening

The year is 2004, and the boy has grown from his infancy through the terrible twos and threes and is now walking, talking, and beginning to form some of his earliest memories.

Memories like when he had asked for his first stuffed animal instead of an action figure and his dad began to yell and berate him for liking “girly things” while his mother quietly and embarrassingly purchased them for him which he had to hide from his father.

Memories like when his parents removed the care bears and disney princess movies from the VHS tape shelf and refused to replace them, only to be left with vapid superhero films as he lost interest in movies entirely.

Memories like peers embarrassing him in front of the class for the colors of his clothes, the pencils he had, or the media he enjoyed.

All of this led to an awakening of the creeping shadow that began haunting him from the beginning. What was once a vapid thought of ignorance was now a full blown survival mechanism. No longer could he not recognize the irrevocable chasm that laid before him. That he wasn’t right, something was wrong but he couldn’t put words or names to it. Even if he could, he understood that those around him, his father, his mother, his peers, his family would hate him for it and would never let him truly embrace it even if he fought tooth and nail. A quiet indignation creeps into his head “You must live for others, who you are is shameful and deserves to be hidden. You must try with every waking moment and every bit of will to reject what you know to be true and embrace what those around you say you must be. You are not a person but a vessel for others”.

Memories like the first time he spent staring into the mirror at himself wondering what was wrong. Something had to be wrong.

Memories like how wrong the flesh between his legs was. Why wasn’t it right?

Memories like the first time he hurt himself.

Memories like when that shadow had first awakened within him.

“You’re a boy!"

Stage 3: The Horrors

The year is 2013, and he was told it was going to happen eventually.

He remembers the day when in 3rd grade they separated the boys and girls and he was told of what his future would bring. The voice deepening, the facial hair, the body changes. Every year like clockwork it kept happening. Every year the dread buiilt from a long away future to the sickening present. All culminating to this moment, the moment in which the dread changed from anxiety to reality.

“Oh my god you sound like your father!”

The words cut through him like a knife, slicing every bit of hope that the horrors wouldn’t reach him. However, since that very first breath this was inevitable. The horrors had arrived, and they were NEVER going away.

Slowly but surely he watched as his body morphed and changed into an unrecognizable husk. The time spent staring at the mirror grew longer and longer. Suddenly the depression set in with absolutely no cause to be found. The once straight A student was quickly dropping further and further down the letter scale.

Sleep became the only refuge in which he could retreat where his body, his smell, his voice didn’t haunt him. Dreams of dread and death were sweet nectarines to be enjoyed over the living embodiment of a monster he was growing to become. The dreams he most savored were the ones where he did not exist at all. The truly great ones where the dreams he dare not speak a word of to others. He knew what putting those thoughts to sound would do not just to him but to anyone he told.

He hoped and prayed that it would all just stop. That something would fix what was wrong with him. That something would make these thoughts go away. That something, anything, anyone would save him from what haunted him for years and refused to go away.

“Why am I like this!”

Stage 4: What you could never be

The year is now 2016, and for a brief moment, he finds what he could never be.

Like a flashbang it all suddenly makes sense. He had never heard of them before but it was like a light cut through the fog to show him what was wrong.

Then it all faded away a second later.

Men in dresses, cocks in frocks, autogynephiles, the list of disparaging terms went on and on and on.

The people he trusted to give him accurate information described them as men who pretend to be women. How they will forever be branded that way. How they were predators, monsters, degenerates. No matter how sincerely they tried, no matter how much they sacrificed they would always be a laughing stock plunged to the absolute bottom of society. The only jobs reasonable for them to hold was that of a prostitute and even then they would never be as good as a “real woman”.

They were the butt of jokes, the lowest of low reserved for at best carnal desire and nothing more. He had gotten his life back on track, he was dating a girl, studying for the big college tests, he had a life and future ahead of him. Why in the world would he throw it all away for something he so clearly hated and despised?

Not to mention just look at him.

Keep looking at him.

Keep looking.

Remember the monster you’ve become.

Remember you can never escape.

Remember how broken you are.

Remember the horrors.

Remember what you could never be

Keep looking

Keep looking

“Why am I so broken?”

Stage 5: Please God No

The year is 2020, and he has finally broken.

There he sat frozen in front of the mirror once again, but this time, for a very different reason. It took a lot of drugs to get past his defense mechanisms he’s been building up since his childhood. The refusal to see who he truly was. The drive to live for anyone but himself, however, he couldn’t deny what he saw in that mirror.

He knew what this meant. He read about it online. He was told over and over again.

Don’t look in the mirror, don’t look in the mirror, don’t look in the mirror

Like the ignorant and headstrong man he was, he knew he couldn’t help himself.

He thought he would be ready. He thought it would be a fun little exercise that would end with a good laugh and his fate truly sealed. He would learn that he was going to be the monster he was forever, that nothing could change this, that everything would just keep chugging on like normal and this was going to be a distant memory in a few years time.

That was until he saw her staring back at him. Her beautiful long hair, feminine face, how she moved and smiled back at him. He reached out to touch her. The skin on her arms and hands was smooth, hairless, and pale. her fingers were delicate, matching the rest of her.

He kept looking at her.

She wasn’t a monster.

She wasn’t broken.

Could she really be him?

“Please god no”

He broke down that night in his bed. He knew what that had meant. He knew what it would mean. He didn’t know if he would be strong enough, he didn’t know if he could do it.

He had a friend freshman year who had gone through it. He watched as her friends left her, as her family pushed her away, how she had to fight tooth and nail for any semblance of normalcy or even just crumbs of respect. Tolerance was not what she received but merely bureaucratic disdain. It was as if every single social, economic, and familial force was acting with intention to make her stop. She refused to, she kept fighting.

Could he keep fighting like she did?

Could this really be the right path?

“Oh god, please no”

Stage 6: Acceptance

The year is 2021, and it was this or death. She chose this.

After years of hiding, of running away from who she truly was she ran out of room to run. She had to weigh turning around and facing the thing that had haunted her, for as long as she could remember, or to let go and simply waste away as a husk of a person.

She started changing how she presented herself. Slowly at first, and more as she got comfortable.

She started telling friends about it and much to her surprise she was not rejected but embraced for who she was.

She got her first appointment with a doctor, and took her first dosage of the hormones she hoped would fix her.

It was as if all the color in the world was drained away from the very beginning and finally, it had come back. Her life had meaning, she wasn’t constantly trying to get away from something, she got to be herself for the first time in her life.

In the end she chose life, the truth she knew down inside had finally taken hold and no one was going to be able to take her happiness from her. She was her own person and she loved it more than anything.

“This is the best decision I’ve ever made”

Outro

Hey y’all! I hope this story landed the way I intended it to and I hope it may help give some of the non-trans folks some insight into the question that all started this. I really enjoyed crafting this narrative piece and will explore doing stuff like this more in the future if this seems to do well with my normal audience of friends and (found) family.

Until I see y’all again, stay safe, stay hydrated, and enjoy the last bit of Brat summer <3

Written by Evie