@wundayatta I met a trans person when I was 18 and a freshman in college. I learned of gender ‘deviance’ and gender transitioning and gender variance over the four years after that. I think somewhere around my second year in graduate school (the masters program, not the current program), I started realizing that I don’t feel like a woman and that I don’t feel like a man, that these things are created and have no meaning for me. It wasn’t a huge deal or anything but I wasn’t able to articulate these kinds of things because my now ex husband was scared to discuss it and was not supportive because he always said passive aggressive things like ‘I wish you’d wear more dresses, that’s how I’d like you to be.’
So it wasn’t until wis.dm and meeting Alex and Dylan on there that I began to speak my truth, so to speak. I explained it to them and to my best friend. Alex and my best friend were always on board, Dylan not so much. Eventually, I began to speak about my identity openly and at events and in forums, etc. In my head I don’t often think about it, only when others are sexist or gendering me or refusing to be respectful do I remember that what they see is different from what I feel.