I just found an old photo of myself from 2019…
…and I just realized that it is a pre transition photo of myself.
I went from this…
…to THIS!
I am making a silly face, but in all fairness, I make that face all the time. Note that someone else is taking the photo.
In my early to mid twenties, I didn’t want to wear baggy or hardline masculine clothing because I was afraid of being “ugly.” I had little confidence and wanted to be more socially acceptable to minimize the likelihood of people being mean to me. I also associated menswear with a period where I was extremely miserable, aka high school. I convinced myself that I had wanted to look like a boy because I hated the world, and I’d been designing my appearance to be as repellent as possible so that nobody would bother me. But that wasn’t true at all. It was the narrative I pushed at myself to suppress the gender dysphoria that was consuming me from the inside out, like a gastric ulcer leaking digestive juices into my abdominal cavity.
Presenting androgynously was not an act of self hatred or self sabotage. I was punished by my family and my classmates for a variety of unfair, stupid reasons, but the biggest ones were being butch and exhibiting strong autistic traits. I was ostracized, shamed, and bullied relentlessly at school and at home, yet I clung to my gender presentation like my life depended on it. It probably did. I was asserting my personhood while everything around me was trying to stomp it out.
BEHOLD: a photo of me from 2010, age 17! This child is NOT cis! You can see the torment in my eyes combined with a grave self preservation.
As I entered my twenties and distanced myself from being butch, I knew deep down that if I got a men’s haircut, dyed it purple, put on some thick chains, and wore men’s clothes, I would like what I saw. I would like it so much that I’d never be able to go back, and it frightened me because I knew a masculine presentation could stigmatize me further. Because I had severe untreated social anxiety back then, the last thing I wanted to do was take risks with my identity.
It took me a very long time to work up enough confidence to accept being nonbinary, come out to everyone, and live openly as a butch androgyne. It took a lot of therapy, a lot of self reflection, and a lot of medication before my brain was calm enough to embrace who I truly am, and I am one peculiar little dude. I didn’t think I’d ever see the day when I’d be happy with what I saw in the mirror. I didn’t realize how many changes have taken place until I compared my current self to the one from six years ago. Damn… things really do change, and life really does start after 30.