going on HRT is a serious decision you should make with the utmost gravity. people might think you’re cool, badass even. You might find yourself happy with your life, approaching the world with newfound wisdom one way or another. It might be what you want. It might get you off. It might just be a cool story to tell people. I, myself, found the initial experience was like I had sleepwalked through a nightmare for a quarter century - and for the first time, not just the first time I could remember but actually the first time, I was awake, and the sun was shining, and the world was beautiful. So obviously all of those are risks
Not to sound like a fuckin hippie but please for the love of god start noticing and appreciating the natural world around you. You don’t have to go hike the entire Appalachian trail or anything and I get that not everyone has access to the outdoors for various reasons, but just fucking … look around you when you’re outside. Notice the sky and the sun and the birds and creatures. Start caring about them. I’m begging you.
“You don’t need to understand someone’s identity in order to respect it” is often framed as a compromise with intolerance, like it’s conceding that it’s okay to think someone’s gender is bullshit as long as you don’t say that out loud, but frankly, I think it’s more concerning if someone believes they can understand the full spectrum of human identity. Doing mental gymnastics to cram everybody’s lived experience into a familiar analytic framework isn’t what respect looks like.
The words cross-dresser, transvestite, and drag convey the sense that these intricate expressions of self revolve solely around clothing. This creates the impression that if you’re so oppressed because of what you’re wearing, you can just change your outfit! But anyone who saw La Cage aux Folles remembers that the drag queen never seemed more feminine than when she was crammed into a three-piece “man’s” suit and taught to butter bread like a “real man.” Because it is our entire spirit- the essence of who we are- that doesn’t conform to narrow gender stereotypes, many people who in the past have been referred to as cross-dressers, transvestites, drag queens, and drag kings today define themselves as transgender.
— Transgender Warriors: A Movement Whose Time Has Come by Leslie Feinberg (1996)
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