Sometimes nothing can really happen on a given day and yet it feels like the ground has shifted beneath you.
Seeing the very obviously enby (or early transition trans woman being plausibly deniable) sit at the table next to you and conspicuously placing your purse in a really visible place so that if they ever did make eye contact you could try out the secret trans signaling system (unfortunately they were really focused on their computer in front of them so that exchange never happened).
Going to a busy bathroom and casually smiling at the woman who seemed surprised at either the tall woman, or the trans woman, or the tall trans woman as you came out and then just... washing your hands and leaving.
Getting misgendered in a language you understand but can't speak well and just kind of being amused by the whole thing because... have you seen the way I look now?
Going shopping and using your transitioned voice flawlessly and just being another woman going about her business shopping.
Some days I feel like I just want to shrink down and hide before I eventually push myself out into the world. Not today. Today I was happy to be very publicly myself. I had confidence. Confidence that I've NEVER HAD IN MY LIFE before.
I need more days like today. 💖
#TransGEM #TransJoy
I had a new (to me) feeling this afternoon:
I’m happy
I mean, I’ve felt happiness before when really good things happened in my life. But this was different.
I’m happy because I’m finally living the life I was supposed to live.
So much of my first almost two years of transition has been about endings. About my life falling down around me. About uncertainty regarding what I wanted and fear to take the next steps.
So today, here I am, sitting in a restaurant, in my cutest Librariancore outfit with my favorite skirt, chatting with a reasonably new in real life friend, and just being seen as another woman in that restaurant. And then going to order my boba (as I must), and having the cashier just take my order in the normal, bored way cashiers take yet another order. Because I’m just another woman ordering her drink.
Early on, so much of what pushed me forward was gender euphoria. But now, what I really enjoy is just being able to live the really mundane life of a woman.
And it makes me happy.
#TransJoy
New server, new #introduction! Hi, I'm Sophie (I sometimes go by Soph depending on the context and how #enby I'm feeling in the situation). In July 2023 I finally connected the dots and realized that spending my entire life wishing that I was a girl probably meant that I'm a girl. 🐣
In February of 2024 I got sick of running on the wrong hormones and started estradiol monotherapy HRT, which has absolutely kickstarted the process of making me feel at home in my body. 💉
But while I'm quite sure I'm trans, and a (demi-?)girl, I'm still figuring out what that means practically for my life. Some days I feel genderless and very nonbinary, and others I am 100% convinced that I will end up as the girliest girl out there.
My username, @sophiesometimes@anarres.family, is a bit of an anachronism at this point as I'm Sophie all the time now. But it still reflects the part of me that will probably continue to dabble in gender the rest of my life. In case you're wondering, yes, I was inspired by the song Charlotte Sometimes by The Cure, which was inspired by the book of the same name by Penelope Farmer.
So I'm at the point in my transition that TBH most of the interesting things about me are the gendery things, but I do have other parts to my life:
* I'm in my early 50s and yes, that is a really long time to have to pretend you're a guy when you're not. It sucked.
* I've been absolutely crazy about music (especially indie-flavored music) literally my entire life. Some of my current favorites are yeule, NewDad, and Blair Lee. But I'm allowing myself to like music that I told myself I wasn't allowed to like "because I was a guy," like Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodridgo, and Billie Eilish. And yes, I listen to girl in red, in case you were wondering.
* I've worked in IT my entire life, but am currently unemployed and have reached the age where it's really difficult to find jobs in the field. I have no other marketable skills, so this has been more than a little stressful. Ideally, I would love to write iOS apps and have written a few for myself, but I don't have a track record to prove I can do it so - yeah. I probably will just do what I've been trained to do (Java development), if I can find someone willing to hire me for that.
* I'm an exvangelical, Buddhist-curious mystic who still is drawn to the liturgies, symbols, and mystics of the church, but I can't ever call myself Christian again because it means something that I am not willing to be associated with. I have a lot of religious trauma that I haven't dealt with in the same way I haven't dealt with the cPTSD of being trans because it was just the water I was swimming in. I'm guessing I will be dealing with this the rest of my life. But I can't give it up entirely because I've had some experiences that make me think that there is an essential "isness" to the universe that is love and is holding us, even though it does not have the power to counter all the bullshit in our life. I don't understand why. But it gives me comfort in a strange way.
* In a prior life I was a blogger so I may write some epic longposts from time to time while I process stuff. Sorry about that. 🙃
#introductions
Sophie