One year ago today, I began hormone replacement therapy.
It took me over 40 years to figure out that I was a man.
Four decades of messages about who I was and what I was and how I was supposed
to be and it was hard to see anything else. Yet I could never figure out why
everything about me felt so wrong. My
shape and my curves and… my FORM. My form felt wrong. As I moved through the
world as a child… an adolescent.. a teenager… a young adult…. A not quite so
young adult.. a *gulp* grown up…. All of it. Felt so very wrong.
I remember being in school and the other kids making fun of
me for how I walked/moved/existed… how I moved.. I walked like a boy. I carried
myself like a boy. I dressed like a boy. Had I grown up in a world where visibility
was revolution and trans rights were human rights and there were trans men and trans women and trans people modeling to me
what life could have been, things would have been so different. I can’t even imagine
what my life would have been had I recognized Jackson at a young age. The turmoil
skirted. The trauma avoided. And a giant leap over a muddy puddle of confusion
and pain and shame.
The last few years has been a series of reliefs. The right to be handsome. Deep exhale. Jackson. Deep exhale. Gender affirming therapy.
Deep exhale. Hormone replacement therapy. Deep exhale. Each step along this
journey I have settled more and more into the man I was born to be. And each
step along this journey I have become more and more free.
It started a couple of months ago. All of a sudden. Mr. Clark.
Sir. He. Him. Gendered correctly. Consistently.
Something that a cisgender person can never fully realize is
that when you are transgender, you notice EVERY SINGLE TIME you are gendered. You
hear it, loudly in your ears… loudly and visibly in the room, like a flashing sign over
your head. Right or wrong, you feel it every single time. Every time I am
misgendered, I feel it. Every time I am gendered correctly, I feel it. And both
evoke tears for very different reasons.
I never would have said that my features were feminine. There
was never anything ‘girl’ about me except my woman’s hips and woman’s breasts and what was or was not between my legs. But
as I look back at a photo of my face a year ago, I can see so much femininity
in my face. Lips. Eyes. Shape. My narrow neck and cheekbones and softness. I
understand now as I look at this photo why I was misgendered again and again
and again.
And now I am startled to see the effects of the
masculinization in my face. Lips. Eyes. Shape. Thick neck and cheekbones and
hardness. And I understand now as I look at this photo why I am gendered
correctly again and again and again.
And I am so very grateful.
Many well-intentioned allies believe that now that I have
had gender affirming surgery and am on hormone replacement therapy that I have
transitioned. It is important for me to make it clear that transition is not
defined by these things. I was a man named Jackson long before I understood
that it was my name, long before I considered surgery, long before I began
hormones. I transitioned medically and surgically because that was the path I
followed - the right choices for me - and I was privileged enough to be able to
make both things happen. A trans person is trans with or without surgery, with or
without hormones, with or without legal name/gender marker change, with or
without public acknowledge and acceptance of their transition. Trans is trans and trans is beautiful.
Today, for me, I celebrate being authentically me. I
celebrate visibility. I celebrate being a proud transgender man. I celebrate my
freedom. And as I give myself my 53rd injection, I wonder how I will look in
another year. Deep exhale. I will look like Jackson.
