No one told me about this part of transition. The part between the celebratory highs (my first shot! My first time injecting myself! My T party!), between the moments of joyous realization that my body is changing (muscles! peach fuzz!). I don't mean the part where I don't pass yet, or the part where this change or that change hasn't happened yet, cause I knew that would take a while. I mean the part where I feel lost, everything feels wrong, and I still can't bear to look at or think about myself, just as in the worst moments of dysphoria pre-T.
It's not that no one told me there are tough parts to transitioning. Among others, my girlfirend (who is a trans woman) has always been careful to give me an honest, balanced, and realistic picture of what transition is like - that there are lows as well as highs, that it takes time and I must be patient, that there will be setbacks even if the overall trend is upward. Still, I wouldn't have thought that after T, I might feel so groundless - disconnected from being female by the extra 25mg of testosterone percolating through my body every week, by the fact that I have fuzz on my face and my muscles are growing while my butt is shrinking (not to mention by the fact that I never felt female to begin with), while also feeling like it's impossible for me to be male, because I do still have curves, and even worse remnants of femaleness.
I'm nothing at the moment, which is ground I thought I wanted to inhabit last summer, but not now. This no man's land of not this and not that, or too much of this and not enough of that, is harder to bear than I would have thought. I expected the confusion of strangers, the continuation of misgendering, for at least a few months more. But I thought I would feel hopeful, happy, excited - at least, no worse than before. Instead I feel farther than ever from masculinity, despairing of ever achieving it, loathing toward my body and disappointed and uncomfortable with how I look and am perceived by others. Things were supposed to get better. I was supposed to look and feel more male. But at the moment, I feel like hardly more than a girl in drag. (Which is silly, because I don't feel like I'm a girl, and feminine articles are what feel like drag to me. But this is what I think my outward appearance seems like at the moment, and that's why it hurts so much, because it's the opposite of how I feel on the inside - I'm not a girl; these male clothes belong on me and are not drag.)
I know in a few days I'll probably feel better, because I'll notice some new change or further development, and I'll remember that things really are getting better, bit by bit. Having written this down, I feel a little better already, because the big picture is back in sight. There are things going on which I've barely hinted at, because you just don't want to know; it's gory and graphic; but that too will pass - it may take months, but as long as I keep sticking that needle in my stomach every week, things will keep changing, and even the worst parts of female anatomy will fade. I may feel lost in fog, but at least I have a compass - I know which direction to go. I just need to keep picking my feet up and putting them down, one after the other, until I get there.
