Best For:
Individuals just starting their social transition, readers interested in literature from the transgender perspective, and advocates interested in reading literature by transgender Americans.
The Essence:
Read Time: 🕰️ 3-5 minutes| Mood: 🫂 Tender & defiant| Weight: 🍃 Deep & grounding |
The Vault:
- New Me – Socially Transitioning
- Advice & Positivity for Transgender People
- Changing Me – Medically Transitioning
- Growth, Dysphoria, & How Far You’ve Come
Letters Across the Years:
We spend so much of our lives at war with the timeline, desperate to rush past the awkward, painful chapters to get to the safety of the other side.
Looking back across more than a decade of living fully and unapologetically as myself, I’ve realized that every single version of who I used to be deserves grace and a pat on the back for allowing me to become me. This is a bridge built across time, a way to reach backward into the fog of early transition, to offer a hand to the younger versions of me who were just trying to survive, and to map out the hard-won resilience that brought me here.
This is a reflection on the terror of the closet, the exhausting trench-work of early medical and social transition, and the vital reminder that no matter how loud dysphoria shouts, a wider, kinder, truer life is waiting on the other side.
The New Me:
To the Version of Me at 22 who was just beginning to breathe…
Axton,
Right now, your world is both terrifying and exhilarating. You, my friend, are standing right at the threshold, holding your breath while trying to figure out how to take up space as yourself without setting off any figurative alarms.
At 22 years old, you are juggling the exhausting work of unlearning who you were forced to be and trying to piece together who you actually are.
I know you are spending too much time analyzing every voice inflection, every pronoun slip, every mirror check, wondering if people can see the heaviness of the weight you’ve been carrying. It feels like everyone has an opinion, a rulebook, or a glaring stare that tries to shrink you back down.
Yet, look at how stubbornly you keep reaching for truth anyway. You already cut your hair and began wearing clothes that finally make your shoulders feel like your own. You started quietly telling the people who matter most what name to call you.
“Axton”
I need you to know that the terror you feel right now doesn’t mean you’re on the wrong path. It just means you care deeply about your own survival as well as your own joy.
The days of second-guessing every introduction are extremely hard to carry, but every single small, frightening step you take is laying down the pavement for a future where you won’t have to constantly explain yourself just to exist.
Advice & Positivity for Trans People Not Out:
If you are reading this from a place where it still feels unsafe to speak your truth out loud, please hear this: Your reality is valid even if it is currently quiet.
You don’t owe anyone a dramatic coming-out timeline. Protecting your peace, your housing, and your safety always comes first. Living authentically in your own head and your own private spaces while you plan your escape routes or your next moves is a completely valid form of resilience.
The anticipation is almost always louder than the reality. Right now, your brain is running worst-case scenarios on an endless loop. While the world can be harsh, it will also surprise you with pockets of fierce, unconditional community and people who will love you without hesitation.
The future holds a profound quietness. Someday, the exhausting hyper-vigilance will start to fade. You will wake up, put on your clothes, walk out the door, and the first thing on your mind won’t be your gender… it will just be living your life.
Keep gathering your people and your moments. Whether it’s finding a band that makes you feel invincible, a quiet trail in the woods, or a single friend who uses your name without blinking… hold onto those anchors. They are proof that a wider, kinder world is waiting for you on the other side of this transition.
The Changing Me:
To the Version of Me Navigating Early Transition who was in the thick of the shift,
Axton,
You are right in the middle of the heavy lifting now, and I won’t sugarcoat it, I know some days feel like wading through quicksand. You’ve started down the path of medical transitioning, watching your body slowly begin to align with the person you’ve always known yourself to be.
I know the mirror is still often a battleground.
Dysphoria has a way of shouting so loudly that it drowns out every bit of progress you’ve actually made. You find yourself scanning every angle on your body, measuring changes by the milestone, and wondering when the constant mental surveillance is going to ease up.
I know it is exhausting holding space for the excitement of what’s changing while simultaneously carrying the grief of everything it took to get here, as well as the frustration you feel when things don’t seem to happen fast enough.
I want you to look around at where you are right now and give yourself some grace. You are enduring an awkward, beautiful, terrifying metamorphosis. The changes happening beneath your skin and in your daily life are real, even on the days when your brain tries to convince you nothing is happening.
Growth, Dysphoria, & How Far You’ve Come:
If you could fast-forward and look back at this exact moment from 11.5 years down the road, here is what you would see:
Dysphoria is a very loud tenant, but it doesn’t own the building. Right now, it feels like every single interaction is filtered through a lens of hyper-awareness and discomfort. Remember that every single month you push forward, the volume escaping that room gets turned down just a fraction. The day will come when you realize you haven’t thought about passing or being misgendered for hours, or even days, at a time.
Growth is happening, especially in those quiet, unglamorous hours. It’s not just about the medical milestones; it’s the way your posture changes when you walk down the street, the deep, settled relief in your chest when someone uses your name naturally, and the unshakeable self-trust you are building by simply refusing to give up on yourself.
The contrast is staggering. Looking back now from over a decade into this life, the person you are right now looks like someone holding their breath underwater.
You are going to make it to the surface.
You are going to inhabit a body that feels like home, surrounded by a life you carved out with your own hands.
Hang on. You are doing harder things than you realize, and you are already winning.
Looking Back to Move Forward:
As these letters to the past versions of me stack up, a bigger picture comes into focus, one defined not by the pain of the obstacles I faced, but by the relentless stubbornness of my own joy.
Looking back at the young adult terrified in the early stages of social transition, and looking at the person navigating the trenches of early medical changes, I realize that transition isn’t just a physical checklist. It is the steady, radical act of learning how to inhabit your own skin without flinching.
The distance between who I was forced to pretend to be and who I fought to become is measured in tiny, invisible victories: a name spoken without hesitation, a mirror that finally feels familiar, and the quiet realization that peace is no longer a hypothetical future, but a daily reality. I made it through the storm and the life waiting on the other side is… entirely, beautifully my own.
Read More:
His Granite Skin – Nature & Transitioning themed Short Story
De-Masking at the Tree-Line – Nature & Transitioning themed Short Story
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