Sharing a story I just told a friend of mine
For many years I felt isolated from the queer community as a whole. I was always “the transgirl”. I basically lived a lot of it as a token. I used to think it was unimportant to find people like me, that searching for other trans women to hang out with was a bad thing.
I did have one friend who was a transgirl, but… despite being my age we couldn’t connect on that level. She came out in her teens to supportive parents, and got her surgery at 18. She’s as different from me as a cis girl is.
My parents were… horrendously unsupportive. I was the only “male” on my mom’s side of the family blood-related to my grandfather. I learned the hard way that my mom cares more about having a son than a happy child. They would fight me at every turn, feeding me shit like, “I don’t see it.” and whatnot. I was constantly afraid of being kicked out of the house simply for changing my name, which is why that took me so long. It took me two years of hormones before I felt confident enough to go full-time. I felt… embarrassed for how long it took me.
I was afraid to go full time because I was afraid of being harassed by my peers, or even kicked out of the house. My experiences at conventions certainly didn’t make me feel confident in my passing abilities, and my school was far from the most queer-friendly.
So I felt cut off. I knew nobody like me, and well, cosplay is far from a hobby for trans girls, so I’d have nobody to talk to. And being a trans woman is just so stigmatized that I feel I can’t rant, because why would you want to be feminine? Feminine bad, masculine good! It’s basically why I, and many other trans women, are upset by how trans guys tend to be more accepted by queer circles due to the idolization of masculinity… ahhh I’ve gone on too long.
