Trans Masc / Nonbinary + Proud

During Covid while on instagram and Reddit. I saw happy and successful trans masc people. They were married, lookin good. Instead of feeling fear I felt envy. The envy turned into hope and momentum.

The first time I could really see my future as a trans masculine person was when I finally had a network of queer providers, be it doctors or barbers, who validated my experience and made me feel safe to be myself. It was like seeing a light in all the darkness

When I found the first things mentioning nonbinary gender(s) and/or lack thereof on Tumblr in 2010, and learned, being educated by the community who generously shared so much. I finally found people who had the same experiences as me and were at odds with "being a girl/woman." I wasn't alone? And it had an explanation. I found myself in those blog posts, shimmering like a mirror to a future I could finally behold. I came out to myself in 2012, and out to the public in 2014 as a genderqueer trans masculine person / nonbinary before finding i was also a trans man by around 2016.

I think it was actually when I was very young - before I felt too much pressure to conform to the expectations of my gender assigned at birth. I would watch my grandpa shave his face every morning when I was around 4 or 5 years old and I wanted so badly to shave my face too. He would sometimes even put shaving cream on my face. I think looking in the mirror and doing that with him, I could see myself as trans masculine. Even when I wasn't even aware of what that meant or was. I didn't understand or uncover my transness until much later on in my life, but so many moments from my childhood were portals to what the future held for me, I just didn't know it then.

I struggled with seeing my own face as that of a man for the better part of two years after coming out; for a long time, I could only see a woman and I eventually reached a point where my face in the mirror just looked like a nondescript person to me.

One day, my partner gave me a hug and I happened to be facing a small mirror on the wall. There, hugging my partner with a big grin on my face, was the first time I looked up and saw a man in the mirror. It was the first time that I felt like my transition was really going somewhere.

Being able to see myself as a man has filled in some of the blank spots in my future. It is easier to imagine a life moving forward when I feel like myself in my own dreams.

When I started to tape my chest and be among the public swimming shirtless, this was the first time I could see my future evolve to fully include my transmasc identity, more than before. I lived this truth as a child, but it became a reality when I started to show up in the world unapologetically (despite fear) in this way.

A friend of mine was starting up a brand new tabletop RPG campaign and asked me if I wanted to be a part of it. I accepted and created my character: a young wizard who was just learning about the intricacies of the real world for the first time. I wrote on my character sheet that he was going to be trans male, and my friend, who was trans herself, expressed her excitement at meeting my character and seeing how I would play as him. Other friends who were part of the campaign took notice as well, and they supported me too. Roleplaying as my little wizard guy gave me the courage to finally come out and start living the life I wanted to live. I didn't have to just dream about being masculine and confident. I could be that in real life too.

It was not until the invention of social media that I was exposed to the wide range of possible trans identities. I always thought that the only trans narrative was someone who always felt misaligned with their body from an early age- it wasn’t until I learned of non-binary identities that I could see a place for myself as a trans person.

The first time I could see my future as trans was when I was a young kid on the playground and then my early twenties. I didn't transition until my mid twenties.

I was always corrected by my family for being too masculine. If I were born a boy I would have been the family's pride and joy. I left home at 16 (in the 1990s) and was able to live as my true self. It wasn't until the past decade that I even understood that there was a term for who I am. As I have immersed myself in the community I have become more comfortable with the label. There was no one "Aha! Moment" only a gradual growing into myself that enabled me to put aside my fears of gatekeepers and embrace who I am.

My gender journey was very difficult when it began - I was still a child when I realized something wasn't right. I hit puberty early and genetics did not do me well in the chest zone - it was like I was blindsided and betrayed by my own body. I spent most of my youth miserable trying to fit into boxes that didn't work for me and once I came out as a teenager having my transness doubted by the rigid standards of passing as male. I saw my future on two occasions - first in college once I was able to untangle myself from the shackles of binary gender and the roles attached. I realized that I had to fight for and be myself and what that looked like for me was not being a binary man but whatever felt right. The hardest part was recognizing that this is *my* body to change into what I want it to be not anyone else's to decide what is or isn't good enough. The second occasion was when I was finally recovering from top surgery just a year ago from writing this. That surgery was the best thing to ever happen to me - it honestly wasn't even an explosive beautiful moment of joy. It was just finally normal. Like the sun coming out after the longest rain shower.

I was closeted still and attending college. I had a biology-related course where my professor was transgender. My professor was the first openly transgender person I had met in my life. They had transitioned a little later in life but had continued onwards holding a wonderful career and genuinely just being an excellent mentor and teacher. It was a slow realization over the course of the two semesters I attended their class but I began truly making plans for my future instead of assuming I would succumb to my fairly serious depression and other mental health issues. It all finally became clear to me when I had transferred to a university and I decided to cut my hair and wear a binder for the first time. I put on my favorite shirt and cried when I finally saw myself and that I was going to make it.

When I got my first binder when I was 19. I went off to college and could finally express myself without the judgment from my family.

The first time I saw my future as a trans man was the first time I saw a future for myself at all. I was a pre teen early 2010's and I saw a video from the first ever trans man I'd ever seen. He was a cosplayer in a fandom I was a part of and he was so excited to start hormones. Not only was it the first trans person I knew I'd seen but it was the first person who was an adult who was living a life I wanted.

The first few years I was in community with other trans folks and working out my own gender identity most of the transmasc narratives I encountered came out of Black or white contexts. While I felt inspired and had many resonances with these stories 'being a man' was presented in a fairly binary way that wasn't consistent with my experience and couldn't quite be mapped neatly onto my ethnicities. It wasn't until I saw a documentary film called Kumu Hina in 2014 that tells the story of Hina Wong-Kalu a native Hawaiian teacher and cultural practitioner who is māhū a word that translates to "middle" that I began to believe that there was a culturally specific and possible path for me to realize and embrace manhood. It would take a few more years to identify the ways I wanted to embody that but learning about Hina's story and her work was certainly a watershed moment in 'becoming' for me.

As someone who transitioned in my 40s I only saw a future for myself when I was mentoring younger Transmasculine folk. When I was their age I didn't know Transmen even existed so how could I see a future for myself? It was in their mentoring-up to me that I was able to start living my own truth.