Member-only story
As a transgender woman or trans man, it is often very difficult to find your happy place.
A happy place can often be called gender euphoria for all of us who suffer from gender dysphoria. If you don’t know, dysphoria is the often evil process of hating the gender you were born in. After all these years, I still dread the first look in the mirror every morning. Who will I see looking back? My same old masculine self, or a femininized version of him. Some mornings I land in my happy place and others I don’t. I usually settle on a middle point until I am done with the mirror. On occasion too, I suffer from having an impostor syndrome. When I think do I even belong here at all. Happily, the syndrome goes now away quickly because I know I have earned my place as a transgender woman.
Earning my place was never easy as I never inherited any feminine characteristics to start with. What I did have was a testosterone damaged body to work with. The only positives I had to work with were the compliments I received on my freshly shaven legs at Halloween parties. Then I had the tendency to overdue it when I explored feminine fashion. I thought I should emphasize my positives such as my legs and at the same time play down my body negatives such as a thick torso. All of it led to massive fashion mistakes before I learned to dress to blend in with the other women I…
