Transition After 40: I Thought I Missed My Window

I didn’t think I wasn’t trans. I just thought it was too late.

I wasn’t unaware. I wasn’t confused. I was negotiating with myself — drafting terms under which I could survive without ever actually becoming myself.

Gatekeep, Gaslight, Girlboss

I’d been gaslighting myself for decades. First, I wasn’t queer enough to transition from female to male: I was bisexual, with several relationships with cis men. No gold star for me! And I’d seen Boys Don’t Cry. All transmen start as hard core butch lesbians who want to upgrade to straight men. Of course.

Also, I wasn’t dysphoric enough to be trans: I’d always felt discomfort at being labeled feminine, but all women hate their bodies, right? Coming up in the 1990s and early 2000s, the “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” decades, of course all women want to be different, better, other. Plus, I was a curvy gal, so of course I hated my body! Of course, of course.

So what if I was obsessed with gay boys? In my youth, I was just a “fag hag,” modernly, a fujoshi (from the Japanese slang for a female obsessed with Boy’s Love manga or yaoi.) All my writing seemed to revolve around gay boys, and my self-insert character was a boy. That’s what writers do, yeah? Live…