Hann, United States (he/him)

“It's an incredibly scary time right now. Don't let them win.”

Was there a definitive moment you realized you were trans? How old were you?

I was 18, and a friend came out as nonbinary, and I realized it was a thing and I might be, too. Despite feeling like a guy inside, I had a difficult time accepting that because of the men in my life, so a nonbinary identity seemed to make the most sense at first. I knew at least I had never felt comfortable as a girl.

How soon after did you start to make changes? What were these changes?

I cut my hair short, although the barber gave me a girls pixie cut. I started to wear less of my "girl" clothes and more t-shirts and jeans. Eventually I got a packer and a binder and just broke down in tears because it felt so right, and I knew I wasn't NB, but a trans man.

I started testosterone at the age of 20, after complaining for dysphoria to my doctor for about a year. At the time you needed one year of "lived experience" in a male identity to get T.

The changes on T were slow at first. I switched to a higher dose quickly, starting on a low dose just to see if I liked it. I remember looking in the mirror every day to see if I looked different. It took two years for my voice to drop and any facial hair to grow, and by three years my beard was still the tell-tale "trans man chinstrap". I started to pass almost all of the time around year 3. I got top surgery four years after starting T, and started bottom surgeries about 8 years after.

Have these changes started to make you feel more comfortable in your life and body?

It's been ten years now. I've had top and bottom surgery (meta).

At first, it felt amazing. Like my body was missing testosterone and needed it somehow. I felt a sense of calm right away, but the anxiety over how slow the changes were and the transphobia I faced as an obviously trans person were very difficult. It took a lot of therapy to deal with it, as well as emotional issues I had from years of being mostly in a haze of derealization before transition. I knew I was making myself into a real person where I had never felt like it before.

Being seen as a man by those around me - at first my close friends, whom I still have, who never treated me any different than any other guy - and later by people in general, it felt like something that's difficult to describe. Like I had been made a real person and finally lived a life that felt like mine. As my body started to become something I resembled as mine, I would just look at it with a huge smile... I felt free, like I had broken out of a cage in the dark. I still had body image issues, I still do, but just like any other guy. Weight, hairline, stuff like that. It was at least finally my body that I saw, and embodied, and feel every day.

What would you tell your younger self? Would you do anything differently?

I wish I could go back in time to the me when I was about eight years old, who had it all figured out but no words for what I was feeling. I rejected the label of "girl", only accepting "tomboy", shopped in the boys section, stuff like that. I'd love to tell me back then that hey, you feel like a boy and don't like being called a girl not because of misogyny, but because you're a boy. You can live as a boy, and take medicine to avoid puberty, which I was terrified of.

But barring that, and what's probably helpful for other people to hear, is what I'd tell myself when I started transition.

Don't rush it. It will all come in time. One day you will look back and ask why you ever worried in the first place. Everyone's journey is different, don't compare yours to others.

Don't be afraid you're just crazy, or listen to transphobia. You know yourself and your truth. Stick to it. Don't engage with transphobia, don't seek it out online, don't argue with people who don't want to listen or learn. None of them make you more or less of a man.

Don't think that you sacrificed your ability to find love. Out there is someone who will love you for everything you have, not what you lack. They're real. Be kind to yourself.

Is there anything else you'd like to share?

To the cis population: Being trans is not a choice, or a type of mental illness like schizophrenia. It does not arise from the conscious part of the brain, but something deeper, where the body and self meet. Gender identity is real, but if yours has never diverged from your gender at birth, you would never know what it feels like if it does.

Doctors have spent over 100 years trying to treat Gender Dysphoria. With therapy, medication, endogenous hormones and darker things like electroshock therapy - nothing has worked to increase our quality of life other than transition.

Transition saved my life. It made me real, it made me feel whole. After ten years I regret nothing, and I am a much happier and healthier person. I believe if I had been made to stay the way I was, I would be dead.

To my trans brothers early in transition: Don't doubt yourself. Turn off the internet sometimes, the want for validation or comparing yourself to other trans men, saying "I'm not where he is yet, it'll never happen for me" or "this person has a different experience than me, so am I really trans?". Sit in the dark with the lights off and really think about yourself and how you relate to it, the kind of body you imagine, the type of person you want to be.

It's an incredibly scary time right now. Don't let them win. Our community has done what we do, knowing ourselves and our truth, being faced often with insurmountable odds, for a large part of history. Don't let them make you doubt what you know to be true about yourself, or scare you from taking the steps to make your life better and get the care you need to do so.

Have the gender-affirming steps you’ve taken impacted your overall happiness and sense of well-being?

Yes.