When you feel gender dysphoria, you have a choice. You used to choose to run away. To ignore the dysphoria and just move on with the day.
But you can choose to focus on what makes you feel good.
When you put a shirt that doesn’t fit the way you want it to, you can throw on a hoodie and just try to ignore it like you used to. Or you can honor yourself and change it; you can go find an outfit that you actually like.
Because no one is going to do the work for you. When you still show up as masculine in a binary world, people will make assumptions. When you do client work and interface with dozens of people each week, many of whom you’re only meeting in passing, it’s not realistic to communicate your identity to everyone - and getting misgendered at work becomes a daily occurrence.
People who only meet you through a screen will make assumptions or tell you your identity doesn’t exist. And you can choose to try to ignore those things, or you can focus on using what’s actually in your control to feel good about yourself.
As someone who’s experienced 28 - almost 29 - trips around the sun, you know that the journey takes time. The small decisions you make today - like deciding to finally fix those bracelets that fell apart a few weeks ago - will help you slowly, over weeks and months, build a life that feels right.
And if you keep making those small decisions to run toward what feels good instead of away from what feels bad, you might look up one day and realize that you’re finally starting to feel comfortable in your own skin.
