Big Life Events
Hey gang.
I’ve been missing for a little bit and I honestly haven’t been working on my projects much in the time since the last blog post because something has been weighing on my mind a lot for the past couple months. I’m writing this blog post not just for anyone following my game design and development process but for my friends, family, and anyone else in the periphery of my life to help explain what’s been going on with me lately and hopefully answer some questions in this medium where I’m able to articulate myself better than having to come up with answers on the spot.
Since I’m no longer on social media for the most part and can’t really just make a post on Facebook or whatever that everyone I know (for the most part) will see, allow me to make a little call to action right at the top of the post so if you read no further than The Big News, you know what to do: if you know someone who knows me, send this post to them! It would really help me out in spreading the word about this, especially to people who I don’t talk to too often. Additionally, if after you’ve read this, you have questions, and you have my phone number or some other way of getting in contact with me, feel free to reach out and ask — I’ll try to answer as soon as possible but know that constantly answering questions about this can be pretty draining for me, hence me trying to get ahead of them as much as possible with this post.
Alright, without any further ado:
I’m trans!
I came to this realization about midway through January of this year and frankly I was kind of panicking a bit about it. While I know that eventually the end result will be that I’m happier for it, it’s quite the vulnerable thing to have to tell people about yourself, especially these days where this essentially means consigning myself to one of if not the most oppressed and demonized minorities in the country. Even now, despite knowing what the situation is like nationally I’m not sure that it’s completely set in yet that that’s my new reality — several of my trans friends keep reminding me that if I wanna live as my true self that there’s new precautions I need to start considering. That said, I suppose that’s a testament to how supportive the people around me are. At the time of writing this, I’ve told the vast majority of the people I interact with on a day to day, including a large portion of my friends, my parents, and my sister.
Now, before I get on to trying to pre-empt some questions I’m expecting, I wanna address some housekeeping stuff about my blog and portfolio. For the past month and a half or so, I’ve been going by Natalie with my friends. Despite that, I’m not totally sure if that’s gonna end up being the name I end up going with. Due to this as well as the fact that my legal name obviously hasn’t changed yet, I’ll be keeping my deadname on this website for the time being. When it comes to applying to jobs, I’ve been advised it’s probably best to still apply with my legal name and then put in a preferred name if there’s a spot for it and/or mention the situation during an interview, so for all those reasons, I figure it’s best to keep things named the way they are for now.
Now! On to some questions I expect to hear or want to squash before anyone thinks to ask them:
Q: How long have you felt this way?
A: Well, I’ve only fully accepted it this past January, I’ve definitely been thinking about this for years, if not over a decade. I’ve definitely had vague thoughts and dreams about it for almost as long as I can remember. In terms of anything more concrete, I think I can track it back to around 2021 or so. In fact, I distinctly recall a particular moment in 2021 thinking to myself there’s a non-0 chance that I would end up transitioning at some point in the future, and, well, here we are!
Q: Are you sure?
A: Yes, quite sure.
In all seriousness, the thing I’m definitely sure about is I’m not happy in a testosterone dominated body. Whether or not my gender identity will land on fully female is still technically up in the air, but that’s my current understanding of myself. These things are a process! I follow several trans creators on TikTok and one of them said something that stuck with me:
“You don’t need to know what your gender is for sure, you just need to know if you want what the treatment will do to your body”
And the answer to that is yes I do want the treatments that are associated with transitioning.
Q: How do you know?
A: Honestly this is one of the hardest questions to answer and a question I’ve asked to several trans friends in order to try and help myself grapple with my own identity. No one can really tell you that you are or aren’t trans; there are some studies that show that trans people’s brain activity more closely aligns with their chosen identity than their assigned one, but it’s not exactly easy or conclusive to get a brain scan just for that unless you’re participating in one of those aforementioned studies.
Really the thing that did it for me was something called “the button test” in the community. Basically the idea is if you could press a button and instantly be your chosen identity, socially, medically, physically, etc., would you? For me, that answer was yes. As someone with ADHD, it can be really hard to start doing things especially when I know for certain that any gratification for it will be months if not years down the line. Thinking about that button test made me realize that the primary thing holding me back from embracing this was not whether or not I was trans but whether or not I wanted to put in the effort to make the transition, and we’ve finally gotten to the point where the desire to be not-a-man has outweighed the dread of everything I need to do now.
Additionally, since beginning to come out to people back in January, I’ve noticed a sort of interesting phenomena. There’s a thing that happens a lot to people with recent autism diagnoses where their symptoms start getting way worse in the wake of their diagnosis. The reason for this is they stop masking their autism and start to accept it more, which exacerbates the visible symptoms, making it seem like they’re suddenly getting worse, when in reality they’ve always been that way and just weren’t allowing themselves to be, usually at the cost of a great mental effort. This is essentially how I’ve felt in the wake of accepting being trans. Suddenly things that never really bothered me before make me feel dysphoric. The most striking instance of this was looking in the mirror one morning and noticing quite a few dark chest hairs, which made my skin physically crawl in disgust.
So to wrap up this long section with a summary, it’s hard to know for sure and my brain constantly nags at me saying “you’re just doing this for attention” or “you’re just faking it”, but the reality is cisgender people don’t question their gender identity and actually like being their assigned gender, neither of which are true for me.
Q: Aren’t you afraid that it’s permanent?
A: I’m counting on it, actually.
Q: This is so surprising! How did I not notice any signs?!
A: I’m asking myself the same question. No blame on my parents for this — they were trying their best with what they understood at the time — but I think it does ultimately stem back to how the idea of being transgender was originally explained to me in the wake of my grandmother coming out as trans when I was a lot younger. Yes they explained what was going on and that she was transitioning, but that was sort of the end of the conversation for the most part. Beyond that, I had very little explanation of what being trans was until I started meeting other trans people closer to my age and some of my friends I had grown up with started coming out. Suddenly that turned it from a “oh this is something my grandma did” thing to “oh this is something that can just happen” thing. Yet even THEN it didn’t click for me. The problem is nowhere along the course of any of this did anyone explain what gender dysphoria or gender euphoria felt like so I had very little way of catching it in myself. This is where I think the education system really needs to step up its game to help trans youths catch this in themselves as early as possible. Eventually the signs became so overwhelming it was impossible to overlook, which is where I was back in January, sitting in my car in the dark of night working, thinking to myself about how to proceed, trying to type up a message to a trans friend of mine that I’ve known since the second grade for advice. So yeah, don’t blame yourself for not noticing the signs, blame the poor education around gender and sexuality in this country.
Q: Well, do you like boys or girls?
A: Both!
But mostly girls…
Q: If I’m talking about you from before you transitioned, how should I address you?
A: Generally speaking, use my preferred name and pronouns. If for some reason the context of the story demands it, you can mention the fact that I’m AMAB (assigned male at birth), and that I’ve since transitioned, but please don’t use that as an excuse to revert back to my deadname and old pronouns.
Q: Is there anything I can do to help?
A: Being supportive is the #1 thing I can ask for. This means using my chosen name (Natalie), using my preferred pronouns (She/Her), yes even when I’m not present, and if you mess up, it’s ok, I sometimes forget too. What’s important is that you correct yourself quickly and move on. I know it can be tempting to apologize or try to explain yourself, but frankly that can only stand to make it worse. To me, the correction is a net-neutral situation already. All apologizing does is draw out the mistake and all explaining yourself does is leave you open to giving a very poor excuse as to why you forgot. So remember, correct quickly and move on.
Beyond that, I really hate asking for money but being trans is prohibitively expensive. For laser hair removal alone I’m paying over $150 a month for 3 years for just my face and underarms. So with my birthday coming up I suppose I get a pass on this, if you want to send me a gift I’ll really appreciate, know that money is honestly the big thing I really need right now. Beyond laser there’s also clothes which are terribly expensive and also the looming threat that my insurance might not cover Hormone Replacement Therapy, meaning I’d have to pay for it out of pocket.
Again though, I really hate asking for money and I know not everyone can afford to just send money to people, so if you need something to do to show your support for free, send me a message showing your support, be a vocal and aggressive ally to the LGBTQIA+ community, vote in ways that supports our rights, and do whatever you can to show that bigotry is not the majority opinion in this country.
Q: Can I ask you another question?
A: Please do! I do love talking about this and especially helping those who don’t understand it maybe understand it a little bit. If you have my contact information (or the contact information of my parents), feel free to reach out with your question! If not, I know it can be a little annoying to leave comments on here, but feel free to leave a comment with your question and I’ll try to answer it as best I can.
Q: Are you afraid?
A: To lampshade this one a little bit, this is not a question I expect to hear from anyone, but it’s one I wanna address anyways. Yes, I’m afraid. I’m afraid for so many different reasons it’s not even funny. I’m afraid for so many different reasons that it’s really hindered my ability to work on any projects that I love to work on because I’m so overwhelmed with fear and can’t bear to do anything that isn’t calming my nerves. I’m afraid of not being accepted by people I’ve known for my whole life and tearing apart relationships over it. I’m afraid that despite all my efforts people won’t see me as a girl. I’m afraid of the fact that my rights as a human being are debated for political capital. I’m afraid that this country is in the process of a genocide against people like me. I’m afraid that if I go outside dressed in a way that makes me feel comfortable that someone may try to end my life.
But I can’t afford to be afraid.
I’m tired of being afraid.
I’m tired of being pigeonholed into a blueprint of who people think I should be because of the parts I was born with.
I’m tired of masking who I am because I think people might think I’m weird or ugly or an abomination who deserves to burn in hell for the alleged sin of being who I am.
So yes, I’m afraid, but I’m not going to let that hold me back any longer.
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.”
If you read this far, thank you. Truly. I’d like to remind you that if you know someone who knows me, especially if you know I don’t often have the opportunity to talk to them myself, send them this post. It would mean the world to me.
