I'm a trans woman in my 40s, Despite everything I say below, it was 1000% the right decision for me, and I’m far happier and a better person for having done it. So I’m certainly not saying that you shouldn’t transition.
There’s an attraction to instability and novelty I see in your letter that’s familiar. You really want to get that nailed down (glad you’re in therapy!) because it’s has a lot of potential to make transition a lot harder and more fraught than it has to be. You also don’t want to get TOO caught up in it and lose every other part of you. Because then achieving your goal just leaves you sad and bored and aimless. Or even worse, you find out that wherever you go, there you are.
The entire queer community seems to be the fake part of the queer community. My experience has been that, while only a small number of lesbian spaces are closed off to me, around half of them unofficially have distaste for me.
Many people see me as a man. I’m at peace with that now, but it took the better part of a decade. The instant I don’t know one of the cis girl shibboleths for my generation or talk about my far past I magically become a funny gay man who somehow likes women. Or a straight man, predatory and threatening in the safe queer space. Being seen as a tourist, at best, in the spaces that you belong is a hellish feeling. Solidarity for that.
You aren’t the first leftist to end up owning a home in the suburbs, and you won’t be the last. People in our society who don’t pursue and ultimately achieve that dream are heavily punished. It’s natural to want to avoid that. It also does no good to live an unstable “authentic” life where you’re struggling to pay rent on a minwage retail job and have no time for things like political work.
I'm a trans woman in my 40s, Despite everything I say below, it was 1000% the right decision for me, and I’m far happier and a better person for having done it. So I’m certainly not saying that you shouldn’t transition.
There’s an attraction to instability and novelty I see in your letter that’s familiar. You really want to get that nailed down (glad you’re in therapy!) because it’s has a lot of potential to make transition a lot harder and more fraught than it has to be. You also don’t want to get TOO caught up in it and lose every other part of you. Because then achieving your goal just leaves you sad and bored and aimless. Or even worse, you find out that wherever you go, there you are.
The entire queer community seems to be the fake part of the queer community. My experience has been that, while only a small number of lesbian spaces are closed off to me, around half of them unofficially have distaste for me.
Many people see me as a man. I’m at peace with that now, but it took the better part of a decade. The instant I don’t know one of the cis girl shibboleths for my generation or talk about my far past I magically become a funny gay man who somehow likes women. Or a straight man, predatory and threatening in the safe queer space. Being seen as a tourist, at best, in the spaces that you belong is a hellish feeling. Solidarity for that.
You aren’t the first leftist to end up owning a home in the suburbs, and you won’t be the last. People in our society who don’t pursue and ultimately achieve that dream are heavily punished. It’s natural to want to avoid that. It also does no good to live an unstable “authentic” life where you’re struggling to pay rent on a minwage retail job and have no time for things like political work.