Everyone's journey on how they discovered they were trans will vary. Mine may have started when I first came out as gay (2021) and was thinking of changing my name. I didn't have thoughts of being trans until the summer of 2023 while in Japan. I know that about a year or so before going, I had some thoughts of being trans, but didn't act upon them.
It wasn't until I started seeing videos on YouTube and posts on Instagram of trans men being happy with their body. I saw how happy they were, and wanted that for myself. I saw a video on YT (can't find it in my history) of a psychiatrist asking two questions:
- Do you want to feel like a woman?
- Do you want to be a woman?
I answered "yes' to the second one and began my journey.
As I was in Japan and unfamiliar with the process, I decided to do some research and found out that getting hormone replacement therapy (HRT) could be tricky and even take longer than I wanted. So, I decided to move back to the US to start medically transitioning.
I came out to my two school friends [see picture] (as I was studying Japanese at the time), but didn't start socially transitioning while there. (I honestly was scared of what the school and other classmates would think.)1
Once I decided that I'd have to leave, I let the school know to begin the process. After getting back to the US, I scheduled an appointment with a local hospital. I was worried the doctor wouldn't prescribe me estrogen. I was expecting some kind of backlash, having been raised Mormon – which being trans is not accepted within the religion. Luckily, my doctor was kind to me and prescribed me my first prescription of estradiol2, 2 mg tablets.