She's Giving Acceptance
Today we work on acceptance and some other stuff idk
Hey friends, sorry I didn’t write for a while. I moved into a new apartment and then I got really sick and tired and all my routines got fucked. But I’m back, for now. Thanks to everyone who wrote in, and if you have a question you can ask it here.
Dear Lithium,
I’m a younger trans girl working at a dispensary and I have this older trans lady customer who I kinda look up to. She is so sweet and kind to me but I can’t help but feel this deep sense of shame when she sees me. I feel like I’m lazy and gross when she sees me on days I’m not super femme or the days I can’t shave. It’s gotten to the point where I can barely make eye contact with her. I’m not sure if it’s envy or self hate causing me to have these feelings but I want to get past them.
Any tips on being less of a weirdo around her?
Dear Weirdo,
I totally feel you, and I relate to why you feel shy around her. I get the same way sometimes.
It important to remember that, if she’s that much older than you, she has likely felt more shame in her life than you would know what to do with. She has probably felt more envy towards pretty trans girls than you ever have.
I think it’s normal to feel how you’re feeling. Maybe it’s like, “she has this whole trans thing figured out and I don’t”. Idk. That’s how I feel sometimes. I have two pieces of advice.
First. No one has this trans thing “figured out”. We’re all doing it on a day by day basis. Some of us have found little grooves in the landscape that we’ve become comfortable in, but in the end transness isn’t a fixed thing. I change my gender so much that I don’t even bother telling anyone.
Two. She probably thinks you’re really sweet. She probably remembers what is was like to not have her beard removed yet. Or to be just starting on hormones, or whatever you’re going through with your transition. If she is being kind and sweet to you it could be because she sees you and loves and accepts you. It might be because she loves trans people, because she understands the trans journey. Just a theory.
If you can muster the courage, start a little conversation with her. And if that goes well, maybe then or maybe next time you see her, ask her for coffee. Our younger generation has been utterly robbed of relationships with trans elders. AIDS killed half of them and criminalization and bigotry hid most of the rest from us. We’ve resorted to the internet for how to transition but the internet is garbage. You have an opportunity to hear some wild stories from before the days of Blahaj and Discord.
Dear Lithium,
I’m 28 and starting hormones next week, but i just can’t see my body ever looking remotely fem. I have such dark body hair that even freshly shaved, it still shows through my skin like a super fucked 5 oclock shadow. I know I’m not the only one but i don’t know any other trans people. Can you just tell me that it’s all gonna be okay?
Dear Fucked Up 5 O’Clock,
I have light skin and a dark beard. I hate hair removal and sorta gave up on it, though I can mostly cover it up if I shave really close and then throw a bunch of makeup on. But you know, on most days I don’t do that. On most days I’m a feminine looking person with a deep voice and a bit of beard shadow. I get catcalled from the back and gawked at from the front.
You know. I’m not going to tell you that it’s going to be okay. Most days for me it doesn’t feel okay. In fact, I get pretty fucked up about my various dysphorias. What does get okay is my ability to be okay with that. I am learning to be okay with not being okay. There’s sort of a poetic justice in that.
I touch on this topic a bit more in the next question.
Dear Lithium,
I’m coming up on year four on hormones and wondering when “it gets better.” Some days life feels like a constant succession of not-yets. I am just as dysphoric or more so than when I started and struggle to cope with the reality of my body. I keep returning to the seemingly insane idea that a succession of surgeries will “fix me” and I’ll be able to love and tolerate myself if I just get that next procedure that’s right around the corner. Life feels like something always being deferred until after my next recovery, but the self-love never comes. How do you handle self-acceptance in the moment? Does it ever actually get better? Can surgery just be a form of glorified self-harm? Will I ever recapture the golden moments of that first dose of estradiol, the high of a pair of cat ears, my first discord account? Please advise.
Bitter Old Bitch
Dear Bitter Old Bitch,
“A constant succession of not-yets” is a beautiful phrase and a difficult sentiment. There’s a lot in here. I think we all want to think that being trans “gets better”. I remember that phrase, “it gets better,” being really popular when I stumbled into r/egg_irl somehow like the week I realized I was trans. But that’s it, it’s just a phrase. That’s some Steven Universe, Blahaj, r/egg_irl, r/traaaaaaaa nonsense.
Sure. Maybe certain things get better. I can almost look in the mirror since I got FFS. That got better. I don’t have testosterone poisoning my girl-brain anymore, so that got better. I’ve even gotten more comfortable looking like a huge fucking faggot in public, so that improved too.
But what about my internal sense of unworthiness? My deep dissatisfaction with not only myself, but my whole life? These are still major issues for me today. The paintings of “omg it’s going to be okay sister :3 xD rawr!” are bullshit. I wish this community had more emotional maturity.
I’ve said this in a few other places recently, but here’s what I do. I am not going to be accepting me as I am in the near future. I really want to but that’s just not realistic considering what I’m up against. I have too many issues and they run too deep. But that being said, acceptance is a vitally important skill, especially for trans people. So instead of the peaches and flowers of accepting myself, I accept my hatred. I accept my anger. I accept my dysphoria. I accept my pain. I am angry, sad, and tired, and frankly, some days I want off this fucking ride.
When I accept these things, my life gets a little bit easier. I don’t stop feeling bad, but sometimes I forget that I do.
This is not a fun answer. But as a traumatized, mentally ill, chronically disabled dumb hoe transsexual, I kind of have a lot working against me. I don’t know what you have working against you, but it sounds like it could be a lot too.
Leave some room for grace between those negative emotions.
Dear Lithium,
hai ♡
Dear ♡,
heyyyyyy
Dear Lithium,
I am trans, about 7 months on HRT. Just wondering how long you have been on HRT and when you knew for certain that you we’re a trans woman and not a loser. I am like half socially transitioned (out to friends but not family/work) and feel slow in my process but also deliberate? Idk overall mixed and want to keep going on in life in this way but worried what I will think and feel 20 years from now
Dear 7 months,
You make a bold assumption that I’m not a loser (I run a fucking meme account, babe), but I’ll let it play. For now.
I’ve been on the ‘mones for about 3 years. Ultimately I’m still a baby. I actually like to measure my transition by a different time scale, which is, “when did I start doing the internal work needed for me to begin a social and medical transition?”. But the answer’s pretty similar, I started hormones as soon as I could figure out how to admit I was trans to another human.
It is OKAY to be slow and deliberate in your process. I was on hormones for around 9 months before the crushing weight of reality convinced me to come out to my family. I rocked a beard for a little while after that even.
It’s okay. It’s okay. If you live for your truest self today, everyday, then in 20 years you’ll be in that same boat. That’s some ultimate acceptance of the self shit.
It takes an incredible amount of strength to do what you’re doing. I’m flummoxed by how difficult that period of my life was. Take it a day at a time.
I really appreciated reading this. Thanks for starting this up again. It’s very cathartic to read such a wide variety of trans experience