the real hard-hitting trans hypothetical:
You have a time-machine with only enough power to jump you backwards in time once and for only 30 minutes. What age is the earliest you think you could realistically help your pre-transition self figure out the whole Trans thing with such limited time?
You have a time-machine with only enough power to jump you backwards in time once and for only 30 minutes. What age is the earliest you think you could realistically help your pre-transition self figure out the whole Trans thing with such limited time?
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So when do you pick? Pre-puberty? Mid-puberty? Post-puberty? You only get the 1 shot at this and only 30 minutes.
Not that I've thought about this scenario a trillion times or whatever 😔
plus there are things that arent strictly about transition (but would help the cause) that i needed to hear at that age
like i'd probably try to tell myself at 7 or smth, cause there's no shot i would've transitioned in hs, but beforehand it mightve happened, if i were introspective enough
or even younger maybe,
bc little as it seemed that way when I was younger, my parents have turned out similar to yours 🙃 ah, well
"Hey. Remember that time you wanted that life-sized Ballerina Barbie? Well...about that..."
now whether i could convince her to overcome her fears? i think that would still require the next 30y
but I was asking the wrong questions & didn't want to weird them out with my "kink"
tried coming out to family as bi "as a test run" (for what exactly? couldn't think too hard)
went poorly
30 min would be plenty for "this is what HRT & FFS do for you- go ask your friend to do your makeup!"
hell, she & I had a memorable (bad) acid trip at which I wouldn't have batted an eye at a visit from future-me 😭
It’s more realistic to say either 15 or 16; “I know the feelings you feel and they won’t go away on their own.”
i'd just sit on the corner of my bed and tell myself "you'll get there don't worry, but you *are* a girl."
any earlier and knowing w/o being to act on it woulda hurt too much
Gaza can you help me please by donating or sharing send me love❤️🌸🫶🙏
High school sucked, and I'm not sure if it would have sucked more knowing transition was a real possibility for me, but still having to endure an unwanted puberty first.
My daughter is the single upside of my being trans, and altering my history would risk her existence.
I would have had zero support for transition though in the early 80's.
I had a trans coworker at the time and I knew I was some kind of trans but too scared to admit it for another 7 years
https://bsky.app/profile/twelfth.bsky.social/post/3lkvljosqwk2v
instead i would tell my younger self to open up more. i went to a very rural school, but i was far from the only queer kid. i would have been bullied more but i wouldnt have been so alone and miserable
So 53, maybe a handful of minutes before I figured it out anyway.
Self-crit is a good thing and should reinforce your core values
i was so oblivious to everything involving gender before that
so that would really only get me like a 3 year headstart
i *knew* well before then, but i was hardly even aware it was an option, much less a credible path for me, before then
About 34 or so. It'd still be a huge improvement (can I also bring back winning lottery numbers to fund the transaction lol)
How wildly different our lives would be if we'd both started much earlier and of course we would never actually want to but the fantasy was a fun thought experiment type thing
All I have to say is: "There is a real way for you to be a girl just like Mia from 'Rite of Passage', but you have to be brave."
That would have done it, I think.
It's hard to imagine a divergent timeline that I could've managed to convince that scared critter to take a chance like this.
if i started transitioning earlier, even just a few years, i might not have my forged family, my partner, my fiance
i wouldn't risk losing them for some unknown, maybe-better future
Either way it would be pretty easy. "Find a LGBT affirming therapist. You CAN be a lesbian."
13-14 is the answer. I knew I was trans then and told the only queer adult I knew at the time. He said it was a phase and that I'd regret transitioning. He was abusing me so he had an interest in keeping me as a "boy".
I would go back and tell myself it's not a phase.
16 I believe
It wouldn't require a lot of convincing, it would be more of explaining transitioning and what steps to take next.
time travel there
hand her the book and scream to both her and my mom “HEY DUMBASS, YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER ACTUALLY” and stay behind to answer any further questions
I think I would go back to when I was ten and I’d bring a reading list of things to help the independent research along.
But I'd most likely risk going back a few more years to like 2010 to try to save myself from some unfortunate physical changes 😞
I was around enough punk rock music & radical friends going into high school & didn't know potential
An apparition that looked exactly like me but as a woman, taking me aside and explaining
Doctor told me it was fine to be low as long as I didn't have any symptoms I cared about 😂
I think telling her "[Kat] doesn't actually feel the dysphoria she has yet, let's try a different approach that doesn't focus on that as much" would work better.
so many ppl don't understand that what they're feeling is dysphoria yet
it wasn't until i started painting my nails and wearing earrings and carrying a purse and shit that i was like "wait- 🤔"
3 ez wins in 1 minute, 1 total failure in 29.
From early childhood at age 6 where I was so intensely curious as to why girls were different and why I couldn't be like them. Seeing Ranma and being filled with envy.
To my 19-20 year old self who read SO MANY gender transformation manga.
tbh just telling him "take the fucking finasteride u idiot, ur gonna lose all ur hair in a couple yrs otherwise" would fix so much for me, even if nothing else changed
Though even i knew that info I don't think i would have had the supp. or ability to get that medical help till maybe like 14-16.
From 3 years waiting for HRT, down to 6 months. Gods.
I was too repressed from childhood abuse to penetrate at any other point it would matter
And if I did I would be too stubborn to accept it
At best I could just back in time and warn my younger self about taking pictures (because old pictures give me dysphoria lol)
Then I was sent to a religious all boys school which drastically shifted my day to day and social relationships, and damaged my sense of self. The message wouldn’t have got through then & for several years after.
It would mostly be like, "hey I know things have suddenly gotten really shitty and you don't understand why. I'll explain what I can, but I need you to trust me and do exactly as I say."
Transitioning around my family would be off the table, but starting at 18 would change everything.
Actually working on that and not repressing for another decade+ would've changed my entire life.
I think I really did just need to meet a trans woman and realize this was an option. That and future you saying "yes that is dysphoria you dork" carries some authority
I would also easily be able to convince myself I was a time traveler.
I should have said yes
I'd go back to that time and tell myself 'hey, you're simply allowed to be a girl.'
There'd be nuances, of course.. but yeah
but I'd go back to around 25 and tell myself to ignore my then-partner's TERFy views and just rip the bandaid off. your feelings don't go away, but she does
Sadly, it's got to be when I was older. The summer I was 18 I was "a straight guy" dating a lesbian and working as a girl at ren faire. That's my window.
like 5th grade ez. by 6th grade the hair dysphoria had started but i think if i gave little me a gameplan to figure out shit would be safe, 5th grade 100%
"you're a girl. you're good at spreadsheet. your wife's aim handle is _________"
i ~want~ to say 15, deep down she'd know i'm right, but there are so many ways that could have made it worse
by 18 i was fucking desperate and it would have made so much sense, i really think 30 minutes would work
i had a late & slow puberty so starting at 18 would be no huge loss
I would still take the 30 mins trip to slap her about and yell YOUR PLAN STINKS
I don’t think I would go back though. Undoing the past would change the present, and I really like where life has brought me.
And I could throw in a warning that my college girlfriend is just... not worth it.
A safer bet would be sometime in 2020, I could've shaved a couple years off the realization, easy. By then I was in my own place with my own income and definitely had some Gender Feelings.
and a lot of my body frame changes didn't happen til late teens so id beat that
When everyone else did completely over the top drag at queer summercamp and I just tried to find the most boring nonbinary view of myself without the word existing. And that moment in front of the mirror where crossdressing felt wrong, but not completely and I decided to ignore it for 10 years.
If not - early 2019. Could have cracked myself in an instant instead of waiting til 2023
it's cheating though as i knew *way* before then but this was when i was convincing myself there's no way i could...
i would have basically 0 support for it
Post *the event which has prompted depression/suicidality ever since* and in an appropriate place to talk to young me before enlisting. Let him know what to avoid and that transes become allowed in 2 years.
Hit early 20s with the heels going.
Be out prior to 30 with DE 6 FIG skills
Maybe
Maybe
Need to kick the kid at like 14 to be like "you really like girls. You can like them and be one. All your friends are already in the GSA, how the fuck didn't you know. Trust me, study Spanish hard, it becomes important"
have a discreet conversation with one of the trans woman that was at my brother’s place when I would be 16.
once i was at UT though, if i had come back in time and told her things only she (me) could possibly know, yeah... i could have done it. so 18 i guess 😭
And she needed to fight her bigot of a paternal grandfather.
Sadly, some bad times before then 🤷🏼♀️
if i can: probably like, age 12
if not, maybe like 15 or 16
in both cases it'd probably still take me a few years for her to properly do anything about it 😅