Hey, I'm Sophie (these days.) I originally wrote this letter to send to family and friends as part of my journey towards coming out as transgender, but I've been encouraged to share it elsewhere as well. I don't know how often I'll update this blog in general, but this feels like a pretty good place to start.

"Hey family and friends,

So, many of you already know by now that I’m transgender. I guess I’m writing this to clarify just what that means in my case, so that you hopefully better understand where I’m coming from. I’m not completely sure what information you’re supposed to include in a letter like this, so I suppose I’m going to err on the side of over-sharing a bit. I may also over-explain some things for many of you, but I know that exposure to transgender people and concepts varies and it’s possible that this is all completely new for a couple of ya’ll. I should point out that I’m not an expert on anything other than my own experience (and I don’t even feel like an expert on that) so I encourage - and honestly appreciate - any research you feel up to doing yourselves.

In case anybody is fuzzy on the basic definition, being transgender means that your internal sense of your gender doesn’t match your body, or the gender you were assigned at birth. Cisgender is the term used to describe the opposite, when your internal sense of your gender does match your body and/or the gender you were assigned at birth. Despite the body I’m riding in - and being assigned male at birth - I feel like a woman on the inside and while I didn’t always recognize it for what it was, it’s a feeling I’ve had for as long as I can remember.

There are a lot of misconceptions and harmful stereotypes about trans people floating around, in the media and within society as a whole. Some of these are loud and overtly hateful, but others are just subtle, reinforcing reminders that being trans = bad/abnormal. The simple lack of representation in itself is enough to make someone feel very alone, too. I think some exposure to accurately portrayed trans folk that didn’t reinforce transphobic stereotypes would have gone a long way for me, but that’s rare now and it was virtually non-existent when I was growing up.

A big part of my journey towards accepting that I’m trans has involved recognizing that I have internalized many of those harmful attitudes towards trans people myself. I had subconsciously accepted that trans people are abnormal, and so I thought, “how can I be trans? I’m normal!” Even as I started accepting the truth, I found myself justifying not transitioning with the thought that “I want to be seen as a woman not a transwoman” because I had subconsciously accepted the idea that trans women weren’t “real” women. On top of that, I think most everybody who has been socialized male has grown up being “corrected” for any feminine behavior they might exhibit. I think it’s impossible for us not not to internalize, on some level, that girly = bad from that, and that’s its own can of worms to work through. Anyway, I mention all of this to say that I get that there’s an adjustment period here. None of us are exactly primed by society to accept transgender people.

I think it’s also important to point out that there is no “one-size-fits-all” path for being transgender. Not all trans people choose to transition into living as another gender, and there are non-binary trans people who don’t identify with either gender at all. Even for those that do transition, that can mean any number of different things. Some people simply choose to live as the gender with which they identify without any kind of medical intervention, and they’re no less trans for doing so. The term “transitioning” itself can be a little problematic for this reason, because a lot of people interpret it as referring to “transitioning into being a man/woman” when that’s not really accurate. I’m not transitioning into being a woman - I am and always have been a woman, I’m just choosing to start making that a little more . . . obvious, I guess. But also, women come in all shapes and sizes whether they’re cis or trans, and I’d like to leave room for me to explore what feels right for me specifically rather than jump from one narrow definition of gender into another. For right now, my personal “transition plan” currently includes taking hormones that are designed to bring my hormone production in-line with a typical cisgendered woman. This ends up being something like a second puberty, where I’ll slowly develop some secondary female characteristics like softer skin, a little less body/facial hair, and a more “feminine” distribution of body fat and muscles. This doesn’t affect everything, of course. You could say that I’m sorta “stuck” with things like my bone structure and height, for example, but I’m pretty content with seeing where the hormones themselves take me right now.

When it comes to the question of “why” I’m doing what I’m doing, I should clarify that nobody chooses to be transgender just like nobody chooses to be gay. I’m trans whether I like it or not, and the only choice I’m given is how I want to address it. As for why I’m choosing to transition, well I guess I’ve already kinda said that: I’ve felt like a woman for as long as I can remember. Of course, the idea that I might be trans was so unthinkable that it took a long time for the actual thought “I feel like I’m a woman” to enter my mind. Instead, I just constantly and desperately wished that I had been born a girl. I used to fall asleep going through the events of the day and replacing the “he”s and “him”s in conversations about me with “she” and “her” but it didn’t occur to me that that might not be normal - I just assumed that everybody wished they could experience life as another gender. Even as I got older and every dream and fantasy I had started with me as a woman, I managed to convince myself that it was just some sort of “fear of missing out.” I don’t remember what finally prompted me to read into the signs that one might be transgender, but it was tough to deny that I was trans after that point. It was a pretty scary realization for me, I started to accept internally that I was trans, but the idea of transitioning or even being out still seemed absolutely unthinkable. I comforted myself by thinking, “okay, you’re trans - but that doesn’t mean you have to do anything about it.” And I lived in that place for a while, telling myself that there was no point in telling anybody and ruffling any feathers since I wasn’t going to do anything about it anyway. Why risk rejection and humiliation when I could just spend my whole life flying under the radar and avoiding being “too myself” around other people? I thought that I could get by that way, and I’m still pretty sure I’d survive, but it eventually hit me that “getting by” probably shouldn’t be someone’s goal in life.

And I guess that’s the crux of why I’m choosing to do something about it, why I’m choosing to transition. Like I said above, all my dreams (in the figurative sense) start with me being a woman and that’s made it difficult for me to feel invested in my life. Whether it’s being in a relationship or pursuing a career, the idea of doing it “as a man” is a really uncomfortable one for me. In some cases, it just makes things not feel “worth it.” In other cases, like being in a relationship, it’s felt completely untenable and borderline panic-inducing. I think living life as a man is such an uncomfortable experience for me that my solution until now has been to barely live my life. After all, I can’t get misgendered and forced into roles I’m uncomfortable with if I’m always alone! So, yeah: I’m transitioning because I’m done waiting for a wizard to show up and offer to change my body’s anatomy for me before I do anything with it. I want to give actually living my life a shot, and every step I’ve taken towards transitioning has made that seem easier, and more worth it. It’s made me realize that I wasn’t even aware of some things, some feelings that were missing in my life, and I’m eager to pursue that.

As for what I’m asking of you all, honestly it’s mostly just that you know this about me, and that you try your best to see me for who I am. I’m working on being able to look in a mirror myself and see the woman I feel like, and it helps when it feels like I can look into the “mirror” of society and feel the same. Taking the steps I have taken so far has had a super positive affect on my happiness, but I've still got a lot of work to do and I’m not always in a place where it’s easy for me to do that work, so I also appreciate your patience. When it comes to pronouns, I prefer she/her/hers though I don’t mind they/them. As for a name, I’m going with Sophie. Picking a name for yourself as an adult is a pretty surreal thing, I struggled with finding something that both felt right to me and had a “reason” for me to pick it, some deep symbolism or family connection. Sophie doesn’t really have either of those things, but it felt right and it stuck with me. It was the name I secretly wanted people to say they liked any time I mentioned some possibilities, and I’ve decided that’s reason enough. And hey, slip-ups are bound to happen for both of these things, name and pronouns - I get it and I can take it, nobody needs to feel like they’re walking on eggshells around me. Everybody has been more wonderful than I could have ever dared to hope already, and I’m so thankful for that.

Anyway, sorry for the novel! Hopefully it’s not too much information, and feel free to shoot me any questions if it’s not enough information.

Love,


Sophie"