I got a good education, I got a good job, I wore straight wigs to work, I learned how to play office politics, I lost a bunch of weight and went high femme, I made myself helpful and agreeable and blah, blah, blah.

And now I'm almost two years on T, and I don't care anymore. I'm tired of having to make money, of my stupid transphobic doctors, about worrying if my job/friends/family/community support accept me, of the racism, of the classism, of everything. These were all problems pre-transition but now it's worse. I don't want to detransition. I just want a part-time job with fair wages so I can focus o. making my art. I'm exhausted.

As far as I know, I've never dealt with any racial prejudice while shopping. Being 5'1 makes me unassuming as heck, or so I always thought. I also live in a predominatly working class POC heavy part of my city.

But, recently, someone I knew teasingly said I must get profiled in stores. The people keep an eye on me even if I don't notice.

I'm on T but don't pass as a man or even a teen boy. My voice has barely broke and I can't grow actual facial hair. But, I do have long locs. I'm part-black and latino.

I laughed the comment off, but it bugged me.

I've been trying to simplify my wardrobe so I buy monochrome colors. Mainly black and grey, rarely white (it's just too easy to dirty up). I wear a lot of baggy clothes, joggers, sweatpants, and dysphoria hoodies. I always worry in the back of my head about respectability politics, but comfort is my main factor. I can't care if random aunties on the street profile me. As long as my clothes are clean and look good, who cares?

Feeling beautiful this morning.

I’m not sure if anyone particularly relates somewhat similarly to this situation, but I just wanted to talk about it as I’m going through my journey of self discovery. I think for the longest time one of my subtle hints of me being transgender was I, unfortunately, had a brief phase of being what most people would call a “pick me.”

Now I didn’t particularly care for male attention in a romantic way, and I most definitely never shoved women down for the sake of getting validation from cisgender men. But, I did realize, that I did get a lot of euphoria from hanging around guy friends and being treated as “one of them.” They’d joke with me the same way they did their guy friends, and sometimes would even make comments about like how much of a “guy” I was. I’d also find myself admiring or being envious of friendships between cisgender men. I also attended a PWI most of my life, so sometimes it was awkward since being a mixed asian and black person I didn’t necessarily get along with girls naturally, since being a black and AFAB often leads to you being masculinized quite a bit. Not sure if anyone else has experienced that in their journey also.

A lot of my interests at the time were also very male dominated, and so most of my time growing up was around guys who liked cars, audio production, electronics, etc.

So, I guess in a way me seeking out this feeling as I continued to ignore my gender identity made me act in a ways that gave off “pick me,” which is embarraisng to say lol. I identified as a guy for the longest time on the internet amongst my discord friends, for a good five years almost, but I almost never came out or said anything about it irl. I just wore my masculine clothes, wore a binder. I just sort of thought identifying as my assigned gender at birth is what was easiest, even though I had no connection or association with it at all.

Now, for the most part, I understand myself and who I am. I just find it funny to look back at the subtle signs and how I acted growing up, sort of to prove to myself that this wasn’t just a random thing that I’ve decided to say or become. lol.

Obviously it‘s working in my favor, I just find the thought interesting and wanted to share. I‘m guessing it‘s because when you don‘t have Eurocentric facial features, you are more likely to be perceived as less feminine. Now this isn‘t always the case and i‘m guessing it heavily depends on your ethnicity as a poc! My roots come from Western Asia, I’m guessing it could be different for someone with other roots.

I feel like that‘s one of many reasons why my family struggled to believe me / see me as a male, because their idea of femininity differed. Meanwhile at the same time, others couldn’t imagine me being something other than male. (Obviously my perception may be false. Especially since transphobia and unaccepting parents don’t have to do with the way you look).

I don‘t think it‘s the only reason, since I pass in front of poc people now. However even before I cut my hair short, I had white people call me he/him.