So, caveat, I transitioned 9 years ago, and the world is different now. When I transitioned, trans awareness was just starting to enter the mainstream. Caitlyn Jenner had just come out, the Wachowski’s were both out, and Laverne Cox had been on the cover of Time. So people were starting to talk about trans people and awareness was increasing, yet, I was also the first openly out trans person that most people I interacted with had met at that point. Before I transitioned, I knew trans people existed, and I knew about surgical options, but I didn’t know HRT was a thing. I had no connection with the queer community, and had done zero research on trans folk or transition outside of wishing I was trans so I could access “sex change” surgery.

There was a brief trans “golden age” from about 2015 to 2020, before the transphobia that grips the world today made itself so loud. I transitioned early in that positive wave, and I’ve seen it peak, and slide away to be replaced by transphobia.

So I learned a LOT.

I started finding and moving in online communities, and that was formative. Most communities were full of people early in their transitions (like me at the time) but also mostly full of people younger than me. My peers at the time, tended to meet in person, and those groups tended to be full of folk who had transitioned years ago and new folk influenced by them.

The difference between the two groups was night and day. The online groups were full of people that were excited, and confused, and joyous, and crucially, even at that point in time, they were full of people being trans in ways I didn’t even know you could be trans. Gender fuckery was everywhere.

Then there were my in person peer groups. Very binary in their understanding of trans identity, and vaguely transmed, in a lowkey way. I felt uncomfortable in those spaces in a way I didn’t understand at the time.

So what did I learn?

I learned that so much of what I was chasing was stuff that I thought I should want because I’m trans, rather than being what I actually want.

I discovered that I loved being queer. None of the people in my in person support groups were openly queer, or even used that word though. Yet once I identified my queernees, I never wanted to let it go.

I chased cis passing with surgeries, until I found it, and suddenly, my queerness was invisible to people, and other trans folks would look right past me. I hated losing those things. I wanted the world to see my queerness, and I wanted other trans folk to see me, so I could bring them the same joy they brought me when I saw them.

I thought I wanted to just blend in to cishet society and return to a “normal life” but on “the other side”. But fuck that.

I thought that I had to be feminine and embrace femininity, because that’s what trans women do. But femininity has never meant anything to me, and though it took me longer, I eventually learned and accepted that I don’t need to chase femininity to be true to myself, that being fem and being trans aren’t inherently tied together.

I learned that every single trans story is unique, but also the same. It doesn’t matter who you talk to, or how divergent our experiences, our experiences are never the same, but there is always a common element too.

I learned that sexuality and romantic attraction can be complex. I learned that I don’t like dating people who aren’t visibly queer. I learned that moving through the world with a boyfriend who had previously moved in queer lesbian communities, but didn’t miss that queerness, wasn’t for me. When random people just saw us as a cishet couple, he was happy, and I felt invisible.

I learned that I love and value the queer community. My first pride was a transformative experience, the first time I had ever been somewhere and thought “Fuck, I’ve found my people”.

I learned that despite not having “trans activist” on my transition goal list when I started, it’s part of who I am.

And those last two are why the blahaj spaces exist. Community matters. People being able to live on their own terms and with their own truth matters.