Month of May
“Month of May, it’s a violent thing.” — Arcade Fire
Okay, let’s get to it.
I’m transgender.
I have come to realize over the past few years — and in particular over the past month — that I am a queer trans woman. There’s a variety of reasons for this, and it’s inevitable that guesses will be made. Some people will point to science and say it’s about brain development in the womb. Others will point to culture and insist I’m just following a trend. And a few people will probably ‘blame’ themselves — as if anything they could have done would have single-handedly changed my gender identity. (If anybody wants to place bets on the actual cause, my Venmo is @MeghanCherry25. I’ll shoot your winnings back when I figure it out.)
I know this is true for myself, because it’s a thing I’ve been conscious of for years. It’s always been a desire, a fantasy, or even just a daydream about a different life. I don’t think it’s something I was aware of as a kid. The stereotypical vision of a boy desperately longing to play with Barbie dolls & My Little Pony toys doesn’t fit my youth. Yet I can also look at my life and see a complete lack of masculine stereotypes as well. I never cared about sports, and physical aggression always put me off rather than delighted me. My favorite toys were pretty gender neutral by modern standards.
I had crushes on girls as a young boy, but even then it felt like the expected behavior rather than my own will. This largely continued into high school, as I adopted the stereotype of a ‘geeky dude’ to pass social parameters. I could identify by the things I liked, becoming a person through the path of least resistance. But as I grew older, that autopilot started to falter. I experienced heavy bursts of depression, primarily due to a lack of vision for my own life. I didn’t know who I wanted to be.
For the first two years of college, I struggled to make social connections. I had a hard time relating to people who actually believed the clichés I’d been parroting for years. This wasn’t to say I didn’t care about the things I professed a love for. But I’d made them my identity so I never had to make one for myself. Eventually I found a way to patch one together. After finally finding my social group at the college paper — I felt like I had the rough basis of a person under my belt. A collection of moments that all came together to make a unique individual, with one notable missing experience.
Romance has always been a confusing thing for me. In school I’d pursue girls, but it was always so that I could tell myself I was pursuing them. It was what I was supposed to be doing. I felt an attraction, and attempted to become a part of their life. I followed the model I felt safe with — be friends with a girl first, get to know her, and let that blossom into love. Throughout college, this strategy worked exactly zero times. The best I ever pulled off in high school was a brief Senior Year fling, more of a good friend who was also a prom date. Once I left school, the lack of romantic experience became a deep pit of self-loathing. I had a handful of close friends in Portland, but I felt alone very, very often. Especially when I’d try to meet new people on my own. There’s no lonelier place on Earth than a Reddit Meetup.
After a few years on dating apps, I finally lucked into somebody who fit. My now-ex was my perfect match. At that point in time, we felt like two halves of a natural equation. She shared my interests, excited me intellectually, and made me feel emotionally fulfilled. For somebody who had never been kissed until January of 2018, it’s not too shocking that I agreed to move in with her across state lines in February of 2018. Why wouldn’t I? I wasn’t enjoying Portland. My temp job had finally found a way to lay me off. I had some friends, but all of them felt like relics of somebody who I wasn’t recognizing anymore. The fresh start made sense.
“In the city, their hearts start to sing” — Arcade Fire
In July of 2018, I moved to Seattle. Thanks to an early job placement and a friend who graciously lent me both her couch and address to put on my resume — I had made a foothold in a new city. My now-ex joined me weeks later, and we started constructing a life together. I’d fantasized for years about moving out of Oregon. Stepping away from relationships that were built on weak pretenses, and building lifelong ones as a confident adult. With a trusted partner at my side, we could forge those bonds together. Integrate ourselves into the city, experiencing everything it could offer.
Except that didn’t happen. I see now that we stopped trying to grow as a couple once we moved in together. We reached the state of best friends, constant companions, and equitable roommates. I think for both of us, we looked back at our parents and immediately thought “Well, this is better than what I grew up around. I guess that’s it?”. We’d gone from strangers to domestic partners in six months. Maybe we just ran out of steam. We adopted two adorable cats, and found ourselves paying more attention to them than each other.
I can’t really say who lost the curiosity for their partner first. Events come to mind, but those are small points in a larger matrix. We stopped exploring each other emotionally, drawing lines on where we would feel comfortable growing for the other one. A major hurdle for me was her unwillingness to expand our social circle, despite a major attraction of the city being her many friends from college. I didn’t have to worry about the friends I was leaving behind. She had them to spare.
It’s why this was all so enticing to me. It allowed me freedom from decisions. I’d entered this relationship starting to loathe every choice I’d made in my life prior. Detaching from the person I’d built for myself. But here was somebody who loved that person. Who needed that person. I could just stay still. Join her plan. Grow, expand, have a fulfilling life. All waiting for me if I wanted it. (To be clear, this was never anything she explicitly said to me. She said she loved me and had friends in Seattle. My fatalism did the rest.)
Much like how I defined myself by the videogames & TV shows I enjoyed in high school and college — I began to define myself by my relationship. Every conversation I had about myself seemed to wrap back around to her. This wasn’t anything she did. I was just following old habits. It was easy to see where this path led. I planned on proposing various times, putting it off due to a lack of financial security. Unlike me, she had a life plan that seemed to be running forward confidently. I felt comfortable existing in her wake.
The seams started ripping on this plan about a year after we’d moved in together. Days became repetitive. Breaking out of our routine was difficult, and rarely felt worth it. We rarely saw the people we’d ostensibly moved to be closer to. The sense of desire was gone, but the friendship was still strong. Right up until the end, I laughed harder with her than I have with anyone else. We felt united, just not in enough ways to fill a life. It’s around this time I started disclosing my feelings about gender to her.
I think my awareness of being transgender goes back further than I can even remember. Not to mention, it’s impossible to draw the line on something being an innocent exploration of cultural norms versus the manifestation of an internal need. I wore dresses in front of my sister’s friends at a party once when I was six, but that’s because I was addicted to getting a cheap laugh. That’s more of a warning sign of a young theater kid than a transgender girl. So who’s to say when the “signs” started?
For clarity’s sake, I’ll start drawing the line of my own trans identity at high school. Maybe it was just a random moment of looking back on my own life, maybe it was spending time with female friends, or maybe it was just one last nugget of puberty coming out sideways and fucking my whole shit up. But 2009–2012 is the earliest I can recall exploring the idea that I was trans, or at least that I could be a different gender. It’s the time when I’d find myself having certain fantasies, or considering the lives of the few transgender individuals I even knew of at the time. I could tell I wasn’t straight, but also that I had an interest in women. But putting the pieces together eluded me.
The notion continued through high school and college, but exclusively in the back of my mind. I made no real effort to get to know actual transgender people, and engaged in my fair share of transphobic shit just to feel ‘normal’. I recently deleted a tweet from 2010 when I used the slur ‘tr*nny’ to describe somebody I saw during a visit to Seattle. If anyone still reading this wants to gamble on what turned me trans — the theory of “Transgender Witch Casts Ironic Hex On Dipshit.” is now on the books. (It’s like the owl theory in The Staircase — comes in late, but the data is convincing).
Anyways, none of this took the form of physical experimentation with gender. My only outlets were some pornography and a growing tendency to make female characters in videogames (Saints Row The Third, thank you for the depth and nonchalance of your in-universe character customization tool). It wasn’t just the old excuse of ‘wanting to look at a girl’s butt’. There was a real energy to customizing and playing a female avatar. A thrill to trying on fashions that I’d resonated with, but could never adopt in reality. Feeling the joy of existing in feminine skin.
Slowly this interest expanded to the people I engaged with online. I was able to see more trans perspectives, and — shocker — a lot of them resonated with me. I found myself following trans critics, trans authors, and even just various trans women I came across on Twitter. Their lives interested me. At the time, I wrote it off as just admiring their ability to see a need in their lives, and making the change to fill it. But of course, the change they took to improve their lives wasn’t the one I needed. Or at least that’s what I kept telling myself.
In the transgender community, there’s a concept known as an “egg”. This represents an individual who is not yet aware that they’re transgender — but the “shell” is slowly and obviously starting to crack. Those cracks usually take the form of small challenges to their own gender identity, or compromises made to tolerate a body they hate. My “shell” was a loosely connected orb of enamel fragments by early 2022. Countless animated avatars of myself as a woman made in different flash applications. Hoodies worn at all the time. A sense of pride in how little pride I took in my appearance. I had a deep, gut feeling of what I needed.
But the funny thing about a gender dysphoria condition that gives you depression, is that the symptoms often just look like garden variety depression. Mental health issues run in my family, and I was quick to accept this pain as the cost of being alive. Great days suddenly interrupted by an abrupt lack of energy. Entire nights spent hopelessly obsessing over small, trivial worries. Paralyzing social anxiety. Worst of all, I blamed myself for the issues. I hated my body because I was fat, and I was fat because I didn’t do the work to improve it. I hated my clothes because I’d never bothered to learn style. I hated my face because I’d never learned to not hate it. It took years of work in therapy to confront these things, and I can look at them now with a distance.
My heart breaks for myself. I didn’t deserve the blame, no matter how easy it was to apply it on.
In the months leading up to the breakup, I found myself getting more bold with attempts at self-improvement. I knew I wasn’t happy. I knew something was wrong. Hell, I even knew it was probably gender related. I got a prescription for Lexapro, and began treating my ongoing symptoms of depression. It cleared my head up tremendously. The depressive fog had started to lift a bit. But the vague concept that I was in the wrong sort of relationship was still there. The idea that I wasn’t a heterosexual cis male was still there. That wasn’t my depression fucking with me. It was probably the cause of my depression.
There were times where me engaging with my gender identity felt inevitable. But I never really did anything with it, even as I constantly daydreamed about how transitioning would improve my life. The ways it would make me feel more free to express myself. The confidence I could gain if I just admitted the problem. I even got frustrated at myself for not taking advantage of the pandemic and exploring it earlier. It grew from a casual interest to something that was literally always on my mind. During work, talking with friends, or even when I was with my partner.
“Well, some people sing, it sounds like they’re screaming” — Arcade Fire
There’s an obvious role for my ex to play in this narrative. The girlfriend who pushes down my desire to transition, and who makes me feel unsafe to explore it in their presence. Many times over the past month, I’ve found myself casting her in that exact way. Some moments absolutely fit the script. Others don’t. I opened up to her several times about my struggles with gender, and her reactions were universally supportive. But never in a way that felt like she was engaged with what I was telling her. The most common reaction was “Yeah, that makes sense.”.
She had an education in women’s studies and experience working for queer organizations, so she felt confident as an authority on the situation. But there was an undeniable lack of empathy in the way she approached my concerns. She was capable of being non-judgmental. But it wasn’t something she was attracted to. There is no shame in that fact. There is shame in how she failed to communicate that fact.
I experimented a bit with female clothing at this time. One afternoon I came home with multiple items, thrilled to show them to her — and I got in return a dead stare. The vision of an overworked girlfriend smiling and nodding politely as her idiot boyfriend shows off his fetish. It crushed me. It tempts me to say that moment singlehandedly put me back in the closet. So I will.
Her simmering disinterest boiled over a few nights before our breakup. I had stumbled across a tweet of an erotic art piece. It was something that made me feel seen & understood in a very real way. The disposition of forms. The surrealism. The differences of identity in what is experienced vs what is perceived. A non-judgmental fantasy of a male form wearing female clothing.
Gender fluidity had always seemed like a vague concept to me. Seeing it portrayed this way opened my mind in sudden, dramatic fashion. It wasn’t just okay for me to present this way sexually. I could be desired, and even loved for it.
I showed the tweet to her that same night. She looked at it, and said she’d need more time to think about it. She didn’t bring it up the following day. I mentioned it as she was heading to bed the next night, and she said she “agreed with it” — but didn’t have further commentary.
Somehow, she’d found the response to perfectly feed my dormant self-loathing. Silence. I’d seen something that had made me re-evaluate how I understood my sexual existence, the biggest ongoing hurdle of our relationship. And it wasn’t important to her.
This is where I imagine our interpretation of events may now be totally different. But as it was ultimately the end of our relationship that led me to seriously start exploring my gender — it’s hard for me not to take notice of small things she may not have even intended to be harsh, or uncompassionate. Maybe that was the moment that broke me. Maybe it wasn’t. After all, we had plenty of other issues.
COVID-19 seems like the easy answer for why me and her weren’t able to last. Her immunocompromised status made the stress of a global pandemic unbearable, and her relationship with me got sidelined as a result. I wasn’t able to maintain her medical needs, and she didn’t see the how social isolation was impacting me mentally. But honestly, I think our fundamental issues were in place before March 2020. The pandemic just made them impossible to fix. Rather than taking time to work on our relationship, we both had to ride through what seemed like the end of the world. The boundaries of our home were not to be penetrated for any but the most “essential” of reasons, and she was the sole arbiter of “essential”.
We knew there were problems for years.
We had countless conversations acknowledging the emotional chasm, and made attempts at stitching it together with self-help books and post-it notes. We tried to be clear about our desires, and our long term needs. But the events in April of 2022 made us impossible to save. (For the sake of the bit, I wish I could say our relationship ended on 4/20. But archived tweets seem to suggest it was actually 4/22 or 4/23). I’d spent the days previous to our last fight calling various friends & family members, bawling my eyes out as I finally acknowledged how miserable I was. I thank every single one of them for the comfort and advice that they gave.
As I look back on those last days, the more it becomes obvious that me and her were always going to implode. I’d been happy to put off movies, concerts, family events, casual social meetings, and more to appease her COVID rules. I was happy to make exceptions to those same rules when she wanted cake from Safeway, or to get lunch with her friends. I was rather confused when she declared her one exception for her harsh anti-movie-theater rule was for a movie that she wanted to attend. Discussing the topic was forbidden. I grew impatient. Was I really going to put off a friend’s upcoming wedding? Family holidays after a year of not seeing them in person? It’s not like she’d change her mind about this anytime soon. Open distribution of vaccines and falling case numbers only made her more restrictive. So why was I waiting?
The breakup happened when it did, because I finally pushed her too far. I did it because she’d pushed me too far. But I’m the one that ended things. Even if I didn’t think I was doing so at the time.
I told her I was ‘taking a walk’, and happened to not say that walk was to a movie theater. There was the flimsiest degree of secrecy in what I was doing. This wasn’t even the first film I’d seen without her permission. I’d left work early twice to do it before. Looking back, this was an unhealthy way to deal with the situation. I was kicking at her boundaries just to be heard.
In my defense, when I’d attempted to talk with her about this exact issue — her response was a forgone conclusion. She didn’t acknowledge the problem, and got mad at me for ruining the evening by bringing up how unsatisfied I was. We were talking about a potential new living situation that I would have actively detested — moving to the suburbs to be closer to her friends — which would have had me give up the last shreds of independence that were keeping me sane. I needed to escape what felt like a cruel, life-eating cycle.
So I lied to her. And when I came back to her waiting up in bed, I lied to her again — saying I had just been out for a walk. I think I just wanted her to be the one to pull the trigger. To have her call it, and not me. This was another thing I wish I could change. I got mad at her for putting up walls, and forcing me to break through them. Then at the end, I made her break through mine.
We talked the next day, and she said it was over. I’d crossed the line. When I explained why I crossed the line, the reasoning for my action wasn’t important. I’d divided by zero. No answer. Maybe that’s true. But it cemented a difference in reality that would come to be permanent. We talked throughout the night. I ended it still wanting to patch things together. She seemed pretty solidly done. I cried in her arms, deeper than I’d ever cried before.
We both have things to learn from our time together. For all the pain that happened at the end, I am eternally grateful to her as my first real partner. Somebody who allowed me to grow into who I am right now, even if that growth rubbed us both the wrong way. We’re scarred from our time together. But they’re the sort of scars that come with time well spent.
The next morning it felt like there was a stranger in the bed next to me. I waited for her to go upstairs. I then proceeded to sit up, look at my phone, and immediately scheduled a day of movies for myself. It wasn’t about catching up on films (though there was plenty to see). Rather, I simply couldn’t be in the same space with her anymore. We needed time apart to figure this out.
I got in her car, and tried not to let the numbness all over my body distract me from the road as I drove. I plotted how to get away from her for more than a day. During one of my calls, a close high school friend suggested a week in Portland. I hadn’t considered it, but it slowly emerged as the perfect solution.
On my way to the mall, I sobbed in random outbursts. Before the first movie I stopped in a Target and nearly had a nervous breakdown as I searched the entire store for a single chilled, ready-to-drink coffee beverage. (I eventually found some awful Monster variant.) From the parking lot I texted around to people in Portland — scheduling places to stay. I cried again. Then I composed myself, and walked inside.
I saw The Northman in Dolby Vision. I ate an edible and watched Secrets of Dumbledore in IMAX. I watched Sonic the Hedgehog 2 with a very excited birthday party of nine year olds. That whole afternoon, I didn’t shed a single tear. Not because I wasn’t feeling the pain, or because I was repressing it. I was just enjoying a space with no expectations. No concerns. The cinema had always been my sanctuary. That day was no different.
I sent her a text with my plan. I’d be back late. The next morning, my Mom would drive me to Portland where I’d stay for a week. I would come back afterwards, and asked her to give me my own week of alone time in the space. Two weeks apart seemed like enough to reset. To know what we wanted in the long term. Then we could live together like adults until the lease expired, and go our separate ways if need be.
Spoilers for the rest of this post, but that plan did not come to pass.
In her defense, my initial strategy for the two of us to still live together through the end of the lease was a terrible one. It was not going to work. But for the entire week that followed, I never got a message suggesting an alternative. I had openly offered to adjust this plan if it wasn’t going to work for any reason. But, all she confirmed was that she would not be in the apartment for the week following my return from Portland.
I came back to the apartment at midnight, after seeing a late showing of The Bad Guys — which I can now officially say is the last film I walked into as a cis straight man. It was easily the best of the four movies I’d treated myself to that Saturday. A charming crime caper of found family, diverse showings of identity, and sharp wit. For those gamblers who got even deeper into this article, bets have now opened for “Gay Furry Mind Control Conspiracy”. Long odds, high payout.
My Mom agreed to drive me to Portland on Sunday afternoon. That morning me and my ex awkwardly shared space as I made coffee. I made brief eye contact with her as I walked down the stairs. I stayed downstairs as long as possible. I packed a bag for a one week trip, making sure to not take anything that she would need for her own week of healing. She offered to heat up some leftovers for lunch. I accepted. She handed it to me downstairs, and I ate alone in the den. It was the last time I saw her in person. Eventually my Mom arrived. On the way out the door, I told my ex something that was true at the time.
“I still have a lot of love for you.”
Five weeks later, I’m not sure if that’s still the case. With the time to reflect on her behavior, I can now see patterns of emotional abuse that I didn’t deserve to tolerate. It wasn’t enough that she’d fallen out of love with me, it was that she never told me. Had I just continued to tolerate it, who knows how many more years I may have spent, waiting for the person I fell in love with to re-emerge.
There were moments shortly after our breakup where I wondered if we could become friends again with time. But right now, it doesn’t seem possible. It doesn’t seem healthy to even consider. Maybe things change with the years. Never say never, I guess.
I met my Mom outside the apartment building, put my suitcase in the back seat, sat down in the passenger seat, and proceeded to sob uncontrollably for at least ten minutes. It all became real in that instant. I’d done it. I’d ended a relationship that once meant everything to me. Eventually I wiped my eyes, blew my nose, and we drove to my sister’s place in Portland.
My sister’s role in this situation has been very vital to me. She was the first person I called when I needed to vent about my predicament. I called her because I knew she would give me a straight answer. Let me know if I was being as selfish as I worried I was being. But she didn’t. She heard the pain in my voice, and told me to consider what I needed. It was the first time in a while I’d done that. I looked at the person I was. The person my ex had fallen in — and then out of — love with. I saw him. I didn’t want to be him anymore.
I stayed with my sister for a few nights, drifting between work and round-the-clock episodes of Bar Rescue. My job was remote, so working from the couch wasn’t a problem. As luck would have it, both of my managers were out that week anyway. The timing was built in. Her boyfriend was also there, and he also provided me with valuable normalcy during this tricky time. I fondly recall us playing through the Phantom Menace section of the new, mediocre Lego Star Wars game. There was nothing else in the world I wanted more than some benign destruction, and it was given to me.
I cherished the opportunity to catch up with my sister, getting her full reactions on the past few months. I related the many red flag I’d ignored over the past four years. I saw the anger in her face at somebody who had hurt me. It made me look at myself, gave me a third person perspective on what I’d been through. How I’d separated myself from my other social connections, because I was so determined to fulfil the needs of my partner. I couldn’t tell what was happening to myself. But my sister had. She noticed me pulling away, and yet said nothing because she knew I wasn’t ready to hear it. But once I was, she validated every concern that I’d been suspecting.
After a few days with my sister, I went to stay with a different friend from high school. He’d also just gotten out of a long term relationship, but had rebounded into a much healthier one. A few weeks prior, he’d asked me to be the best man for their wedding. (Apologies in advance for fucking up those plans. May need to edit some place cards.) The next few days were filled with drinks at Red Robin (including the gaudiest possible cocktails on the menu), video game chats, Vegas wedding plans, and decompressing from the chaos.
I existed in survival mode for that week as I bounced between households. I ate, I drank, I tried to just not engage with the situation. My time in Portland was one of those silver blankets you wrap around the victim of a house fire. But there were three things I was able to focus on. One was music. Somehow, every song I heard seemed to be written for to the exact emotional moment I was in. Some of it was obvious text. Others subtext. A lot of it was even pulled from that week’s releases. I compiled it into a fairly listenable Spotify playlist. If I can boil my emotions that week to a single track, I’ll pull out ‘Easier than Lying’ by Halsey as the obvious voice of screaming rage.
The second thing I focused on were the relationships that I was incidentally sitting in on. I didn’t intend to stay with two other couples around my own age during this week, but it certainly put a light on dynamics me and my ex hadn’t exhibited for years. The simple, subconscious compassion between partners that I knew we had done at one point in time. But not recently.
The third thing I focused on was the week to come. Visiting Portland was a good break from reality, but I was consumed by the inversion that awaited me. Me and my ex had not spent more than three or four days apart since we met in 2018. This was the first week I was without her. Yet the scariest thing was that I didn’t miss her. I’d walked into this trip to Portland as a vacation, one that would eventually cycle back to the life I’d chosen to step away from. But it gradually became more obvious that wasn’t the case.
The prospect of a week in the apartment alone filled me with a lot of excitement. Some of this was the timing — her absence would overlap with some college friends visiting Seattle. I could feel safe that for a few days I could go to a ballgame, grab some drinks, and vent about all this to welcoming ears. But there were going to be entire days in the apartment with nobody but me and the cats. Zero chance of anyone walking in. Zero expectation. Zero demand. I asked myself what I wanted to do with that opportunity, what things I had fantasized about during the darkest days of the COVID lockdown.
I bought a dress that week.
“Used to doubt it but now I believe it” — Arcade Fire
I’d already accumulated a handful of pieces of women’s clothing over the years. Mostly underwear, things I wore underneath my boy clothes. At first it was just a sexual interest. But that shifted pretty quickly. It wasn’t about arousal. It was just comforting, and made me feel more confident. Sometimes I’d throw them on just for the little spark it gave me. I purchased a pair of silicone breast forms that I would slip in, rounding out the frame. These were never shown to my ex. She probably knew they were in the house. But I never felt a desire to wear them around her. At that point, I just didn’t think she had any attraction to me at all. The feeling was mutual. I attributed a lot of this to the stress of living through a pandemic. My ex blamed her meds. She then later blamed me.
An apartment without her was a thrilling thing to consider.
The opportunity made me turn to thoughts of wearing a fuller outfit, and make an earnest attempt at presenting femme. The desire to do that made me confront my past expressions of gender & sexuality. That confrontation led me to do more research. I put books on hold at the Seattle Library from trans authors that I’d followed online for years. Added queer shows to my Netflix queue. Before I knew it, I’d set that time aside at the house as my own personal symposium on gender expression. An opportunity to learn, explore, and get needed clarity on a long-running personal plot thread. I’d try some things out, and end the week with a better understanding of myself.
By the time I’d arrived at my Dad’s place for the last leg of my Portland trip, I was deep in research on transgender services and offerings within Seattle. Sure, I was just a cis guy who was exploring a curiosity. But also I should probably figure out the logistics of what gender affirming services are covered by my insurance — you know, just while I’m looking.
Slowly, this upcoming week was becoming less of a trial period, and more the informal start of my transition.
My Dad offered me a kind ear to talk about the breakup, but at that point I had been exhausted by recanting the details of the story. I took comfort in just hanging around with him, talking about Reddit stories and the middling quality of Tokyo Vice. Even as my mind was focused on other things, I felt eased by the normalcy of it all. Despite knowing I was probably about to throw a wrench into said normalcy.
On April 30th, 2022 I posted the note below to the gaming forum ResetERA, of which I’ve been a longtime member. They had a thread for Trans & Non-Binary users, where a small community had popped up of users sharing their experiences.
“Hey, first post I guess.
I don’t quite know where I fit into all of this. Questioning, probably? I’ve always had issues with my body, never really loved my voice, and frequently feel uncomfortable about my hair. But I never really identified it as a potential gender thing until recently. There’s a part of me that wonders if it’s just the same depression & self loathing that I’ve experienced for a lot of my life — but maybe it’s all the same. I’ve done all the stereotypical egg shit. Obsessed over gender-swap pieces of media when I was a kid. I’ve spent hours making feminine versions of myself on various Picrews. My Twitter feed is dense with trans women that I admire, respect, and even envy.
I’ve often written off my desire to present as female as a fetish. It’s something that does give me a sense of sexual urge, but a lot of that is because when I’ve worn female clothing in the past — it’s the only time I’ve actually felt sexy. There’s a confidence and energy to it that gets very hard to ignore. I’ve juggled how I felt about this for years, often going back and forth on what it really means. I recently bought breastforms as well as a sports bra, and will sometimes wear them for an evening in private, after my girlfriend is in bed. I shaved my legs a few times. All these small things feel nice, but the fact I am getting a sexual charge out of it — it’s forcing some doubt. There’s a shame that I’m just turning to a fetish as a coping mechanism, and that if I actually attempted to transition — I’d realize this isn’t actually what I want.
Complicating things further, last week I just got out of a four year relationship. Maybe not permanently. I’ve told her about my gender stuff in the past, and while she was slightly supportive — I always felt a hesitancy to go into it further. I’d felt an emotional disconnect between us for years, and I just couldn’t bring myself to open that wall for her.
There’s a piece of art that came across my timeline recently, that seemed to sum up a lot of my feelings in a way I hadn’t experienced before. It meant a lot to me.
I shared it with her, she said she’d get back to me about it — and it just never came up again. It stung, and kind of made me realize we weren’t in a place to really be in sync with this. We didn’t break up because of my gender issues — but the fact I wasn’t comfortable figuring this out with her involvement feels like a notable thing.
After the split, we agreed to give each other some space — I let her have the apartment this past week while I stayed with friends, and it’ll be vice-versa next week. I’m really looking forward to that week, because I’m planning to really try and present femme to myself for the first time. I bought a dress while I was out (nothing fancy, just a loose fitting dress made of a T-shirt material). I also got stuff to properly shave my legs & arms, as well as tights.
I also checked some books out from the library — a mix of recommendations from the front page here, as well as some books I’ve had an eye on for years — but didn’t feel comfortable having in the house with other eyes around. I don’t think I can figure everything out with a few days of experimenting — but it’s such a goddamn joy to feel like I’m doing something about it after years of wavering. Maybe I get clarity from this, maybe I don’t.”
This post was the first open acknowledgment that I could be transgender. I followed more resources from the thread, and dug into materials on gender dysphoria — getting a picture of the condition that I’d never really seen before. So many of the doubts that I’d had about myself — as a man, as a partner, and as a human being — were laid out on open display, a pattern well recorded. Segments of the Gender Dysphoria Bible read like a note from an old friend who’d been there, done that.
When I’d pondered this question in the past, I wrote the whole thing off because I didn’t think I had experienced gender dysphoria. It felt like the logical, medical conclusion. I didn’t have the symptom, why would I have the disease? (Thinking of it in terms of “symptom” and “disease” did not help). But in this new state, with the realistic prospect of exploring what was ahead of me — it all clicked.
Shortly afterwards, I sent an email to my therapist largely covering the same material, but putting more of a fine point on it.
Hey ******, apologies for the late night email. But I feel the need to type through something, and I know by sending it to you I’ll at least have to touch on it later.
So, I’m starting to suspect I might be trans. Or at least gender questioning. It’s something I’ve brought up in the past, but as I mentioned I’ve usually written it off as a fetish — either for transgender women, or just the appeal of crossdressing. The reason I’ve usually written it off is because I’ve never thought that I really felt a sense of gender dysphoria before.
However the past week has given me some time to think about things, and I found myself pondering the gender question again. I started doing some reading, and found myself relating to it in ways I didn’t really piece together before.
https://genderdysphoria.fyi/en/societal-dysphoria
The section on Dating & Relationships is the one that really stuck out to me, as well as the following one on Sexual Dysphoria. I realized I really relate to the idea that I previously didn’t have much of an interest in sex or dating — because I didn’t fit into the typical heterosexual cis male role. In the past in bed, I’ve felt like I needed to mentally be elsewhere in order to enjoy the experience — often that’s taken the form of fantasies where I’m more feminine. I think I only feel ‘sexy’ when I present myself in a female fashion.
I don’t necessarily know what to do with all this information. The fact I’m spiraling into it on Saturday at Midnight during the potential collapse of a four-year relationship — and also while experiencing the effects of an SSRI for the first time — makes me suspicious of my own judgement right now. Maybe I’m just looking for answers to questions that don’t exist.
But it felt important to send you. If only to touch on it next session.
That email took me past midnight, and was sent on May 1st. As of May 31st, I identify as a trans woman.
I returned to the apartment the same day. Per our agreement, I expected to come back to an apartment that merely lacked my ex’s physical presence. Instead, there was a total absence of her. She’d completely moved out, and even taken our two cats. At no point during the week, even during our occasional text messages, did she indicate an intent to move out of the apartment permanently. She said she would be out of the apartment by Sunday, and we would talk the following week. She did not leave a note. She did not clue me in on any plans for paying rent, utilities, or caring for household plants. She did leave a great deal of her personal furniture, acting like I was getting one over on her by being able to sell it on Craigslist. She acted like her taking the cats was an obvious thing to assume, as they were registered exclusively in her name as part of an elaborate scheme to skip out of paying pet rent.
I was immediately devastated. The two cats that I’d cared for over three years had been ripped away from me without even a chance to say goodbye. I had no way of knowing when, or if I would see them — or her — again. I only realized she’d moved out for good when an image of a Change of Address request popped into my email inbox, with images of that day’s physical mail. I was hurt. I was numb. I was pissed off.
After updating the family text chat of the situation, I left the apartment and started walking. I headed in the direction of Target. I’d only bought one dress and tights while I was in Portland. Fuck it. I was going shopping.
On the way there, my Mom called saying she was turning around to comfort me. I convinced her to keep driving home. I had other plans. I walked through an Erotic Art exhibit that happened to be at Seattle Center. I walked amongst queer artists, creators, audiences, and admitted it to myself — I was queer.
I’d spent a lot of my week in Portland considering what I actually wanted out of a relationship. And the more time I spent on it, the less it looked like the typical straight dynamic that I’d been raised in. Unlike the last time I was single, I wasn’t entering a dating pool as an inexperienced virgin desperate to fulfil social expectations. I was doing it as somebody with experience, and real internal motivation. I let myself be okay with the fact my tastes could shift.
I got back to the apartment with more clothing than I’d purchased for myself in years. I felt surprisingly relaxed when I was in the store buying it. There wasn’t really a sense of anxiety. It’s Seattle. You see a dude buying a women’s top at Target, you presume he’s preparing a mediocre drag routine. The haul wasn’t substantial. I’d find myself (and still find myself) augmenting the wardrobe anytime I’m downtown. With few exceptions, I’ve never felt weird standing in those aisles while presenting masculine — be it a chain retailer or a local thrift shop.
I put on some of my purchases, and felt a distinct sense of calm. I’d worn feminine clothing before, often pairing it with late nights of Knockout City. That was the one game I had been able to make a genuinely trans character, even labeling myself with a matching crew logo. I just was who I was. Nobody could see it except the random players in each match. They were strangers, and yet I was honest about them with myself before anyone else. It’s funny how my coming out seemed to be an opposite of what I always imagined it to be. I started with literal strangers in a videogame lobby, moved to practical strangers on a forum, before real life strangers, until I finally had the confidence to tell somebody that I actually knew.
At that moment, from the outset, I was a trans woman. If my next door neighbor had happened to walk past the window at that moment — that is who he’d see. And for the first time in years, I relaxed my anxieties about gender. Because I knew. Gradually over the next few days, I got more comfortable engaging in femininity. I was finally giving myself permission to explore things without self-judgement.
As it turns out, most cis people do not always have their gender identity in front of mind. It’s not considered a normal thing to always be fixated on. Always thinking about changing, altering, challenging, or compromising who you are. After all, I told myself I didn’t have gender dysphoria. I just hated when I looked in the mirror and saw a dude. But I didn’t hate it as much as the people online who described their dysphoria in that exact way. Because they had done something about it! I hadn’t done anything about it, therefore I didn’t have gender dysphoria, therefore I wasn’t transgender. (This exact one-way argument had been had with myself in the presence of multiple therapists over the years.)
But now that I’d done something about it, the rest of those logical dominos fell immediately. The one defining characteristic I’d used to separate myself from ‘real trans women’ was gone. I think this is why the rest has happened so quickly for me. On one hand, my entire exploration of gender has so far occurred over one calendar month. On the other, I’d been doing the legwork for the majority of my 20s.
Obviously, even after proving it to myself through my own logical rules — doubts persisted. Clearly I was just doing this to distract myself from a bad breakup, right? I considered it for days. Yet the feeling I had when thinking about her was the same as when I was in Portland. I didn’t care. I was heartbroken for the cats. I was frustrated with how she’d walked away from a four year relationship without so much as a goodbye text. I was scared about getting on the phone with her the next week. But I didn’t miss her. When that call happened, it solidified everything I thought. Her traumatic exit wasn’t done on accident. It was a targeted act of emotional violence, the last donkey punch to the back of the skull on the way out. She didn’t admit what she did was wrong, or malicious. But it was clear. We weren’t together, and shouldn’t continue to be in each other’s lives.
The weeks that followed were full of genuinely compassionate calls and texts from friends about the breakup. I felt so supported by people who I had previously worried were beyond me. Yet it was somewhat funny, talking with all of them about this huge life altering thing I’d gone through. Not telling them I had just made another huge, life altering realization about myself. It’s like I was reading a chapter ahead in the book of my own life. My mind raced with the potiental in front of me. My friends and family consoled me, telling me to move past and let go of her judgment.
But I didn’t want her back. Nor did I care what she thought about me. This was about myself, first and foremost. It just so happened that the past few weeks had been the first time in four years that I didn’t have to compromise my own desires for the sake of a relationship. The barrier was lifted. I was asking myself a simple question — “What do you want?” I tried to listen to my feelings, my desires, and what filled me with joy. I found myself hooked on the mantra of “Chase Good Feelings” (which also doubles as the name of my first series of children’s Christian mystery books). I was following what made me feel good. And what made me feel good was the prospect of transitioning.
I feel like I went through the process in steps. At first I was just happy to be relaxed, and not concerned about gender. Then I realized I was happy to be exploring gender. Then I honed in on how happy it made me to care about my appearance. How good it felt when I thought about wearing makeup, putting together a style, and building a true identity for myself. How good it felt to talk with my therapist, and hear him support the way I was approaching this realization. How good it felt to call a doctor, and get their opinion that my experience matched her experience with treating trans women. How good it felt to research hormone replacement therapy, think about the ways it could change my body & brain, and schedule early consultation meetings to get more information. How good it felt to be in control of my destiny.
I intend to keep chasing those good feelings, no matter where they lead. Maybe it’s in a different corner of the gender spectrum than I’m in now. Maybe it’s just a hop or a skip to the left or right. But for now, the radical change seems like the most practical.
I got in touch with a local gender support clinic, and attended some Zoom group meetings. It was refreshing to listen to their perspectives — relating to some, not to others. Trans & gender non-conforming folks are a diverse group. I even attended an in-person meeting, and led a post-therapy bar hangout with some fellow attendees. As it turns out, I’m significantly more social when I’m spending less time hating myself. I also discovered just how many trans women shared my ex’s name, or one of her many nicknames. (It’s a lot. Like 1 in 10. Shit’s crazy.)
As the lease on me and my ex’s place approached the expiration date, I started touring studio apartments. But I quickly realized the last thing I needed was more time alone. I was finally in a city with an identity I liked, and I realized I was confident enough to display that to people. So why wouldn’t I make sure I could share that identity in my next home, with people who could help me grow? I started applying to various queer households on Craigslist, introducing myself as a trans woman, and believing it a little bit more each time. When I finally got a call back to meet with some potiental housemates, tears welled in my eyes with joy.
Alongside the post I made on the ResetERA forum thread, I also got an invite to their private Discord group. It’s a close and very supportive community of individuals — trans, nonbinary, and just questioning. I’ve found myself in all three categories over the past month. The group there has been invaluable to me, close friends who I’ve been able to talk to without a shade of pretense or irony. No concealing parts of myself. No worries that something I’ve posted will lead to a hole in my identity. I even picked a screenname that I felt captured some aspect of the person I wanted to put out into the world. Megha.
The process at which I’ve arrived at my (current) name is a bit roundabout. As these thoughts have been in the back of my head for years, I found myself keeping an eye out for names that would be ‘good’ for me. But in a cis way, you know? A further detail for my personal daydreams about transitioning, rather than something I’d actually use. Definitely not.
At some point I saw Meghan Markle’s name in a Twitter story. It was probably the thousandth time I’d read it. But for a moment, I found myself drawn to that spelling of Meghan. I wrote that down in some buried journal post, and it stuck in my mind ever since. It was the name of my Mass Effect character. As I put down a name on Discord, I removed the last ’n’ to make it more of a unique, gender-neutral name. In that moment, I was comfortable with ‘all’ pronouns. Maybe I fell under the umbrella of non-binary.
While I initially had the idea to have it as my legal first name, I’ve since learned “Megha” is actually a common name for South Asian women, which feels a bit questionable as a legal name for a white person. So I returned to Meghan, and found myself unbothered by the feminine nature of it. The same was true of my clothes. I’d lost all desire to present male, except when around people who knew me as Chris. When given the chance to introduce myself in a new context, free of attachment — I was drawn to a feminine form, every time. Even if I knew my body may never fit that label perfectly. I’ve presented femme in public several times now. I know I’ve gotten looks. But I earnestly do not care. Partially because I’m in Seattle, and most adults here have no shortage of experience with trans people. This leaves the odd child who can’t help but stare — and honestly, there is no demographic whose opinion I value less.
My current name is Meghan Cherry. Cherry is my Mom’s maiden name, and while taking her name feels like a very intentional shot against my Dad’s side of the family — I just think “Meghan Berg” had too many “G”s. Feels clunky on the tongue. It’s my name. I get to be picky about it. For the sake of legality, maybe the whole name is “Meghan Cherry Berg” or “Meghan Berg Cherry”. These are detailed choices, and one I’ll probably reconsider a million times before landing on something entirely different — or one I’ve already listed. (Despite the meme earlier in the article, I have taken zero steps to legally change my name).
Meghan Cherry is an outgoing trans woman in her late 20s, early in transition but clearly too enthusiastic to hit the deep end of the pool. She watches too many movies, knows a distressing amount of information about Nintendo, enjoys a Friday night bath with a cold Chardonnay, and can’t remember anyone’s name or face to save her life. She’s got a really mopey Instagram that somebody has probably seen in their recommended follows tab because I didn’t think to put it on a burner email.
She’s also Chris Berg after they transitioned around May of 2022, partially due to a bad breakup — but mainly because it made them happier to be this way than anything else has in years. Her experiences as Chris aren’t something she’s throwing away in anger. They’re vital context. History that defines her, every day.
The decision to go public with this has been tricky, and yet also felt blindingly obvious. I don’t want to hide who I am. Not from friends, family, or social media. This is the most I’ve enjoyed myself in years, and it seems hurtful to not communicate that to the people that matter most in my life. And for those that don’t approve? Better to weed them out now than later.
It’s been incredible how excited I feel about life right now. Six weeks ago, I actively dreaded the future that was ahead of me. I hated the prospect of moving forward with my ex, even if it’s what I swore I wanted. I also couldn’t imagine breaking up with her. But I’ve now passed through the latter, and feel outstanding. I’m going to spend these next few months rooming with a nice queer household, who have a large basement bedroom to be filled, a low asking price for rent, and space in their hearts for a friend.
I even made another playlist, one I hope can capture the spirit of this summer where I’m trying to live as Meghan for the first time. If you want the pull song here, it’s ‘emotional haircut’ by LCD Soundsystem. It’s a simple, raging good time about changing your look in the midst of a manic episode. I’ve got a haircut of my own scheduled for the 31st to get a more femme style. Feels like a good cap to a heavy month. The cover image is the Mom from Ponyo. While I am one of the few modern trans women that has zero interest in anime, I do need to call out the most blistering case of ‘transition goals’ I’ve ever seen. She’s voiced by Tina Fey for fuck’s sake.
I don’t know everything that comes next. Hell, I don’t even necessarily know who is reading this massive oral history of my breakup & first month of social transition. But it feels good to write it. Hopefully it feels good to tell it to somebody.
Sincerely,
— Meghan
