Trans Girl Magic

I cast a spell as a child to become the girl I knew I was supposed to be. It took 40 years to start working.

CW: precarity, homelessness, unemployment, sexism, assault, dysphoria, suicide.

“Why would you choose [wear skirts/deal with sexism/deal with discrimination/subject yourself to the various trials womanhood] if you didn’t have to?”

No one has asked me this directly, but my wife has fielded versions of this question from a few folks over the last few months when discussing me transitioning. This is something we discussed at some length as I was weighing whether I needed to transition. Was there some sort of partial measure or slower process that would make me feel comfortable enough without endangering my safety in the world. Was there a lower risk choice? Did I have a choice?

Certainly transitioning comes with risks, even for someone with my relative privilege and security.

These go beyond to the obvious and extreme risks of assault and murder (which are real, but far too frightening and remote for me to properly contemplate). For instance — I felt much more sanguine about being untenured in my faculty position before transitioning, because I knew that as a cis-passing male-passing person (with my particular skill set and professional…