Reflections from 1 year on T.
By Keely Miyamoto
How does one measure a year? Books read? Miles run? Cross-country long hauls driving to and from school? Today, at least, I’m thinking about shots taken.
Metaphorically, the last twelve months saw me shoot two big ones: Getting top surgery and starting hormone replacement therapy. So, in the literal sense, late May marks fifty-two shots. My one-year anniversary of starting T.
It is a strange privilege that despite whatever else the unrelenting passage of time might bring, it must also carry me closer to myself. Slowly but surely. My voice has deepened. Periods stopped. My need to shave became more regular. Mood swings surged and abated. Increasingly, things I’d hoped for and expected came to pass, and — though nobody enjoys puberty the first time, let alone a later-in-life reprise — these transitions feel right. I was, I am, and I am becoming more me.
In tandem with the changes in and of myself, I’ve noticed far more striking shifts in the way I am seen by others. On one hand, it is beautifully shocking to be so rarely misgendered. To feel safe in restrooms and other gendered spaces. To have others’ implicit assumptions far more frequently align with my own identity. This is affirmation.
On the other hand, it is saddening to realize how much more respect I am afforded, simply because others see me as male. In classes, my ideas are listened to, even in contexts where they were previously ignored or shut down. Societal sexism plays to my favor now, and I am learning how I can combat it.
And finally, in some mediate space between these two hands, is a subtle sense of dislocation. Whether overnight or over a year, I have grown into a body that others perceive and treat as a man. While this is not wholly unwelcome, it is new and not yet natural. I spent twenty years operating as a girl, then as a young woman, and then as a nonbinary person still readily seen as AFAB. Whatever social conventions went along with these perceptions of me are what I have learned and come to anticipate.
Now, the rules feel different. Others’ expectations of me are different, and my expectations of how others will interact with me falter. There are universal experiences I do not share, and behaviors I am not yet accustomed to. The Doctor Who nerd in me says this is not unlike being the Doctor: Just as he appears human enough to rarely be presumed an alien, I look ‘guy enough’ that this is, often, others’ initial perception of me. Yet, when the Doctor reaches for his fish fingers and custard, everyone knows something is a little odd. And likewise, I find myself doing and saying things that seem to contravene customs and standards that remain almost entirely opaque to me.
At the end of the day, this is not necessarily a bad thing. I am nonbinary, not a man, and I never put much stock into ‘fitting in’ to begin with. But when others saw me as a woman, I understood the social and cosmetic ‘rules’ that I was breaking. Now, as I am increasingly expected to assimilate into male spaces, I cannot be sure of conventions, even if I would choose to ignore them. This, perhaps, like everything else, will simply take time.
About the Author
Keely Miyamoto is a second-year at Grinnell College. Keely’s passion for peer support led them to become a founding member of the Be-A-Friend Project’s Teen Kindness Board. They have also volunteered on the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, as well as with Grinnell’s student-run SA/DV hotline. Keely identifies as transgender and nonbinary, and, as a collegiate student-athlete, they are especially invested in representation and inclusion in sports.
