So... I'm trans. Now what?

Back in the dark days of the early 1980s, I was on a quest to find the most beautiful woman in the world. Not because I was gay, you understand, but because I believed in an objective standard of beauty that I assumed someone must meet. I remember the teenage girl at my local mall selling windchimes who had beautiful eyes and a lovely chin, but only an average nose and sub-standard lips.

I was probably seven at that point.

So when I finally admitted to myself that I liked girls at the age of thirteen, I could give two shits about coming out of some closet. I had done all the hard work of admitting it to myself - who cares what anyone else thinks? Nothing that they could do is worse than what I did to myself.

I was privilidged enough to have a supportive family and the strength and skills to avoid the worst of the beatings. I gave better than I got, and I was wittier than most attackers, which spared me all but the most menial assaults.

So, yea. I'm a transman. All my witty-ness has left me. I can only see a parade of moments, that beautiful baseball season where I had to pretend to be a boy so I could play on the league... those times in choir when as a contralto I had to step up and sing the second tenor part (and wishing I could hit those baritone notes)... the one chance I had at summer camp to redefine myself and I insisted everyone call me Johnny. I'm going to be forty next year and how is this only hitting me now? How did it take me this long?

What now?