The worst thing you can do, as someone who has recently realised they are transfem, is to let terves and transphobes convince you cis women will never accept you.
I was told that when I came out everyone would reject me. That I would find myself isolated from the world, and from other women especially, who would react to me with horror and revulsion.
In reality, within the first months of coming out, in no particular order:
My sister’s reaction on my coming out was, “Right, so I have a sister instead of a brother. Cool. I’m taking you clothes shopping tomorrow.”
A friend, when she learned I am a woman, immediately invited me to her women-only, girls-night-out birthday party the following week.
Another friend, when a friend of hers expressed doubts about my gender, immediately shut them down and reaffirmed I am a woman.
I went camping with a group of friends, and we had two tents, one for the boys and one for the girls; I was unsure as to which I should enter, to which a girl friend responded by grabbing me and physically dragging me inside the women’s tent.
In the women’s bathroom at a movie theatre a random woman, whom I’d never seen before and haven’t seen since, stopped me as I was going into a stall, to warn me there was no toilet paper in there, because she’d just used the last of it.
All of these, and more, some from friends, some from complete strangers. All within a few months, as a trans woman who hadn’t started medical transition yet, and was very visible as being a trans woman.
I’ve had some people reject me, true, but the vast majority, including almost all cis women, accepted me as a sister with open arms.
Jenny Slate, Little Weirds / Sylvia Plath, The Journals of Sylvia Plath / Felix Nadar Room, Autochrome Lumiere - Nature, Flowers / don’t know / Han Kang, The Vegetarian / don’t know / Ron Hicks, Embrace II from the series “Surfacing" / Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood / Andrè Aciman, Call Me By Your Name / Megal Lightell, Receding Hills, 36x36 inches
kinda miss sitting in restaurants with my friends loudly having what is clearly the weirdest conversation the couple two tables over has heard all week and pretending not to notice them chuckle at my jokes but making sure to throw in enough exposition to give them context if they’re still listening
“why the hell is this one getting so many notes” i think, briefly, before realizing we’re three years into The Great Loneliness and i have just wistfulposted on yearning dot com
