One of the ways in which (especially) medically transitioning is often described is as a second puberty. Not just because it, well… almost literally is in the sense of once more going through an intense and complex hormonal change that modifies your body (though this time in a non-traumatic way)… but because of the social aspects.

Note: what I’m going to be talking about here is from a trans-feminine perspective, as that’s the experience I’ve lived. I won’t presume to know the ways in which it might be the same (or similar) for trans-masculine people, but I have a feeling there will be commonalities.

For most trans people, an ideal situation would be that HRT changes your body to be something you are comfortable in – but also changes it enough that you are gendered correctly by the general public. “Passing” is a complex and difficult subject to tackle, but purely for reasons of personal comfort and safety, the idea of being cis-passing so you don’t routinely deal with transphobia is a fairly understandable one.

If and when that happens, whether it’s purely from HRT or if surgeries are involved, you then have to deal with that experience – and the experience of suddenly being seen as a woman in society can be pretty jarring, to put it mildly.

There’s pressure to look a certain way, there’s cat-calling, men talking over you in meetings, presumptions that you no longer know technical things you’ve done your entire life… and the list goes on.

Cisgender girls and women deal with this all the time, and while their earliest experiences with it are likely as kids – maybe even before they hit puberty – the experiences are very much still there for trans women.

One of these experiences is based largely around insecurity. Because you almost certainly don’t look like the airbrushed models on billboards and magazine covers, and if you do, you probably don’t think you do – because that’s what a sexist culture does. It’s not just physicality, either. Maybe you feel you aren’t smart enough funny enough, or ‘stable’ enough in a good-Capitalist-worker-bee sense.

It can be compounded by transgender-related anxieties, too. Even some of the most stunning (in the conventional attractiveness sense) trans women I’ve known have body issues residual to years of debilitating dysphoria and anxiety about their body feeling wrong.

But regardless of the complex root causes, the upshot ends up something like this:

Three people asked me out or otherwise expressed interest in me in the first year since I came out and transitioned.

I said yes to all of them. I was absolutely elated. It’s not like I didn’t have people express interest in me from time to time before I transitioned, but when someone is finding you attractive because of a body you feel horrible in, it almost feels like confirmation that things are wrong for you.

By contrast, the first time a partner (or even potential partner) called be beautiful, my mind just about melted in delight. I remember so clearly the first time I was consensually sexualised by a partner because of aspects of my personality or body that were distinctly feminine, such as the first time a partner fixated on my breasts.

Thing is, all three of these people in the first year were bad matches for me. Very bad matches for me. I said yes because I just wanted to be loved. To feel attractive and valued and to have a relationship with someone now that I was capable of truly feeling physically comfortable in said relationship.

Now that compliments made me feel amazing, rather than re-enforcing that my body was just… wrong.

It’s not to say those people were bad, of course. Just that they were a very bad fit (one explicitly didn’t like me using “big words” which, uh…) and despite that I could see that almost from the start, I craved the attention.

I didn’t magically get over it quickly, either. It’s only in the past year or so that I’ve begun to recognise just how harmful to myself that behaviour was. But I was chasing validation, even if it came in the form of physical sexualisation only. I would do anything to have another woman writhing atop me, touching me, kissing me and telling me breathlessly that I was “so fucking hot”.

It wasn’t just harmful to me, either. I went on single dates with people who were firing off red flags even on the dating app, and I went on multiple dates with people when there was absolutely zero chemistry. I would eventually had to break it off (or, more often, chicken out of doing it and just letting them realise the relationship needed to be ended). It wasn’t fair on the people I was dating. I don’t think I seriously hurt anyone, but I guess I can never really be sure.

Relationships don’t always leave a shadow in your mind commensurate with their length, either. Some of the shortest experiences dating I’ve ever had left me sobbing and still sometimes pining for the person years later; some of the longest felt like they ended more naturally and I rarely think about them.

Thing is, when you’re not so much finding a relationship with someone you click with as, y’know, just saying yes to anyone there’s even the tiniest hint of physical attraction to… you’re going to end up with more unpleasant experiences than pleasant ones.

I admit there’s a part of me that’s embarrassed by all this. It began when I read articles or spoke to other women who did similar things, but usually at a much younger age. “I’m a grown-ass adult and I’m acting like a hormonal teenager” is not a pleasant thing to recognise.

Regardless of that, though, it is nice to see it change. To feel growing self-confidence, and no longer finding myself saying yes to anyone who happens to match with me on Tinder or Her. I go on far fewer dates, but they’re much more meaningful.

Truly one of the strangest things about transitioning (as an adult, anyway) is having experiences that most people associate with young adults or teenagers much later in your life. I’ve even found myself gravitating back periodically to YA stories and films – as even if I am largely past the craving-attention stage of my own development now, at least I can relate more firmly with those all-encompassing first-romance stories you see in high school movies, in a way I never quite could before.

A year or so into my transition, I went over to a few friends’ new apartment for dinner. They were a (cis) lesbian couple I’d been friends with for years, and the night might have been simply enough lovely evening with friends, if it wasn’t for one thing which means now, years later, I still think of it.

I think about it because of their neighbour. She was a very straight, very cis woman who had just had her first baby. They’d apparently helped her with something not long before, and this particular night she happened to pop by and have a glass (or three) of wine with us.

As I mentioned, this was pretty early in my transition. I was quite lucky in the amount of cis-passing privilege I had developed very quickly – my body took to oestrogen running – but like almost anyone who’s been misgendered or clocked as trans in public, the fear of that happening had stuck with me. Still has to do this day – being misgendered is almost never a thing that happens to me, yet I still have low-key anxiety that it’ll happen.

My friends were, of course, supportive and had been from the start. But this random woman… I had no idea. She seemed very typical. She was confused by these two lesbians. She’d never really met any lesbians before, seemingly. She even asked the staggeringly awkward question of “who’s the guy in the relationship?” which, yes, it turns out still get asked of lesbians.

I made the decision to out myself. It was something I did then and still do now in a lot of social situations – I’d rather be open about who I am. If there’s going to be awkward transphobic responses, I’d rather it happen quickly and be dealt with.

The reason why this interaction stuck with me, though, was that her response to me coming out to her as transgender was by far not what I had expected.

I’ve gotten lots of reactions from people, from polite nods to genuine shock to them clearly having just had their suspicions confirmed, and of course the typical and uncomfortable non-compliment response of “Oh! I’d never have known!”

When I came out to this woman, she looked me up and down, furrowed her brow, then asked, simply, “Which way are you transitioning?”

She had no idea if I was a trans woman or a trans man. (I highly doubt the notion of me possibly being non-binary was something that entered her mind.)

As it’s relevant here, it’s worth noting how I was presenting at that time: very feminine. I was even then fairly curvy, wearing a dress showing some cleavage, with makeup on. Whatever anyone thought of me, it’d be hard to read my style that night as anything other than ‘very feminine’.

“I’m a trans woman,” I replied to her.

“Oh,” she said. “So does that mean you were… born a woman, and won’t be in future?”

This threw me even more, but I decided rather than correct her with the nuance of ‘being born’ a specific gender, I’d just ignore that and answer simply. “Born male.”

She didn’t seem surprised, in any way. Just curious.

The idea that she would have been entirely believing of the concept of me being a trans man stuck with me. She knew so little about the very idea of transitioning that the idea of someone with a (for lack of a better term) feminine body, wearing dresses, makeup and keeping long hair, might be a trans guy. It’s possible, of course – there are so many social reasons why someone may present in a way that’s not how they’d prefer to present. This, however, clearly didn’t come from a very progressive place of “I will not presume your gender on the basis of your body and presentation”; it was instead from a place of absolute lack of understanding.

I’m not a stranger to getting questions which showcase someone’s complete lack of knowledge of biology, bodies, hormones and transitioning, of course.

I once had a cis woman ask me if I could get pregnant.

Another time, a guy asked me “when I had my surgery”. At first thought he was just very rudely presuming I’d had lower surgery, but it quickly became apparent he presumed I’d had breast implants, and perhaps in even facial surgery to ‘look female’. The idea that hormones make trans women develop breasts same as they do for cis girls (and with as much variation in shape and size) was something he simply didn’t know, nor that someone with an androgynous face going on oestrogen might also end up looking quite feminine without surgery.

I don’t think about those questions, born mostly of ignorance as to hormones and biology, anywhere near as much as the woman who wasn’t sure if I was a trans man or a trans woman. I suppose because it showed a different level of ignorance – that the very idea of presenting in a way that you might feel comfortable despite your body had not occurred to her.

It made me realise how privileged my social circles had been, even before I had out trans friends, never mind realised I myself was also trans. I was used to people experimenting at least a bit with their presentation – men with earrings or eyeliner or even dresses (albeit mostly at parties), women presenting as butch as they pleased.

So even now, years later, I think back to that woman, because it reminds me just how little many people know about transitioning. Just how foreign the concept is, and how assuming even a baseline level of knowledge from people is likely unhelpful.

It made me think that even the inaccurate and problematic narrative of “born in the wrong body” was something she didn’t know, and how even that would have at least put her vaguely in the right ball-park, if not exactly totally on the money.

When you are queer or trans, it’s very easy to vanish so completely into a queer-literate, trans-literate and even poly and kink-literate spaces. So much so that it’s sometimes jarring to poke your head out of that and realise how how foreign all of this must be to people for whom the very idea of questioning their gender or even their sexuality, or the road map from dating to marriage to kids and a white picket fence, is foreign.

A friend sent me a picture – a sketch, related to the conversation we were having.

I replied, saying it was super cute.

Then I stared at that phrase for the longest time. That’s super cute.

It’s not uncommon, either – I sometimes find myself focusing on something I have said, or something I have done. I do this when I notice something which is so very, very clearly not something I would have said or done a decade ago, before I accepted who I was or transitioned.

Of course, there are a lot of these things. From the everyday and simple, like putting on a bra, to changes in empathy or language, or even which kinds of media I seek out for relaxation and enjoyment.

I usually, however, end up focusing not just on the little things such as a single cutesy phrase, but on things past-me might have resented, or even mocked when I was at my most resentful of the world.

I hated the term ‘super’. I’d never have described anything except, maybe, a little kitten as ‘cute’. I was so bitter that a simple act of expressing delight at something nice would have made me eye-roll.

I focus on terms like these because it makes me realise not just how much I’ve changed as a person in the past half decade, and mostly for the better.

Of course, some things remain the same. I am, despite sometimes enjoying the Doctor Who metaphor of having ‘regenerated’, still actually the same person, of course. I may have new interests to compliment or replace ones I’ve had my whole life, and I may look different and often communicate slightly differently, but I am the same person.

You don’t need to transition to go through personal growth, of course. It’s just that transitioning generally comes with a set of new and very different experiences that might affect the course and intensity of that growth.

Something that always springs to mind is what I mentioned earlier – that I as so very bitter and angry before. I’d have, when describing myself before, used the term ‘jaded’. In retrospect, that’s not the case. I was confused, angry and bitter to be sure, and perhaps jaded about my response to certain kinds of media, but I had no idea just what ‘jaded’ was until I’d begun to experience year after year of sexism, homophobia and transphobia. In TV shows, movies, in person, in the news… at a certain point exhaustion and jadedness blur together when you feel like progress is so slow and sporadic that it almost doesn’t seem worth fighting against.

Especially when you begin to recognise that a lot of those changes I began this post talking about… are because of those things. Because of sexism. Because of Transphobia. Of homophobia. Some of it internalised, some of it external and inflicted upon you.

Last year, I found myself in a meeting with a room full of mostly cisgender men. I had a suggestion, which I thought was correct, but I knew might run into some resistance. I made it, but I realised after I did so that I hadn’t declared it as a suggestion… I had raised it as a question.

Why did I do that? When did I start doing that? It’s an incredibly common thing. Had I begun doing that because I saw other women doing it and subconsciously adopted that method of communication? Had I done it because I’d spent years freshly adjusting to men questioning my ideas or statements more than they ever had back when they saw me as One Of Them?

A lot of these small changes seemed to happen subconsciously, with me only realising I was doing them years later. I learned the hard way early on that being too warm, or too kind to a guy can result in him thinking that you’re hitting on him.

So despite my natural urge to smile and be polite, I adopted a more guarded tone, even a cold one, when talking to men I don’t really know. But not too cold, of course – then I might be accused of being a bitch.

All these changes, shifting to an environment and to people who now treat me entirely differently, happened slowly, and as I realise I’m doing them, I feel that growing sense of jadedness.

I didn’t just change how I spoke, I also realised I was having my own sense of value and confidence shook. Years of people (even other women sometimes) presuming that because I am not just a woman, but a very feminine-presenting one with dresses and makeup, I must not be a technical person. People question my statements about something involving a programming language I’ve used since 1998, and when that keeps happening, you even begin to question your own knowledge and abilities.

I double and even triple-check things I am confident about now, before I dare post a declarative statement of fact about them I would have just blurted out years ago.

I can’t tell if that’s good or not. The reason for doing it – a growing lack of confidence in my own capabilities and experience – is clearly bad. I’m just not sure if the actual results have even a slightly beneficial side-effect.

These things, when I notice them, are definitely fairly extreme. They affect how people relate to me, how I relate to them, and how I think about myself.

Yet it’s that’s super cute that sticks in my head more.

I think, because unlike the other things, this is clearly a positive shift. Not that I used that language specifically, but that it came from a genuine place. I saw something, felt a little moment of joy, and expressed it, figuratively and literally smiling.

This was not something I was able to do before. I might have gotten that little bit of joy at seeing something pretty, cute or otherwise aesthetically pleasing, but I’d never have expressed it so simply, clearly or emotionally. Because that was just not how men did it.

Shedding the more toxic aspects of behaviour I was mimicking in order to fit in, and recognising that I’ve done it, is a wonderful thing to realise.

So many people, regardless of gender, seem to be afraid to express joy at the tiniest little positive experiences. I’m sure for some men it’ll be for a similar reason to why I did it – to try and fit in when society tells you Men Behave This Way. Or perhaps for young women it’s as a rejection of the inverse – that a cutesy phrase is expected of them, and they want to be Cool instead.

I’m not saying I think everyone should use cutesy phrases, of course… just that I am glad I now feel comfortable doing so.

It’s super cute.