In the four months I’ve been on hormones, the girl who I freed has blossomed. I’ve gone from an angry, sullen, unsociable, uptight boy, to a happy, gregarious, slightly (editors correction: VERY) silly girl. My friendships with people who know me have only gotten stronger. In fact, I’ve never had more friends in all my life. In the past four months, I’ve gone out, had fun, or just spent time with my friends more than in the past four years! Now, some people might say that’s because I’ve moved, or I’m not with my parents anymore. I thought about that, and my computer technician brain started troubleshooting. The first step in troubleshooting a computer is to ask the question “What Has Changed?” Well, of all the factors that have changed, the only two that really could have effects on me would be moving out, and starting hormones and transitioning. Moving out was definitely a factor, but one thing that moving out can’t change is that I like to look in mirrors now. Before I started on hormones, I would look in the mirror and get depressed. I never saw a girl in the mirror, unless one was standing behind me. Nowadays, I can’t pass a mirror without looking at my reflection, and being happy with who is looking back at me.

I’m an odd specimen of womanhood. My long red hair is usually tied up in a utilitarian ponytail. Occasionally, when I get the urge, I’ll get my girlfriend to braid it for me. If I’m at work or with my family, my ears have simple piercing studs in them. When I’m at school or with my friends, I’ll put in the earrings that my girlfriend got me, interlocking circles that we call my “cat toys”, because I bat at them when I get bored in class. 99% of my life, I’m in pants, usually jeans, matching them with a t-shirt and hoodie. Yet, on a special occasion, I enjoy pulling on a dress and heels. My breasts are small, almost nonexistent AA cups; my girlfriend calls them ‘booblets’. And yet, if I’m going out, they suddenly sprout to a large B or small C. But above all, the strangest dichotomy about me is, despite all that, I have a Y chromosome. At my chromosomes, I am a boy. In my mind, I’m a woman. And finally, after 20 long years, my body is changing to match my mind.

When I was younger, I used to think that I was the mistress of my own fate, and thereby, mistress of my body. I always saw myself as an independent then-boy, now girl. I still do, but I’ve learned through my journeys through gender that if there is one person who is in control of their body, it’s not me!

See, because I happen to be trans, my body is not my own. Transsexuality is quite possible one of the most regulated things in the United States, and around the world. See, even in this age of cosmetic surgery, Botox injections, tummy tucks, and gastric bypass surgeries, if I want (and I will, eventually) to get my penis inverted, the nerves moved around, I need letters from two mental health professionals stating that I have a bona-fide mental disorder. If I want to switch my hormones from testosterone to estrogen, I need to have a letter from a mental health professional. Now, the non-trans person may look at these requirements, and go “Oh, that’s no big deal!” Well, while it’s not much on paper, going through it is a different story. What if you can’t