Political Memes

I got the opinion piece is that some folks in the gay community worry that wanting to transition can also mean being attracted to the same sex and being confused about it at a young age.

My experience was that I was not attracted to men at all, but because I liked sailor moon and painting my nails people would just assume that I was. It just strikes me as a very paternalistic attitude to be worried about misguiding poor gay people who are simply "confused".

Because transitioning is a decision, but who you are is not. And I believe that when you’re so young, it’s really hard to know who you are.

Being trans is very much a part of who you are. However while there has been a tremendous social pressure to repress over the years, trans people are not a recent development.

I'm a trans woman, I transitioned later in life, but I knew from a very young age that I was uncomfortable as a boy and I didn't have the words to describe it until much later in life.

I grew up in the 90s's/00's and back then the gatekeeping and lack of information was pretty bad. Unless you were presenting with an acute mental health condition you really weren't getting taken seriously. I was able to hold my shit long enough to go to a college and land a career because throwing myself into work (and drinking heavily) was my coping skill.

Meeting and working with another trans person after years of repressing that feeling was all it really took for me to put it together and transition myself after 10+ years of denial. That's also what happens when trans people are erased from daily life.

I think it's a good thing that kids actually get listened to when they say what they want. It's not 'ice cream for dinner' but that orientation does speak volumes. None of these transition decisions get made flippantly, this is a process that takes years and plenty of oversight.