Some effects of testosterone give me dysphoria. That doesn’t mean I regret it.

I had to go there to get here.

Growing, growing, growing. A large, mature tree (I believe a Hackberry or an American elm? Tree people, let me know!) in a half-circle barrier of stones and surrounded by saplings, near 43rd street on the Lake Shore Trail in Chicago. Photo by author.

I came out as transgender in 2016 and started taking testosterone in 2018. Since then, I have known countless transmasculine people who came out later than me, and started hormones years after me, but completely fucking lapped me in their masculinization within a matter of months.

They approach me the way trans eggs often do — with admiration, passionate defenses, and lots of questions. The type of closeted trans guy I most often wind up ministering to is the overly invested “ally” with bruises on his knees and wrist scars covered up with kandi, whose eyes shimmer while reading male/male fan fiction but thinks there’s no possibility he will be accepted as a queer man. Like I was, he is troubled and repressing something massive that claws its way violently out of him.

It only takes a few conversations with a guy like me, with a gravelly voice, limp wrists, and endless stories of get railed by gay men in bar backrooms to eke these boys out of their oversized hoodies and into themselves. After a little time, and with a little help from a lot of us, these guys tell me they have selected a name and are getting started on testosterone injections. Then boom, six months have passed and they have a full beard, a packer…