I know that I would have killed myself if I hadn’t gone on hormones. I was in treatment for depression, but there’s a special kind of depression and fog that comes with living in a body and gender role that’s wrong for you. Prozac won’t touch it. Your face and body belong to a stranger, and mirrors force you to lock eyes with that stranger every single day. You’re detached from everything and everyone despite desperately trying to connect, drifting through life without ever touching it. You can feel parts of you dying. Other parts of you take up massive chunks of your brain, and you’re constantly aware of them without knowing why. Nothing is wrong with your life, and you may not realize why you’re so deeply unhappy until stumbling across something that makes that misery go away for a moment. Maybe that’s wearing a skirt or drawing on facial hair with mascara. Something clicks. There’s hope. But the fog comes back down all the same when you take off the skirt or wipe off the facial hair. Gender-affirming treatment is like being born and living for the first time. It takes that sliver of joy and vitality from wearing a skirt and extends it out for a lifetime.
Something a lot of people remark on is that pre-transition people’s eyes don’t have that spark to them in photos. They can see the spark appear after they transition. Imagine living your life without the spark that makes life worth living; that’s the cost of waiting for treatment. I think that getting a few things wrong and winding up too physically masculine was worth it for me because of that. I’m glad I had that chance to screw up. It let me have a few years of being myself while I was still a kid, and I know too many people who grieve never having that chance.