Edit: Just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to all of the kind and informative responses I am getting here, and for all of the constructive discussion I see going on in this thread. You all are amazing. 💜

I’m 34, came from a conservative home that was in a Christian nationalist cult. The idea of homosexuality was an ultimate taboo, I didn’t even learn what “transgender” was until well after puberty, well after I’d casually had the thought to myself that being a woman wouldn’t be so bad. Well after I’d been chastised for playing dress up with my mother’s clothes despite the fact my brother never did.

Even when I did learn of the T in LGBT, I had so many excuses as to why that didn’t apply to me. I’m just overly imaginative. I just get along with some more naturally than men. I just see women as people and feel strongly about their issues because I’m a progressive egalitarian man.

Even when those excuses failed me, I told myself I was genderfluid, or nonbinary. And in many ways those both definitely apply to me still. I do not experience dysphoria existing as a man all the time.

But today I cracked. I messed around in faceapp and touched up a photo of a time id shaven and had my wife put makeup on me and I cracked. I cried. I let myself feel that deep sense of longing I’d always instinctually suppressed.

And then I realized I was well and truly fucked. I live in Oklahoma. I have a child. And I live under some of the worst conditions to be beginning a journey that is being persecuted more than ever….

  • dandelion (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    2·
    8 hours ago

    I don’t disagree that getting out of OK is a top priority, I just think it’s going to take a while to make a move like that happen. You can get on HRT much more quickly and it will likely provide immediate benefit.

    It also makes sense to come up with several plans to leave the state, some of which are quick / emergency style plans (just get out even if it means temporary homelessness in a trans refuge state) while others are more ideal (move into housing with your stuff, with your family, etc.) but slower.

    I certainly drew up several plans and also wrote up an escalation of what exactly would trigger the emergency plan.

    For me, that was legislation being passed or change in law enforcement such that simply being trans was directly criminalized - i.e. trans people being picked off the streets or being targeted door to door and put in prisons and forcefully detransitioned in prison (like they are doing in Florida). That was my “red alarm” level, I get in a car and flee the state even if it means being homeless and not having any of my possessions, etc.

    Luckily my state did not manage to pass any such legislation in that year I was trying to move (though I will note, Texas did attempt to pass a bill that would have criminalized all trans people, and luckily it did not pass), and I managed to get out under ideal circumstances.