#during which time I was mulling (without being fully conscious of it) about transmasculinity

[variousqueerthings]

trans story time is that the first time I entered a space for trans people (a peer-moderated talking group) about... four or five years ago? (wow it really hasn’t been long, I need to breathe more easily about time) I had never seen imagery of any kind of trans men before and certainly nobody who was many years on T and so when I saw this guy in his late 40s who was moderating the group, rather than make the obvious deduction that he too, of course, must be trans (and that we grow older and that we carry our bodies confidently and that we may be strong enough to hold room for each other), I thought “oh how odd that a cis guy is running this, but nice that he cares,” (at the time it was almost only trans women who attended the group, and also whom I expected to see there -- I also had no inner projection of what a non-binary person might look like before I went) and it took me a few weeks to suddenly realise my mistake from one moment to the next 

a magical transformation and he’d changed nothing, but I changed drastically and irrevocably (for good)

#queer stuff #trans stuff #mix of things: 1. you dont know what youve never known #2. honestly though it ought to have been suggested by the *peer moderated* part but truly i needed to unblock my brain #3. i have also in the last couple of years come to understand that i carry things in me for a good deal longer than is considered average #before they can properly make their way to the front of my head with conclusions #this also goes for simply making decisions about things... my time runs slower than is expected of people (and i quite like that) #case in point: from seeing him to meeting trans guys my own age would be another 3 years #during which time I was mulling (without being fully conscious of it) about transmasculinity #3 years in considering things about queerness time isn't technically so long i think #it's more that he jolted something in me that i couldnt look at until a few years later despite it being a very immediate reaction #which happens a lot with me for non-queer things also #(I also think some part of it may have been covid... looot of time to sit with your brain then) #realisation to action takes time #me #queer