Trans

I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and many of my misconceptions were shaped by that.

I used to believe that femininity/masculinity, presentation and gender were intrinsically linked. I don't really have an attachment to femininity, and so, for a long time, I thought that meant that I wasn't trans, wasn't a woman etc.

I used to believe that all trans women wanted bottom surgery, and didn't understand how one could be trans and not want it.

I used to believe that to transition is the same thing as wanting to pass as cis.

I used to believe that gender was binary.

I used to hold vaguely transmed beliefs. I didn't so much believe that you had to have dysphoria to be trans, but more, it never occurred to me that it was even possible to experience trans identity without dysphoria.

I never used to realise that trans men exist

I used to believe that being queer, and being part of the queer community was just a practical/pragmatic thing, and not an important part of my identity, and something valuable in its own right.

Lets just say, my understanding of trans identity has changed quite a lot since then :)

Good question!

Regarding transition, I though I'd probably always look pretty clocky (I wanted to transition anyway, though!). Now at almost a year in I don't have much trouble seeing a girl in the mirror most of the time, even in a T-shirt and jeans with stubble and no makeup!

I thought I was shy. Turns out I just didn't like pretending to be a man.

I thought I was self-conscious. Turns out now that I like my body more I want to show it off!

I thought wanting to be a woman was just a sexual fantasy. Everybody knows that one.

I thought estrogen would turn me into an emotional wreck. Actually I'm much calmer than I used to be.

I thought transition was something that other people did. I was wrong.

There was a common sentiment of "you'll never pass if you don't transition before 20" when my egg cracked. I thought, fuck it I'll do it anyways.

And I pass perfectly fine!

That all trans femmes would grow chests like the other members of their genetic relations who had endogenous estrogen

That lactation happened sometimes

That erections would no longer be possible

That genitals would shrink by a major amount

That it'd still be possible to release fluids from genitals under circumstances similar to before

That orgasms would be possible, feel amazing, and could be multiple

That horniness would feel different

That muscle mass would naturally be lost

That fat distribution would be much different

That feet would shrink

That faces would look more 'feminine' to a certain degree, naturally

That attraction to men would happen, or that attraction would change much at all

That head hair would get a lot thicker and more volumous

That's all we can think of for now

I was under the impression gender was skin deep. I did not realize that feminems could make you grow titties. Or shrink your feet.

That there's a strict binary between trans and cis.

Some cis people might be gender nonconforming, some trans people might keep some gendered aspects about them from pretransition, nonbinary people aren't binary trans. And most importantly, when I thought cis/trans was a strict binary, I told myself I must be cis then because that's Normal™, and trans, in my mind being the complete opposite, was too far outside my comfort zone.

@dandelion I guess one misconception I had before transition was that I thought you needed to know you wanted to be a different gender early on as a child. The thing is when I was a child I never even put any thought to what I wanted to be or what I looked like. When people told me I was a boy I believed them because what do I know. I might as well have been a pair of floating eyeballs because I had no sense of my body. Only when puberty hit did it occur to me that I would rather be female because of the changes to my body and sexuality.

The misconception I mentioned was something I used as an argument why I could not be trans, ignoring that there were still signs when I was a child, just not obvious ones. I think I used it as a coping mechanism since transition seemed so far out of reach in my early adulthood.

I thought transfems (me) would have their voice change from HRT in the opposite way to transmascs. Sad that's not the case :(

I started off pretransition believing that you can't choose your gender, and now I would say one can choose a gender. It reminds me of the free will vs predestination arguments from the churches I grew up in.

There's a lot that has changed about how I view the world. My transition was fairly easy, all things considered. I eventually settled on labeling my gender as dragon. I couldn't find a premade gender label that described how I understand myself so I made my own. Another label that I've taken to using for some forms and such is genderqueer. Mostly because I've realized there are different levels to how much of who I am I want to share. At a basic level, most people perceive me as a woman. It's an easy shorthand for many interactions but it's a perception, not who I am. I choose to play that role in certain situations because it's good enough for that.

So, in a certain sense, I choose my gender on a case by case basis. Choosing what and how much I share about myself.

In the same way, I have different names in different contexts. All of them are my true names, and all of them I chose.

There's probably a lot more I could go into but I'm kinda tired rn anyways.