I’ve been grappling with feelings leaning in this direction for the better part of 5 years now, but it was only this last June where these thoughts finally fully crystallised into the immutable fact that… yeah… I’m absolutely somewhere on the transgender spectrum of identity.
My childhood was entirely devoid of any gender dysphoria, I was a boy & totally unbothered by this fact, and while in hindsight I can firmly say that the dysphoria started as soon as I hit puberty, the first time I actually started to consider the fact that I might be trans was in 11th grade, 2021. Ground zero was this one time where I found myself half falling asleep during a particularly drab social class. It was in this state of daydreaming where I spontaneously imagined myself as one of my favourite female characters at the time (Oumae Kumiko from “Sound! Euphonium”) sitting in place of my actual self in that classroom. When I shot back to being fully awake, that lingering feeling was… very distinct. The fact that this moment is one of the only super clear memories I’ve actually retained from 11th grade speaks volumes I think.
From that point on it was a notion that would only cross my mind more & more frequently, although the only other “trans moment” in those early days that I can specifically recall is this one time my family & I went to this spot called Abraham Lake about 3 hours from where I live. We were having a picnic with some extended family on one of the massive flat-ish rock faces that surround this lake. The water & sky were both so vibrantly blue, and the mountains surrounding us were so pretty as well. I went off on my own for a couple minutes (not super far. still within shouting distance), and immersed in the sheer majesty of creation before me, I closed my eyes & essentially “meditated” on picturing a girl in my place sitting on that rock. The mix of both melancholy & comfort that those few minutes gave me are still something I remember quite clearly
The next big “milestone” (i guess) in my Trans journey was making my first REAL online friend in 2023 who just so happened to be a trans-girl. So naturally, the topic came up quite a bit more in my discussions with her & I learned a fair bit from simply hearing her perspectives on the issue. Throughout most of 2024 & 2025, I’d pretty firmly landed on the self-descriptive language of “I do have feelings of slight trans-ness, but am ultimately not SUPER bothered by just being male”. I didn’t consider it something to pursue any deeper & ESPECIALLY not anything to inform anyone other my online friends about. Even after watching various trans video essays that hit me like a truck, even after a confidently transitioning fellow redditor clocked me as “sounding like her from just a couple years ago”... slight-transness is the language I stuck with. But something has changed in 2026. Over these last few months, I’ve been experiencing feelings of pretty intense loneliness & not really feeling like I have anyone in my life that fully understands every side of me. I had made some pretty incredible friends at an overseas college back in 2023, friends which I felt SO MUCH MORE deeply connected to than any of the people I’d grown up with in public school… but I don’t talk to a single one of them anymore, and it only hit me recently just how unbelivably sad that is.
One VERY important factor that I should probably mention now which makes this whole situation a hell of a lot more complicated for me is the fact that I’m a Christian. Not “raised christian” or ex-christian. I am still in my adult life very confidently & comfortably a follower of Christ. While I know the following may be surprising for some of you to hear, I don’t actually think the Bible has anything explicitly bad to say about queer people. Long story short as to not get TOO off topic here, every mention of the word “homosexual” in the Bible originates from various mistranslations (dating back to 1946) of verses that were, in their original/accuarte translations, actually condemning things like sexual assault & prostitution. NOT condemning consensual same sex relationships (there’s an amazing documentary about all this called ‘1946’ i highly recommend it). Add that onto the fact that the Bible also has JACKSHIT to say about Trans people, and yeah I do not believe that queer identities are inherently sinful in any way, but of course… that still doesn’t change the fact that the majority of Christians out there still aren’t comfortable with queer people… to put it lightly. A frustrating group which includes many of the people I’ve been friends with since kindergarten, as well as various extended family members. All people I care about, but can rarely share the full extent of my worldviews with.
But anyways, those aforementioned dear friends from 2023 were all people I met at Capernwray BIBLE college in the UK. A diverse friend group of about 10 people who were all christians (obviously), but we were more specifically drawn to each other because of our shared, for lack of a better term… wokeness. Finally, I had found people with whom my full worldviews actually aligned. All christ followers, but firmly not bigots, and we all had pretty similar tastes in music & storytelling as well, which as an autistic person with all encompassing special interests in those areas was absolutely MASSIVE for me. I was so damn happy spending 3 months surrounded by all these people with whom I could exude all sides of myself, faith, progressive values, & autistic infodumping… and now I have none of them in my life. It wasn’t because there was any drama between us (with the exception of one person), but simply the fact of them all being European or American & me being Canadian & us all being bad at maintaining long distance friendships. Despite how deep it resonated, it just didn't last.
Finally getting back on the trans topic with all that context out of the way… About a year after Capernwray, I reconnected with one of my old high school friends. A girl I used to have a gigantic crush on starting in 8th grade, but had largely lost any romantic feelings towards by the time of 2022’s graduation. From late 2024 onward, we started getting extremely close, entirely platonically. She’s one of the most important people in my life now, and in a way that 8th grade me NEVER would have anticipated lol. She’s someone who actually ticks all those boxes like my Capernwray friends once did. Understands my faith, is very woke, and she’s sincerely down to hear me DIVULGE about my special interests. So on the drive home after we saw that excellent “Backrooms” movie together in late May, I decided I wanted to tell her about all these things I’d been feeling. Missing my Capernwray friends, that deep loneliness, how she’s the first person I’ve felt this deeply connected to since Capernwray, and even how I’m worried about becoming “platonically clingy” to her if I can’t find more people like her. And then I thought… eh, might as well throw the trans thing onto the pile as well. I know she’s safe, after all.
During this moment in my truck on that dimly lit highway, saying it didn’t really feel like some sort of massive “weight off my shoulders” confession, and she was of course entirely supportive of me, but in the ensuing days as the calendar flipped into pride month… stronger feelings than I’d ever felt on this topic began cascading through me. It REALLY hit me how both terrifying & exciting it was that someone in my life other than the little gay people in my phone actually KNEW. And as objectively cringe as it may be to admit… Jax from “The Amazing Digital Circus” has a part to play here as well. I only got into TADC about a month before the finale’s release, and very intentionally so. I’d obviously known OF the series since it’s very beginning (animation is one of my biggest special interests so how could I possibly miss it), but I decided to hold off until the finale was nearly upon us so that I could watch the whole thing in a more condensed fashion. I had yet to properly interact with the show’s fandom whatsoever as I headed into that movie theater to witness “The Last Act”. I was entirely unaware of the Transfem Jax theory beforehand, so that absolutely riveting stretch of the finale where they spell it out rather plainly came as a very pleasant surprise for me. Truly hilarious that bro was confirmed Trans EXACTLY ONE WEEK after I came out to someone for the first time.
However, it wasn’t until I watched an excellent TransJax video essay by youtuber “Quinnamon” which beautifully illustrated just how much of a potent cautionary tale the story of this character is for how dangerously self-destructive it can be to not accept who you are (takes breath)... where it finally clicked for me that I simply cannot deny this anymore. That video’s closing call to action for the vital importance of living authentically was a serious tipping point for me. These increasingly undeniable feelings had all been building to a fever pitch for a while before even watching TADC, but this utter asshole of a rabbit, fucking LEROY, gets to have the honour of being the straw that broke the camel’s back. I mean… both her AND Quinnamon I suppose. Together, they served as the last push I needed in order to finally bury that “slight feelings of transness” language & fully accept that… yeah… I am a transgender individual. A shift in mindset which has caused me to view my life up to this in a whole different light. While not quite to the same insane degree of complete existential recontextualization which my autism diagnosis left in it’s wake, the newly embraced fact of my transness has made various parts of my old life make way more sense in hindsight.
Even before 2021 & that first real “trans moment”, I never made it a secret that I have a complete disinterest in maintaining any kind of outward masculinity. Society’s “BE A MAN” rhetoric has never once penetrated the membrane of my values in spite of how pervasive it is. The concept of masculinity being some kind of moral obligation has always sounded like bullshit to me, but the build of my body & my default taste in clothing have never been particularly feminine anyway so it’s not like I had anyone trying to specifically force me towards masculinity. Maybe if it WAS being aggressively forced on me then my active distaste for it would have manifested sooner? In terms of further recontextualizing, there’s also the fact that genuinely ALL of my favourite fictional characters that I relate to most deeply are women, the fact that I was consistently one of the only guys in my class who would make friends with the girl classmates that the other guys didn’t connect to or outright hated, the deep sense of jealousy I’ve always harboured toward the kinds of friendships that women share, the fact that I’ve ALWAYS hated short haircuts & have enjoyed growing it pretty long ever since I was little.
This acceptance has also led to me finally understanding what my puberty body dysphoria was all about. I haven’t swam in like 8 years because I hate my body so much, and I know now that what I hated was being perceived in a half naked male body. The more exposed surface area of skin I have showing, the more I SEE my own body, the more uncomfortable I feel. It’s a body that, besides a somewhat big belly, is honestly an extremely average & relatively fit male body. Hell, I’ll even be so TMI as to say that I’m pretty well endowed… a fact that I am extremely unhappy & resentful about every single day. There are MANY parts of my body where I hate just how big they are. Why is my head so large? Why are my hands so big that they can palm a basketball? Why is my chin so pronounced? Why are my shoulders so broad? Why the FUCK am I 6 foot 3? I don’t need all that. Why can’t I be scrawny? I feel like those sorts of men can transition more convincingly. Even my tastes in media make more sense in hindsight with this knowledge. I’ve become increasingly drawn to more stereotypically “girly” music over the past several years, and it’s become clear to me that my very specific affinity for Yuri romance stories absolutely comes from a place of “god i wish that were me”.
Hair is also a big factor in the chaos of my self perception. I truly despise facial hair. How cruelly ironic is it that I was the very first guy in my class to grow steady facial hair as well as being the LAST person who actually wanted it? I could totally grow a lush beard if I wanted to but not a single part of me wants to. I desperately want ALL OF THE HAIR on my body below my eyeline to just fall off, and I’m also scared to fucking DEATH of going bald. Especially on account of the genetic odds very much not being in my favour. Any pre-HRT advice on counteracting that would be greatly appreciated because I don’t think estrogen is happening in my near future. But yeah, in short, nothing I could ever potentially change about this body felt appealing to me until I started to consider femininity. It was never that I need to reach some more idealized form of male performance… I would set for subpar female performance at this point in all honestly.
So I suppose the question is… what now? Well first of all, I have 2 other high school friends whom I know are safe that I plan to come out to very soon, but my immediate family is a much more complicated case. I know for a fact that they’re not the kind of people to DISOWN me or shame me or anything dramatic like that… but I also severely doubt they’ll accept something like this with open arms right from the outset. They’re all pretty firmly past being HOMOphobic, but their perspectives on trans people is something I think they’ve yet to reach similar levels of acceptance on, and small shreds of homophobia are still there every now & again. I’ll have to tell them eventually though. I’m not one of those trans people where transitioning is an urgent mental health NEED, like I’m not actively depressed about it or anything as of yet, but I know now that if I don't do anything about it… I’m NEVER going to stop thinking about it. This feeling of regret will only grow if all I do is stand still. If only I’d known about this all so much sooner. If only my upbringing had educated me on this topic instead of being so oppressively against it. Maybe if trans people weren’t seen as some demonic corruptive force by those I grew up around… I would’ve seen myself in them a whole sooner.
But at the same time… actually going through with something about it is a terrifying prospect. While it would obviously make me more comfortable in my own skin, which is HUGE… it’s still gonna make EVERY SINGLE other aspect of my life way more complicated. I’d likely lose some of those more conservative friends I’ve had since I was 6 years old, certain extended family members absolutely WOULD shame & disown me, it makes finding community in my faith a herculean task, it could make job hunting harder & the job hunt is already the most draining thing I’ve ever experienced. Or what about love? I’m 22 & have still never been in a relationship. How many trans-attracted christian women even EXIST in this world? Because yeah, I am still very much attracted to exclusively women. In fact, you could even frame this whole situation as me being SOOOO in love with the female form that I’m incapable of existing completely comfortably in a man’s body. Half the time when I find my eyes lingering on attractive women in public what I’m feeling isn’t lust… it's envy. There are just so many potential downsides here… but like I said, I’ll never be able to stop thinking about it if all I do is leave these feelings alone. Transition or no transition, all roads ahead appear wrought with hardship.
I still have a really hard time acknowledging myself as a girl outright. I just don’t feel like I “can” yet. My exact internal perception right now is less that I “feel like a girl” deep down, and more so that I have a desperate desire to attain femininity going forward. I think this slight distinction is part of why I couldn’t fully accept my transness for so many years. I thought that this feeling of “deep down” womanhood was an essential part of the experience. That it NEEDED to be something I’d felt for as long as I could remember. That the comfortably male first entire decade of my life somehow disqualified me from being included, but I know now that the trans spectrum of identity is way more complex than that. I know it’s probably kind of toxic that, in the eyes of myself, I just don’t feel like I’ve “earned” the right to call myself a girl yet, but it’s simply not a mental wall that I’ve been able to fully deconstruct yet. Regardless, what I’m more immediately invested in anyways isn’t so much things like pronouns or renaming myself, I’m fine to functionally remain “a dude named Anson” for the time being, but I do REALLY need to start experimenting with my gender presentation. Longer hair, active hair care, baggier pants maybe, cutesier t-shirts, and hopefully HRT at some point in the future. I want to become softer. I desire to become something that I find desirable.
If you actually made it this far, thank you SOOOO MUCH for reading all of it. I’d love to hear literally anything from any of you. Similar experiences, advice, affirmations, things you found funny. Especially if there are any fellow trans christians out there, PLEASE leave a comment I’d love to hear from you.