We’ve accepted that there is no clear cut explanation for a person’s sexuality – yet I feel an insistent need to come up with a grand, well thought-out answer every time I’m asked, “so how did you know you were trans?” Otherwise, they’ll respect my ‘credentials’ less. You get brownie points if you knew since puberty, but the kicker of an answer is if you knew something was up since you were a toddler. People think that because gender expression is more ‘public’ than a person’s sexuality, that this somehow gives them an all-access pass to ask whatever they want. Transitioning is no longer a personal problem, but also an incredibly public journey in your attempt to assimilate into cisgender society – you must constantly dress to impress.

Want to dazzle cis people? Talk to them about how “transgenderism” (they love that word) is actually founded in chemical imbalances in a person’s brain (they respect this explanation more than any other). They don’t care about you and your experiences, they ask why so they can assess the reasons you give. If they must address you correctly, then they must have a say, right? Want to dazzle your fellow trans people? Talk to them about how planned and thought out your hormone and surgery goals are (it’ll show you know your stuff).

So where does that leave me? All other trans people are real, yet I’m some awful fraud because I don’t have a superhero origin story? Maybe I’m making a big deal out of nothing. Maybe this is all just a melodramatic attempt to pretend as if I’m not at all different from a cis person, and I’m blaming other people’s ignorance to do it.

But it’s not just me. It’s a world of trans people navigating a pandemic of transphobia whilst also trying to remain authentic to themselves. In an environment in which I can’t control how my transition is perceived by society – I must at least control my own narrative (in this case, my explanation to others as to why I’m trans).

The few words I muster up every time I explain my transition could have the ability to help people understand me better. But will it ever actually make space for me, and other trans people, in any meaningful capacity? It’s easy to feel pessimistic about society’s ability to carve out any more space for trans people when we’re still regularly fighting for the most basic of rights – or for our parents to understand that they/them pronouns aren’t just used to refer to a group of people.

I could ignore the rapid rolling back of rights for trans people across the US or the harmful rhetoric which threatens my future access to healthcare (as has happened in the UK) – pretending that society’s acceptance of trans people is an ‘abstract’ issue which isn’t currently threatening me personally. But what about how this affects my daily life? How I struggle to find a place in my college sports team because the ANU doesn’t know how to address people medically transitioning. How my friends think it’s okay to talk about my transition to other people for me because ‘it’s not like I’m hiding it’.

Once you become used to feeling like you have no place – like your very existence is a scandal – it’s easy to start feeling like you’re asking too much of the people around you. I can’t help but feel that acknowledging my identity demands more out of the people I interact with, beyond that of a cis person. My resolve to correct people when they slip up has withered away as I start to feel it has become all too trivial – I’m demanding too much, I tell myself. The politeness of the oppressed meets the timidity of the constantly- questioned. Every correction I make I remember that this struggle is unique to me – the average person has no reason to care about the intricacies of my identity and how it should affect their treatment of me. I worry if I push too much, I’ll simply push them away. Why should they be forced to put extra time and consideration into things they would otherwise pay no mind to? If the toss up is between vigilantly correcting everyone I interact with or just pretending I’m nonchalant enough to let it not affect me – I’ll just let them assign me whatever pronoun they see fit.

After all of this I’m left too exhausted to genuinely make time for myself as opposed to simply making space for myself. I don’t have time for any of this. Transitioning is exhausting. I’m expected to go through puberty twice, reinvent myself from the ground up, and justify this whole process to people who will never understand the point of it all. At the end of the day, I’m left with two options – speak up for myself and for other trans people every time the situation warrants it… or shut up and stick firmly to my comfort zone.

If I make time to speak up for myself – being trans, and being the guy who talks about it, is all I’ll ever be known for. You transition to escape the confines of imposed gender, only to be consumed by your new identity… trapped in freedom. If I let everything slide from now on – I’ll continue to make myself feel ashamed about something that is inherent to who I am.

I’m at a crossroads.

All of this pessimism would draw me towards keeping silent and suppressing all my misgivings. But, I have to keep hopeful in the knowledge that I’m not alone in this. By continuing to be unashamedly authentic to myself, no matter how public and vulnerable of a process that may be, I hope to work for a society that has enough space for people like me. In showing gratitude for the trans people who came before me to make it easier for me to exist in the way that I do, I can only hope that my openness will make it easier for those who may come after me. There really is no going back now.

I hid away from myself for so long, it would make no sense for me to come out only to hide from the world once again.