Am I a Coward?
Papi, I'm not scrappy like I used to be
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¡Hola Papi!
I'm a trans man who lives in a blue city in a red state, and I've been very fortunate in my transition. A few years of HRT and getting top surgery have transformed my body and, frankly, my entire life. I feel (and look) unrecognizable compared to just three years ago.
Adding to the magical girl boy transformation, the COVID pandemic lockdowns were like a weird blessing, allowing me the social privacy to cocoon away from others with my vials of testosterone before magically getting to emerge like a metaphorical manly butterfly.
Now, I have a respectable mustache, a flat chest, and am 100% gendered correctly in public. This is all a huge privilege, and I am grateful every damn day for it. If I hadn't started this journey back in 2019, I would not be alive today.
I also feel like my life's magical transformation has potentially caused my courage to atrophy.
When I started at my very corporate workplace in 2019, I showed up on day 1 with my pre-T babyface and a freshly printed name change. I absolutely did not pass as male. Still, I showed up and advocated for myself, corrected misgendering, and used the mens room even when it felt like I was walking into a literal den of lions. It took grit and bravery and determination and I look back and genuinely do not know how I did it.
At the end of last year, I did an internal transfer at my job to a team where nobody knows I'm trans. It may sound strange, but I kind of feel awful about it.
On my old team, people knew me from the beginning of my transition. They saw my transformation, and they saw me fight to prove myself as a man. And eventually, they all saw and treated me as a man and it felt real and genuine. It felt like something I'd earned.
On my new team, I feel... phony. And cowardly. Everyone treats me as a man, which was, ya know, one of the major goals of my transition. But my stealth status feels like the flimsiest of shields, and I find myself now afraid that someone will find out and then treat me differently.
What happened to my courage, Papi? The babyfaced pre-T guy from 2019 who rocked up and made it work had so much gumption, and I don't know what happened to him.
I've even thought about leaving my job and going elsewhere, but that just seems like it'll kick the can down the road to some other workplace. How do I find that courage again to be openly trans and rock it like I used to, back when that was the only option?
Love,
Fearful in Stealth
Hey there, FS!
You know, I’m not trans and I certainly can’t speak to that experience, but I do know what it’s like to go from scrappy underdog to… regular dog. Like, a dog with a backyard and nice treats. I guess we’re going with dog metaphors here. Kind of dangerous. Kind of furry-adjacent. But I shall be brave and persist.
Point is, when struggle is such a big part of your life, when every day is a battle and you have to tussle for every last scrap you get, you can start to identify with it. You can start to feel like this is who I am. You wake up every morning ready to fight, and you go to bed every night exhausted from having fought.
And you know, blood, sweat, and tears aside, there are upsides to that. A lot of people don’t wake up knowing who they are at all. There’s a sense of purpose, a noble one, in being a warrior. Many people in this cold, confusing world don’t have that sense of self. They don’t have a fight, or a goal, or anything to suffer toward.
With suffering as common and unjustified as it is, there’s really something to the idea that our pain means something, that it’s useful, that it’s all part of a journey with a destination. Isn’t that the foundation of every powerful story? And isn’t a story what we all want?