——Contributed by Jane Doe

As a child, I remember such a beautiful and all-encompassing sense of femininity inside of me. My friends were girls, and I dreamt of being one. As I got older, the sense of femininity I had loved slowly dwindled and died off, but the same desire remained. 

I was fifteen when I discovered transsexuals online. They had such a vibrant, feminine energy to them that drew me in like a fish on a hook. I knew I was one of them. I knew I was a girl. But the thing about transition is that knowing you're a girl, and BEING a girl are two different things. It would take time to learn, as any girl would, the typical social cues, fashion, manor of speech, and to develop my physical appearance, not so unlike casting a powerful glamour spell. But one thing mattered more than anything. The development of my soul. 

I believe that our souls are innately gendered. I believe that we find genders that fit us, and for the majority of the world, it happens seamlessly. They exist and develop their self, their spiritual self, and their gender identity in tandem with one another. With transsexuals, it's a little different. We exist in limbo. Our given gender not quite matching our self and spiritual self. And, like with any engine failure, it's pretty easy to tell when it's not working the way it should. But, unlike engine failure, others really can't tell from the outside. Social pressure during childhood by those who don't understand can comfort one's pride, and the need to fit in forces the assumed gender to take hold, and keeps the illusion of movement going. Transition, both spiritually and physically, is the remedy to this failure. A sort of reconstruction of what should have been. 

When I initially came out, I had understood the failure of the engine, and the easily solved  failings of appearance and physiology, the things you could feel, see, and experience with me, were addressed. I wore girl's clothes, and began to fill them out by blocking my body's ability to use the male hormones, and supplemented female hormones to go through a typical female puberty. To everyone, I looked and felt like a girl, and as far as my gender identity went, the nagging pain and fear of gender dysphoria had been released. Still, something deep inside told me that there was still work to do.

It finally came to me in a dream, shortly after I was a year on female hormones. The small, childlike version of me, in a flowing white lacy sundress, no older than five or six years old. My long, butt-length dark brown hair, flailing wildly in the wind as I ran down the street of my grandmother's neighborhood, screaming a high pitched shriek of glee. I remembered how I had felt as a small child, roughly the same age. I realized it was me. It was my inner child, and I chased her. She had grabbed my hand, and pulled me in the direction she ran as I tried to keep up with her pace. She talked, and I couldn't make out the words, but I remembered their meaning. "You already knew. You already know. You were always me." 

I awoke with a bloody nose (common side effect of testosterone blockers like spironolactone) and recalled the dream. In an instant, I remembered what I had said to myself: that I always knew. I felt a warmth in my chest, an inner glow that I hadn't experienced in so long, and realized, then and there, that I had found the missing piece. That in search of what made me a woman, be it societal acceptance, sexual attractiveness, or physical similarity with the female body, I had ignored the search for what mattered most; my feminine essence. The sense of femininity that I had always possessed, and always concealed. It was ME. It was my spirit, wanting to burst forth, laugh, and be free, and in remembering where I came from, I came to know a fulfillment within the wholeness of me, and I now feel at peace.

If I had to say one thing to my younger self about this whole revelation, it would be this. Life might seem like it isn't for you. The pain, and fear of feeling different might feel like it can't be overcome. I'm here to tell you that it can be. That this is not permanent, and that most things rarely are. I'd also tell myself that transition isn't something to accomplish through brute force. Other people's transition timelines might make it look like a simple progression, but it's not, and that's okay. It's okay to be scared, to self doubt, and to exist in a state of perpetual metamorphosis. These are all things that will help you get to where you need to go. They helped us get to where we are. You. Will. Find. A. Way.

——Like this article? Remember to share, subscribe, and show your support!