What was your first trans experience like?

And through it all, that feeling of nerve-jangling dread. That feeling of knowing that something wasn’t right, but I didn’t know what. The constant adrenaline wore at me, stopped me from sleeping more than a few hours at a time. I started to feel like another depressive episode might be in the works. I stayed up late, surfing the internet. Somewhere in the second week I knew that something had to give, that I couldn’t go on like this. I was so far in denial and depersonalization at that point that half of my brain was just on autopilot, but I clicked through to the gender dysphoria bible and read their excellent and nuanced description of gender dysphoria, and realized that I’d been experiencing that for almost my entire life to one degree or another, but I’d been too emotionally numb to figure it out, or to listen to my own feelings.

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then it continued like that for well over a week. Looking at my body in the shower and feeling like something wasn’t right. Looking at my face in the mirror and feeling not the slightest connection to the stranger looking back at me.

How good do you sing and how do you know this?

It started as a gnawing feeling in my gut that wouldn’t go away, a pervasive sense of dread and free-floating anxiety, like a panic attack might at any minute erupt. Then…

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Learning what I was dealing with was the first step towards my first experience of knowing that I was transgender. It was freeing, sure, but it also scared the holy crap out of me because I knew once I stepped out of that closet, I would be stepping into a wider world where a whole subset of humanity thinks I’m the worst piece of shit in the world, just for existing. And a bunch of other pricks would just see me as a nameless fetish object for their gratification.

What do you think of the Black history lessons in the PBS documentary about jazz pianist-singer Hazel Scott?

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But I did it anyway and fuck the haters.

Trans experience? Look, I get that you’re probably fishing for sexy stories so you can have a sneaky little wank about this later, but let’s look at the honest truth of my first “Trans Experience”.

I’m wondering about attachment and transference with the therapist and the idea of escape and fantasy? How much do you think your strong feelings, constant thoughts, desires to be with your therapist are a way to escape from your present life? I wonder if the transference serves another purpose than to show us our wounds and/or past experiences, but is a present coping strategy for managing what we don’t want to face (even if unconsciously) in the present—-current relationships, life circumstances, etc. Can anyone relate to this concept of escape in relation to their therapy relationship? How does this play out for you?

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