Link: https://www.transvitae.com/why-comparing-transitions-will-make-you-miserable/

There is a particularly cruel little trick that can happen during transition. You finally start becoming more comfortable with yourself. Your body changes. Your hair grows. Maybe your face softens. You learn makeup. You figure out which clothes actually feel like you. You look at an old photograph and barely recognize the person staring back.

A very good article. And, for me, reassuring in two ways:

Firstly, most of the things the article is warning me about are things I had already recognized.
So: Hooray me! 🥳

Secondly, reading that text, I got really happy that I have had the ability to recognize those dangers. And that is because it took me all the way to growing to be middle-aged before I figured out I'm trans, I had the maturity it takes to interpret this. And actually, until reading this article, I had always seen my age as a purely negative factor. I'm still a trans baby and it takes easily 8 or 9 years to fully "get ready" with the HRT. So, I'll be around 50 when I'm a "fully transitioned woman" (however stupid a metric that is, indeed!) and that has absolutely been a source of distress. I don't mind the years lost, as I've used them well. Depressed and anxious for a reason I "did not know" all the time, but I've done some really nifty things I could not have done if I hadn't lived a life as a man. I once hitchhiked 30 megametres from Finland through China to India. My plan to repeat that in South America around the age of 55 are now out the window because a trans woman just cannot do that and somehow expect to nevertheless return alive. But I am missing the coming years lost. Though, the various peer support groups have such beautiful women who are 15 years or 20 years older than I am, and seeing them is kind of reassuring. But still, reading this article was the first time I felt thankful for transitioning so daaamn late.

But at the same time there's something this article isn't mentioning: I've dived quite deep into the trans community in Helsinki, and now know several tens of trans people here. And I can name especially three among them that have transitioned relatively late (at their early or late 30s) and look absolutely stunning. For two of them I was first confused what the hell they are even doing in an event such as that – "why would this be interesting for a cis woman at all? What the hell is wrong with her? Is she some form of fetishist?!" And then, after half an hour I noticed something about them that proved that she is trans, after all! And the third one is maybe a tad easier to recognize as trans, but DAMN IS SHE BEAUTIFUL 😳 (and would absolutely pass in the eyes of almost any cis person). And precisely my age. And transitioned just a relatively short time ago.

And those three women especially... They are a danger to me. Because when you see such stunning trans women who have transitioned around your age, or "just a little earlier", then those do become your goalpost. You can't explain them away as photoshopped images. It's taking me a lot of effort to understand that they've just been extremely lucky and that's okay! Partially lucky with genetics, partially with having an extremely keen eye to style. Especially one of those stunning trans women just tinkers with her own jewelry in an absolutely spectacular manner and has such incredible ideas with what you can do with makeup that my mind will never come up with those kinds of things. Some people are more artistic than others, and that's okay. But damn, do I feel jealous about their qualities all the same. It would be much easier if I only saw photos of them, but when they are people that I see in my actual real life doing their everyday casual things, I cannot really explain it away as them being skilled with photoshop. (Except for, of course, being exceptionally good with makeup is not much different from being skilled with photoshop)

It's good to read articles such as this one, because even if, thanks to being scarily close to becoming a pensioner, I am indeed mature enough to avoid many of thes pitfalls, it is still good to have yet another reminder that no woman has to earn their womanhood.

It’s not worth lashing out at trans people who were supported and allowed to transition as a teenager.

Reserve that anger for transphobic scum bags, do not attack your own vulnerable community, they’re not “privileged” just lucky.