“It” here refers to “being transgender,” because you are. Photo by Norbu GYACHUNG on Unsplash

Hi there! Welcome to Pride 2022. I’m your assigned representative, here to deliver the good news: You’re transgender.

Let me guess: You got here by Googling “am I transgender.” Or “signs you might be transgender.” Or “illness make people believe they are transgender.” Or “hormonal disorder testosterone make woman believe man,” a Google search near and dear to my college self. I really did have a testosterone disorder, namely the fact that I needed to get a syringe of testosterone and inject it into my body, because I am transgender. And — if you Googled any of that and decided to read this blog post about it — so are you.

Look: It’s really scary to think you might be transgender. People are unmitigated shits to us on a daily basis. You can probably think of all sorts of reasons why being transgender would be hard: Maybe you’re afraid that you’ll lose friends or family, or that you won’t be hot, or that you’ll get fired, or that you’re too old, or that you can Do More Good As An Ally. (You’re just a really, really good ally.) You have a whole lot of reasons why transition might not work out.

Here’s the problem: The people who come up with complicated rationales for why they should not transition are transgender people. Cisgender people aren’t afraid of that stuff, because they don’t want to transition, because they’re cis. So, given that you already are transgender, and will be whether or not you ever transition, the question is not whether you want to be trans. It’s how to be trans in a way that minimizes suffering, and the closet is a very painful place.

Same thing applies if you’re cisgender, by the way. Nothing I can say or do will make you trans if you’re not. I could crouch outside your window whispering “JOIN USSSSSS” all night long, and all it would get me is a restraining order, because I cannot transmit queerness via rhetoric or argument. I cannot reason you into being anyone other than who you are.

Still: I remember what I wanted, when I was thinking about coming out. I followed every possible trans guy on Twitter. I hung around transmasculine colleagues, making nice. I wanted to be nice, but what I also wanted — fantasized about, really, on a level that was both pathetic and desperate — was for one of them to turn around and say “hey, you’re transgender, aren’t you?” In my mind, being transgender worked like a Hollywood biopic, where one of the established transes had to pull you aside after some particularly impressive performance and say things like, kid, you’ve got potential! I’m going to make you a star!

I thought they were Actual Real Trans People, and I was just a weirdo who wanted to transition. I needed them to confer their Realness upon me; I wanted an aptitude test, a Buzzfeed quiz, a state-issued license, I wanted to know that I was recognizable to other members of the club. It doesn’t work that way. Most trans people find it rude and fucked-up to tell anyone else what their “real” gender is, because cis people do that to us all the time, and it’s never good. Even if those guys had suspected what I was after, they never would have told me so.

Me? I’ll tell you. You just read 575 words of someone else telling you how transgender you are. If you’re still reading, you’re trans.

Look: There’s a trick my mom used to pull. She’d take me to the store and let me pick out some candy because I did well on a report card. What she had to prepare for is that I am a desperately indecisive person. I always want to try everything at once, have every experience that is possible within my one short human life, and deciding on one thing eliminates your other possibilities; the idea of choosing, say, Skittles, and later coming to realize that I would really be happier with a Reese’s peanut butter cup, was horrifying to me.

So there I’d be, stressing out, panicking, taking twenty minutes to pick out a snack, and at a certain point my mother had to intervene. She would say, in a very stern voice, “I’ve decided; you’re getting the Skittles.” If I looked relieved, we’d get them. If I looked disappointed, she’d say, “see? You want something else.”

You always know what you want. That’s the secret. Your conscious mind can spin out all sorts of rationalizations and explanations, it can come up with a million alternate scenarios, raise a thousand doubts. Still: Deep down, in your body, in some shivery place behind your sternum where every truth hatches, if I said “you’re getting the Skittles,” you would know whether that was good news or not. You would know.

So you’re getting the Skittles. You’ve already gotten them; all your life, it’s been nothing but Skittles, no taste of anything sweeter, nothing else. The doctor pulled you out of the womb, slapped you on the ass, and assigned you Skittles, and it’s all you’ve ever eaten. It’s all you’re used to. The Skittles are so omnipresent in your life, it’s hard to even know how they taste.

Is that good news? Does it feel safe, comforting, knowing that you already picked your candy? Or is there something else you want? Something you’re curious about; something you need to at least taste before you die? Maybe it’ll be bad. Maybe you’ll take one bite and spit it out. It happens. But maybe, just maybe, it will be better. Maybe you’ve never actually known what that’s like, to have something better; to choose your own sweet thing.

That’s why you’re here. That’s why you’ve stuck with this bonkers little essay. Some part of you can’t stop thinking and thinking and thinking about what it would be like if things were better.How much more time do you have to waste on thinking? How long will you wonder before you realize that “wondering” and “wanting” are the exact same thing?

You’re transgender. If your heart sank when you read that, if you were disappointed, if you just instinctively knew I was wrong: Great. That’s your instinct. Trust it. Revisit the question later, if you have to, but no answer is wrong if it comes from you.

If you felt relief, though; if you were looking for someone to tell you; if you wander from place to place, essay to essay, public trans person to public trans person, looking for someone to articulate the experience or criteria of transness in a way that feels like permission: Here it is. You’re trans now. You can stop asking. Walk into the candy store, see what looks good, fill your hands with it. The door is open. Everything here is free.