I am absolutely blown away by the support I've received on this video. This was my first video essay, a rush job almost entirely written, recorded, and edited over the course of 4 back-to-back all nighters to meet a deadline. When I called the project "frantic", I meant it. It was a labor of love and an exercise in selfhood - something I needed to make for my own sake.
I could not be more grateful to see it be so openly received and loved. I haven't had the time or the space to properly respond to the bulk of the comment section, but the stories and insights many of you have offered mean the world. Knowing that my ramblings have resonated with so many folk - trans or otherwise - is all I could ever ask.
That it coincided with me starting HRT could not be more incredible.

I'm still not entirely sure what my next steps are from here. I'd been fully prepared to watch this video fall off after a couple thousand views (we've crested 30k and are still rising), take a week or so to rest, and turn my focus toward preparing for my Twitch Partner Push in August. I'd planned to put video creation on hold until October. But, frankly, I haven't felt this inspired in a good while.
It's going to take me some time to hit my stride managing both Twitch and YouTube at the same time, but trust me that I've got plenty of plans in motion. And I want to talk about way more than just Being Trans. Expect lots of queer theory, leftist issues, punk shenanigans, and media analysis!
And if there's anything you'd like to see my cover, be sure to let me know!

I suppose I should introduce myself!
I'm AE, your resident punk fae-beast making art, playing games, voice acting, and yapping from an abandoned library on a version of earth where everything is just... slightly worse.
I'm primarily a Twitch streamer, but I've been wanting to sink my talons into video essays for awhile, and I'm finally making those moves. You'll also catch the occasional voice acted animatic offering a glimpse into the alternate earth I call home and song cover around here. Content creation is my passion and I'm fighting really hard to make something incredible out of it.
I'm here, I'm queer, I'm punk, and I WILL bite you!

As a redheaded transfemme, I really feel your point about the sexualization of red hair. There's a strange thing where Red hair is just culturally feminine. I had been told so many times to shave my head and donate my hair, because red hair was not for me. As a male ginger, I didn't have a soul, was victim to kick a ginger day as """good natured bullying"""". And just, comments about how my hair was such a beautiful color, and it was a shame it was wasted on the head of a boy. As I transitioned though, it immediately flipped over from a trait I was bullied for to one that put bold sexual expectations on me. Bullying hurts. Desire hurts too.

femboys were a huge part of my path to discover my orientation
these guys rock

As a nonbinary, I am often told that my relationship with girlhood "invalidates" myself. That I'm reducing myself to a girl or whatever, and it feels like poorly disguised transphobia.

I performed girlhood for most of my life. I even liked some parts of it. The friends I made, the solidarity I had with other people who identified as girls, I still like those things. I like fem stuff, I like "girl power" movies, I used to think I was just a "tomboy", and people my age thought that was cool.

I am very much not a girl, but sometimes I remember before puberty made my body not match my brain. I miss it. Being a "girl" was a fun time before it meant something larger societally. It never fit me, but it was tolerable, a fun game to play in public. Now its a burden that people see me for my body and not my soul. But I would never trade my interests, the people I met, and the friends I made.

I look back at the overconfident, slightly confused little tomboy I used to be and I love her. I tell her it gets less confusing. Im proud of her.

And she is they and they are me. ❤

When you talk about trans grief, my childhood comes to mind. I grew up as a boy. With an older sister. She was a year older. I grew up watching her. And i tried to learn how to be a girl through her. I would watch the same shows, enjoy the same hobbies, wear similar clothes. But while her drawings were art and praised, mine were doodles and shamed. While she got to learn music, i was told i had to learn to fight by my father. I resented that. I still resent that. So much so that I've been a pacifist ever since. Refusing to be the violent child they expected me to be. Eventually, i stopped trying to emulate her. I was told i couldn't watch those shoes or dress in that way. Art is a waste of time. And it kills me that i couldn't have been her. I think the greatest irony of all is that he came out to me as transmasc a while ago. Shortly after i told him i was trensfem. If only we had each other's lives.

As a transfem this video is fascinating and very insightful. To me, femininity is an escape. It’s an excuse to let myself be soft, vulnerable, to cry and be kind. Yet I can see exactly why you’d wanna escape that if that’s your whole life. As humans we need to feel the whole gamut of our emotions, not just a few
And going from girl to woman sounds like it was an awful experience, from the harassment to the sexualization to the unfair standards. That’s why I’m in the minority of transfems that’s glad I didn’t grow up as a cis woman.
To give my take about boyhood as it related to me: it was fun. It was definitely rowdy and loud and aggresssive. There were lots more fights, but the friends I made with guys were fun and exciting. It was a very energetic childhood, as opposed to the meekness associated with femininity. Yet the transition from boyhood to manhood was difficult, just like the transition from girlhood to womanhood was difficult for you. Obviously in very different ways, but toxic masculinity and societal notions of “being a man” were constantly pushed on me. My softness, shyness, sadness were all purged from me and by the time I reached high school, I couldn’t even cry, even when my dog died.
We were made to make everything a contest, to be more aggressive, to be more closed off. My view of women was unbelievably warped in an awful way I’m still trying to deconstruct, and im still trying to learn how to express my emotions again
I like seeing the different perspectives of transmasc and transfem experiences, and how similar yet different they are. Both masculinity and femininity are deeply commodified and controlled and the fact that we were both able to escape from those barriers in our own way is extremely powerful

This video means a lot. I'm a transguy who finally started passing recently and I've struggled to articulate how the way im expected to see women and girls affects me. How I'm supposed to join in on the violence. Its weird because i know what its like being on the other side of that. My dad says "welcome to the club, you wanted this right?" and I told him that he didnt get it because he wasn't raised a girl. I feel like less of a man because I can't bring myself to join in on the comments on girls bodies, on the way i should be happy to sexualize GIRLS and not women. Being trans is definitely a strange experience and I'd just like to thank you for this

To future me:




If you ever find this video again, have you changed? Do these words apply to you? Did you find happiness within self-acceptance? I really hope you do, because I need it

This is such an important video.

I have very similar feelings about grief around my boyhood. I tried doing the sports, but something felt "wrong," like I was not supposed to be there. I'd watch the "boys" TV shows, but I'd find myself more interested in the female characters (and inevitably annoyed at how they'd get sidelined or romantically paired off...yay patriarchy!) My parents would buy my clothes and pick my haircut, but that was OK because I didn't really care about what I looked like, or what I wore as long as it was comfortable.

Then puberty hit and I felt so dysphoric around my appearance. I remember crying when I found out that my facial hair would just *keep growing for my entire life*...when I couldn't get the energy to shave my dad would get angry at me for "looking like a hobo" - which I think speaks to your discussion about how class and culture plays into how we perceive gender. When my hair got too long I'd get comments of "looking like a girl," which I didn't find a problem nearly as much as other people did...should have been a sign, that...

Getting to throw masculinity to the side was fun, but the whole "androgynous non-binary person who uses they/them" never worked for me because it's also a social construct! I'd just torn one of those things up! Ugh! Thankfully I got to hang out with people (like Lichen, who was how I heard about this video!) who showed me that I wasn't a "third gender" but whatever I wanted to be.


I think the thing that allowed me to process that grief (which will hopefully help others) is that because gender is a social construct, you can *reinvent what it means to you*. This is easier, I think, for non-binary people because we're expected to be in the driver's seat of gender, but I've seen loads of binary trans folk do it too. I can do sports...I can pick which ones, and how I want to present when doing them! I can watch whatever TV shows I want, because TV shows don't have gender and if they do, I don't care! I can wear the clothing I want to because Grace-gender (whose rules are conveniently whatever I want them to be) says I can! I got to keep my facial hair, but I can wear a dress and have big ole earrings while I do it so I can confuse the cis. I got to approach gender with **intent**.

I remember crying over how my little brother got to do the boy ceremony things at the church we grew up in and how I’d never have that experience, I remember being jealous that my cis guy friend’s hand was bigger than mine, how I came to terms that my voice would never get deeper and my body will never be how I want it to be until I’m on my own and can safely start hrt. But I also remember the girl who loved to spin in her dresses, the girl who played with Barbies and monster high dolls, and sang Disney songs!
and I love to reminisce on the first time I wore a skirt and did my eyeliner as a boy. Exploring feminine clothing and doing makeup but still being so secure in my gender identity is a sense of euphoria I can’t put to words.

I was a little girl, I am a Teenage boy, and I hope the world lets me grow into a man.

Congrats on starting HRT my guy! Missing out on boyhood can be a blessing in disguise because you can choice what kind of man you are without decades of  toxic masculinity poisoning your mind. As a transfemme I certainly lament missing out on girlhood, but the woman I'm becoming is unburdened with objectification taught in girlhood.

On the "death of self" idea, I've found it feels more like pokemon evolutions. The many versions of self are distinct in many ways but there's a fundamental core tying them together. Each evolution is painful yet to deny growth is true death.

There was someone i knew who died their hair a really pretty, almost seaweed colored deep red. Almost immediately their neighbor (a woman, at that) said it made them look more 'mature'. They grew the color out, and decided not to touch it up or redye it. They loved the color, and they loved the feeling of being different from usual it gave them. I hate how the gender expectations forced upon hair color of all things made someone feel like they had to give up something that they loved in order to not draw attention.

I had a younger sister growing up in the Southern US, and we were BOTH very much horse girls.  But that was the ONE THING that helped me escape my boyhood dramas ever so briefly, and 😭😭😭😭 ohmygosh this video has me so emotional, like it's BEAUTIFULLY done.  CONGRATULATIONS DUDE ON YOUR HRT JOURNEY!!!

As a transfemme, I kinda just want to give the whole lot of you hugs.

Being AMAB and having a bunch of sisters, I always felt denied girlhood. What was more was my father loved his daughters more openly than either of his sons. The general attitude around the house of men just being awful was never separated from my brother and I, leaving me growing up hating myself all the more.

I ended up getting married after graduating college with who I thought would love me as I was, only to be emotionally abused by my spouse rather than my parents.

Do I regret it? We'll, I have the children I adore who are all I could hope for. After divorce, I transitioned for myself and co-parented with my ex.

My children are amazing, and there is no way I could convey just how amazing they are in a simple post. Having to both navigate my own life and experiences on top of raising children is a challenge all of its own.

I'm glad you shared your experiences. I hope to be brave enough myself some day.

The way I quietly cried when you announced starting HRT after such a specifically moving to me video...the little giggles of excitement. I'm so happy for you!

I'm transfem, and this is so relatable, since my boyhood trauma was strongly tied to my being a boy.  It also primed me to believe that society insists that boys & men "deserve" to feel like garbage and should never discuss it, so it took until my 30's to separate out those feelings enough to start questioning my gender, thanks in part to transmascs.  If it weren't for that trauma, maybe I'd have figured it out 20 years earlier, but now, a couple years after coming out, I'm comfortable enough in my femininity to be a bit tomboyish some days 💜

Wow... I almost skipped this video because I got intimidated, but the softness and care on display in this video made me realize so much about my current stance on myself. In reality, I am a scared teen who is afraid to admit that they enjoy some things they are supposed to just because, if life was how they wanted they wouldn't have had the chance to see if they liked said stuff, which in turn made me over question an identity that feels right. Thank you so much for making this video and talking about this topic in such a sensible manner. I hope you have a nice life, random internet person, and may we both live how it feels right for us.

I know i'm late to seeing this video, but i feel i should leave a comment. I am a 47 year old trans woman, i understood that around puberty... but i didn't have the words for it. I tried explaining it to my parents at 16, but they didn't understand what i was trying to say. So i had to put everything in a box and bury it for decades.

My 'boyhood' was a miserable experience. Being told touching other people was bad (exceptions i didn't qualify for came later), that the only answer is showing your dominence over others (but your not meant to get 'caught' at it), and how showing emotion was bad. My feminine qualties always showed through, i was to emotional and generally not good at playing the role. Everyone around me saw those things and decided i was gay. But i was interested in girls. I wouldn't date anyone until a bisexual woman in my 20s, because every straight woman considered me gay nearly on sight. Instead i developed chronic depression and social anxiety. I also gained weight. Food became one of the few comfort things i had.

I lacked a lot of other things as well... i was never allowed friends. I wanted girls for friends, but parents in particular hated that thought. My first female friends would come in college, and losing them would be traumatic for me. I didn't have siblings either so i never got to wear women's clothes, makeup, or anything girly. In fact during my childhood crossdressing was demonized.
I often wish i could go back in time and give the little girl i always was a hug and tell her that not only could she act as a girl regardless of what society says.

I think I'm in a very specific and unique place as a trans guy because I'm also autistic, gay, mexican and raised in way that kind of catered me to becoming who I am without really any regret or doubt. Basically, my older brother and I were the only kids around when we were young, besides my moms younger brother who was still in high school when I was born. Because it was just him and I, I got to experience a lot of boyhood in the way a toddler would have. Spiderman and Thomas the Tank Engine, roughhousing for a remote and throwing food over the table. I followed a lot in my brother's footsteps until I got a younger sister. Then I posed to be the best older sister I could, but we were still surrounded by brothers (two older and one younger at this point, my mom had remarried and had another baby while taking in my stepdads two kids). So, we learned from them while also sticking to our own things. Dollhouses and Disney, Baby Alives and My Little Pony, but it was never really "girly". It was kind of just how we coped with the things we saw associated with girlhood, sex and drugs and alcohol, getting roofied at a club and dramatic breakups. It was fun to make the stories but looking back even my girliest traits as a kid weren't as innocent under the surface. I also never fell to peer pressure from my peers since I was already socially outcast and alone until I was 11. Really I just did whatever I wanted and didn't particularly care if it was girly or boyish. Minecraft and FNAF, loved it. Frozen and Barbie, also loved it. My parents never enforced gender either beyond the normal heteronormative teasing of "boyfriends" and "girlfriends" most parents do. Speaking of that, I did have a period where I felt the need to pick a boy to call my crush in case anyone asks, but I never told anyone nor did I really care in all honesty. It was just a good thing to write in my diary if anyone wanted to read it so it looked more like the ones I saw in movies or read at the library (Ex. Dear Dumb Diary). Now, after a bit of a rough late-teens trying to convince my parents of my identity after 7 years of figuring it out (with the help of the friends I found at 11, one of which introduced me to P!AtD and Miles Chronicles) I'm secure in my place as a trans guy because all I've learned is that I need shots to go through the puberty I want. It hasn't changed how I've felt since I was a kid because I've never really felt any sense of "gender", just that "girl" wasn't very fitting. I've confused many because I like to wear makeup and dress feminine with skirts and crop tops. I like mlp still (but now also SONIC) and I wouldn't mind if I ended up pregnant somehow someway (my bf is also ftm though so impossible) but I just explain it that "I'm not just a guy you know, I'm also a GAY guy" and that usually does it lol
Edit: Forgot to mention, I've never felt ashamed or upset for the girlhood I had because I also had a part of boyhood I would think and from what I could gather, basically there's no true way to be a "man" because everyone has a different perception of what that even means. I remember reading a post along the lines of "Getting told "You're not a real man" is 99% of the experience of being a man" so I figure I'll be okay no matter how I was raised. My oldest brother tells me he has kind of the same problem because he was raised by mostly all women so he feels a stronger connection to them.

It's interesting you mention anger and it's relationship to boyhood. growing up i was always getting mad at just almost random stuff. i'd yell i'd throw shit, slam doors. part of it was just blowing up from masking my autism but it wasn't till after highschool graduation i got mad at something stupid i'm sure and instead of just retreating to my room i got in my car and drove off, and didn't have anywhere to go. i parked somewhere dark and i just sat there watching the cars. i asked myself. "Why am i always mad" and the answer i got was "Because i couldn't be a girl" it was at that point where i accepted being trans i was able to let my anger go, and since then it's been way different then i had been until that point. I'm Trans MTF and there's a lot i regret, but that night and getting that realization isn't one of them. i guess a lot of us had to re-frame how we emote.