The year before I started testosterone was painfully long. I was closeted to everyone except my (ex)-husband and son, living abroad in an LGBTQ-unfriendly country, and agonizing that if I claimed my authentic self and medically transitioned, I’d lose my marriage of two decades.
The seven years since then have flown by, and I know I made the right decisions for me. Yes, divorce was disruptive and sad, but it was also the best choice for my son and me. My ex and I don’t talk anymore, but he’s remarried and has his own life.
But I was so sure I needed testosterone that an hour after my ex and I had The Divorce Talk, I’d scheduled my appointment for the very next week, March 13, 2019.
2019: I felt amazing and exhilarated. That same week, I came out as queer and had my first queer kiss. What a whirlwind! The first year on T is marked by the four Hs: hungry, horny, hairy, and hot!
2020: Oof. The pandemic officially hit the US that same week. I was dating a woman—my first and only girlfriend. I took her on a remote weekend getaway in West Virginia, where everyone mistook me for her girlfriend (instead of boyfriend). Ugh. At least everyone read us as a queer couple!
2021: My friends and I were masking, and I’d had my first COVID shot. My boyfriend, Josh, planned a COVID-safe trip to New Haven to visit my old stomping grounds. He didn’t know it, but I’d been carrying the engagement ring in my pocket for months, and almost popped the question in a romantic moment on the top of East Rock. I surprised him with an elaborate proposal two weeks later.
2022: A big year of change. I was planning my wedding to Josh. I had moved to a “comms on a need-to-know basis only” with my ex. My son was in a rough transitional period in life. I was shifting from a full-time faculty job to a director position at The Trevor Project. At a silent retreat about transitions, I realized I’d neglected my inner child, “Little Will,” and added Internal Family Systems (parts work) and EMDR to my usual therapy.
2023: My husband’s MFA graduation reading happened to fall on my manniversary—huge day to celebrate him. And I was more than happy to. Later that year, I had done enough therapy to realize how dissociated I’d been all my life and had begun to feel my bodily sensations. I had panic attacks in religious buildings and realized I had complex PTSD and a whole lot of emotional healing to do. I also left the Trevor Project and started my own business!
2024: This year was hard. For the first time, I didn’t make a progress video. I’d had a big rift with most of my natal family about trans rights, and was grieving. In March, I took a weekend silent retreat focusing on honoring our ancestors. I realized how much resentment I felt toward mine for being Mormon, and developed compassion for them and, most importantly, for my Mormon past and that younger part of me. For the first time, I could look back at my childhood journals and begin to process my religious and relational traumas. Gaining more confidence, I began telling my stories on stage. For the first time, I recognized what thriving felt like.
2025: What a year! Thriving?! Bitch, please. Because of the election/inauguration, I was cycling through major emotions that I’d never learned to feel or cope with, like anger and fear. In March, I desperately wanted to leave the country, and my husband was going through major workplace changes. My main coping tool was to throw myself into Your Trans Cousin and other writing. For the first time, I integrated my public health career and my writing persona, which only made me stronger. My writing took off, and I got a dozen essays published.
In April, I marked my 20th anniversary of exiting Mormonism. In a way, I’d been grieving for those 20 years. That summer, when I let my natal family see my writing—my whole self, including how their church harmed me—most of them chose to defend the church rather than witness my pain. This is when I realized that I was merely tolerated. That I had been accepting scraps and thanking them for the feast. But I—and we all—deserve celebration for who we are, not despite who we are. I set down the baggage of hoping they’d love me in the way I deserve to be loved.
2026: Somewhere in the last few months, I’ve found acceptance—self-acceptance. It has been liberating and exhilarating. Now that I’ve stopped breaking myself up into palatable bits, I’m far more confident and more at ease with myself. As Josh said, “[My] light has returned.”
My personal growth, strength, and healing have been possible only since I started my transition. Before, I was in survival mode and didn’t even know it. The progress I’ve made didn’t come overnight. It’s come in little steps, hard work, new self-realizations, choices to do better, a safe partnership with Josh, and a whole lot of therapy, over the past seven years.
I’m not “all better.” Rather, I see plenty of work I still want to do on myself. Personal growth doesn’t have an endpoint. May I continue to grow, heal, love, and seek joy.
