About 3 years ago I decided I was trans. About 2 years ago I started talking to my doctor, got put on HRT, and began the slow anxiety inducing process of socially transitioning. Spironolactone basically did nothing; there were effectively no changes to my T-levels. About a year ago I began Cyproterone and my T-levels TANKED. So I more or less consider myself having been transitioning for about a year (Sept. 2024). Of course the process started sooner but bureaucracy and medical inefficacy doesn't really grow me tits does it?

What I thought would be fun is to basically create a picture journal of sorts of my journey as a trans person. This is something I am privileged to be able to do because I actually don't hate anything (or much at least) about myself pre-transition. I think I didn't start to feel significant dysphoria until after I started to socially transition which is... uncommon to say the least. I had to get "Diagnosed" as trans in order for my university to cover gender affirming care (another privilege that I am so greatful for but also one that pisses me off. see: a ranty blog post probably in the future). This diagnosis required a history with gender dysphoria. When I spoke to my doctor she was somewhat surprised at my pushing back against the idea gender dysphoria is a necessary condition of being trans. I can definitely see the argument that wanting to transition itself is a form of gender dysphoria but that feels a little forced, like it's an gotcha-type argument designed to make the thing it's trying to argue true. But I don't think that really agrees with the common definition dysphoria.

Anyways, all of that is to say I have this luxury afforded to me to feel completely comfortable posting pictures of me pre-transition. I wasn't big on getting my photo taken back then — contrast that with me now where I've got thousands of photos of me every month — But there are some that I'll share here. So uhh make sure to smash that like button? and uhhh lets um jump into it... or whatever.

I should add, you'll find my most recent selfies on the last page if you're curious what I look like now, since this article goes through my life somewhat chronologically.

The Salad Days

Starting aaaaallllll the way back when I was about 17 I had a friend move in with me for about a month? I was living in the unfinished basement at my mom's house, walls clad with punk posters, surfaces covered with odd creepy nicknacks, and at one point a spray painted and utterly defaced mannequin head hanging from the ceiling from a screw in the top of its head. Usual punk teen stuff. I also had a 3-legged table that I took off of a guy who was gonna take it to the dump after a show at his punk house where some drunk guy spent about an hour sawing it off with a little handsaw.

I got side tracked. Basically I had this friend who moved in and they were non-binary. Keep in mind this was about 12-13 years ago so I was not familiar with the concept of gender being anything but equivalent to sex or that there could be anything outside this binary and DEFINITELY was not familiar with they/them pronouns. But once they explained this to me it definitely clicked. There wasn't some massive euphoria moment — I was already pretty radical (for the time) in my views about sex, gender and what one could do (I was very much already like "men and women are fundamentally only different by their sex-organs and characteristics and even then that's not a perfect measure" kinda thing). So gender itself played no part in my life at that point at least the parts I could control. There were definitely gendered norms and lessons that were levied onto me by society and the people in it, but at no point did I feel like a "man". In highschool I was a skinny, nerdy teen emo boy who liked MCR, poetry, singing, and while I played sports and loved hockey I was never the kind to wear a jersey in my living room to watch the game. I just loved playing it. Needless to say I wasn't going to be the posterchild of manhood any time soon. So when I learned of this term non-binary and especially genderqueer these things clicked so hard for me it was just like a nod and a shrug and a "oh yeah, that's me". I don't know if I had always been non-binary or whatever but I definitely knew that day forward I was.

Towards the end of highschool, right before I dropped out, I shaved my head into a mohawk and after I dropped out I went and hung out with all of the street kids and trust fund punks of the city. The mohawk and the streetpunk life wouldn't last long. I would shave it not long after as I learned more about the history of mohawks in punk and their pretty problematic connection to the Mohawk people. The catalyst was actually that I had a first nations man come up to me and ask who in my family had died. I was confused but he explained that in his ancestory they would either spike or shave (I don't exactly remember cuz again this was 12-13 years ago) their hair into mohawks similar to mine whenever a family member died. This stuck with me and the significance of the cultural appropriation lead me down a rabbit-hole that would end with me getting rid of it.

This is actually that 3-legged table I mentioned and the creepy objects. I wrapped a chain around it, painted it, had this creepy bobble head that was in the basement when we moved in, this broken mug, a bunch of nails and screws I stuck into it and this candle I melted to the top of it.

A lot of these photos came from a photo shoot with one of my photography highschool friends taken under a pretty iconic bridge in my home town.

Tresspassing.

I always thought the graffiti under this bridge was especially cool. Some of the pieces were like nothing I'd ever seen and I wish I still had photos of my favorites.

A friend of mine saw the previous photo on tumblr and painted me without realizing it was me LOL.

Fun fact: you can find this image of me by searching "Punk Boy Mohawk Tumblr" on google images.