Super relatable. Interestingly, body hair is also what finally did it for me but in a much more roundabout way. I had known that trying to be a man was going to kill me for ages, but the idea of fully transitioning and living as a woman felt too impossible, too wonderful a goal to aspire to. I felt too tall and hairy due to genetics, too broad and muscular due to my weightlifting background, too old anyway (early 30s lol), so why bother if I was just going to break my own heart.

So, I tried to convince myself that I was nonbinary. I wore feminine clothing but kept my masc shape and hair. I modified my name to be more gender neutral and used they/them pronouns. I convinced myself that it was safer, more acceptable, to be perceived as a buff dude with a huge beard in a dress than to try and (inevitably, in my mind) fail to pass as a woman.

I might have been able to keep that up for a long time, but after several years the mental aspects of having all that testosterone rattling around in my head became too much. I was becoming increasingly hopeless despite everything else in my life going well, barring the slide of my nation into fascism. Fearing that I would start harming myself, I confessed to my partner that I wanted HRT and began seeking it out. One unnecessarily long and frustrating medical process later, I started hormones.

I cannot emphasize enough how incredible the estrogen was for my mental and emotional wellbeing. It freed me of shackles I wasn’t aware I was wearing and allowed me to feel depths of emotion that I didn’t know were possible. Still, for almost a year, I convinced myself that I remained nonbinary and was decidedly not a woman. Plenty of nonbinary people take hormones, right? So my gender identity was FINE thank you and I firmly refused to address it. I said something along the lines of “I am not a binary trans woman” to so many people during my coming out speeches. Oh honey. Oh no.

Anyway, fast forward a bit and the physical effects of estrogen are starting to get obvious. I was explicitly told at the start that I probably wouldn’t get much breast development because of my age, but there I was walking around with c cups stuffed into a binder. And I loved them. But I also had the huge beard and hairy body and broad shoulders etc etc etc. I proceeded to crack, twice. The first time I shaved my beard. This was a really big deal to me - the beard was central to my personal brand. Most people I knew had never seen me without a beard. My partner of over a decade had only seen me clean shaven once, on our first date. I was terrified that I would shave the beard, look at my unobscured face for the first time since my early twenties, and see my father looking back at me. And you know what? I didn’t. I saw someone else, a stranger. A stranger with a cute smile, even! Some time later came the second crack. I loved the ways estrogen had feminized my body, but hated how all my body hair obscured those changes. I was scared of the dysphoria that full body stubble would induce, but I managed to psych myself up and shave my entire body. It took a long time and unlike our comic protagonist I did cut myself several times. But in the end, there I was. And I could no longer deny to myself that I am a woman.

And so, I started testosterone blockers, changed my name again, came out to everyone again, started dressing even MORE fem (turns out I like heels!), and here we are. It’s a been a long, convoluted journey requiring many leaps of faith, but each of those moments of bravery saved my life and delivered me to where I am now. There’s more work to be done - I’m working on permanent hair removal now - but I am unendingly grateful to my frightened, closeted past self. You made it through, sweetheart.

Edit - some grammar.