it's OK not to see it now, but when you're older you'll look back and see; I hope you will feel immense pride and gratitude to the younger person you are now - because you deserve to feel that

oh yes, fully agree - it's never too late to start, even if it's pretty much always better to start earlier 😅

for me anyway that was true (I don't want to assume too much about others, but it does seem like it's true for most of us) - I didn't think I would ever pass and I thought I was signing up for being visibly trans the rest of my life.

In particular what I think is worth it is the hormones - I really didn't understand how significantly the wrong hormones can impact mood and mental health.

So from that perspective I tend to think we need to be on the right hormones regardless of what age we are - just to be healthy and happy. Obviously it's hard to live as a visibly trans person, but you just never know how it's going to go (I was completely wrong, for example).

Life is so much better than I ever understood it could be - and I was so mistaken about gender, lol. My whole life I thought it was something trivial, that gender was just social and gender expression was about what clothes I wore or how I was treated socially - I didn't understand gender has such strong biological components and could be a major medical issue with serious consequences for mental health (caused by the hormones and biology, not from something like not being able to wear the clothes you want).

Anyway, I just wish I had learned some things earlier, and it makes my heart full when I see younger folks figuring it out and living better lives 🥰

Sure, but you can always just start HRT right now. That's really the most important thing in my mind.

Social transition can happen later, but you can't go back and start HRT earlier. Starting estrogen can also give you important information and can be very clarifying.

I wish HRT were viewed more as an early intervention and diagnostic tool than the "extreme" step that I think we all start off believing it is. You can even take it for several months without long-term effects.

Once I started estrogen it was clear to me, all the questioning and denial I had about trans was irrelevant because I was going to be taking estrogen no matter what from that point on - it radically changed my mood and mental health for the better (I should clarify I was doing monotherapy injections - basically enough estrogen to suppress testosterone production).

Anyway, don't wait to start living - repression is never a good idea.

sorry, meant "I'm sad now" but I stuck at typing on my phone.