Proud of you 💙💙

So happy for you!

take it day by day and continue to reevaluate based on how you feel. Just as you felt you were genderfluid for a time and now feel that mtf trans suits you better, continue to ask yourself how you feel and if this feels right. I have seen people on social media refer to a "genderfluid to trans pipeline" and have seen trans people say to genderfluid or nonbinary people "oh I was like you before, you'll realize you're really trans soon." Trans doesn't have to be the "end goal" or something you have to be stuck with and stick out forever, because if you don't you're a traitor. You have a duty to yourself, and no one else. So do what makes sense for you.

Just something to keep in mind. I do certainly hope HRT goes well for you, and makes you feel more valid.

I think the reason so many trans folks identify with some variation of genderfluid or non-binary at first is hard to understand unless you’re gender non-conforming yourself. Imagine one day, an unexplainable depression comes over you. You just feel wrong. You feel fake. Like whatever is inside of you that makes you a real person the way everyone else is just isn’t there. It’s very hard for me to put into words what exactly dysphoria feels like, but this comic by Haus of Decline is a take that I find myself really identifying with. What I think makes that an especially interesting portrayal is that that comic was drawn over a year before she came out as trans, so it was an (at the time) cis person’s attempt to reckon with feelings they didn’t even know were dysphoria. Only after the fact did they realize.

Anyways, after your soul has been thoroughly crushed and you’ve cried yourself to sleep dozens of times and you’ve felt like you wanted to die consistently for a while, the realization suddenly hits you that your gender identity is the problem. Well, now you have a different issue. The choice is either keep dealing with dysphoria, which probably ends in killing yourself, or transition, an immensely daunting, deeply terrifying task. Just totally change the way you look, sound, and in many ways, act, and oh yeah, do it in public, too. Explain to your family, your friends, even your co-workers that you’re changing your gender. (Obviously you don’t have to do it all at once. I’m waiting to figure out a little better how I want to present myself before coming out to my family, and I plan to pretty much wait until I can’t hide it anymore to come out at work lol). And to top it off, it has, for reasons unbeknownst to me, become a hot-button political issue. People are going to hate you for no legitimate reason at all because of this. Transitioning is what would be best for you personally, but socially it’s another story.

Enter genderfluidity (or, for some people, non-binary identities). First of all, I want to say that some people are just genderfluid or non-binary, and obviously that’s okay. In fact, it’s a good thing! Anyone finding an identity that suits them is a very, very good thing. But for many of us just starting to deal with gender non-conformity, it’s sort of a way to have your cake and eat it, too. A way to placate the dysphoria without changing anything with your real relationships. For me, it was “I’ll just call myself a girl online and not change myself IRL!” That was genderfluidity for me — girl online and boy IRL. And it worked for a while. It lifted the weight off my shoulders and the dysphoria was gone. But it didn’t last. It was a necessary stepping stone, one that helped me explore things and build the courage to do what I really needed to do.

This is probably very rambling, god knows if it really makes any sense. But that’s my perspective on why so many people go from cis to genderfluid/non-binary to trans.

Congrats :3