What will I look like when I transtion?

That question, What will I look like when I transition? was a question I asked myself over and over, and tonight I answered it, staring into the mirror, I look like me, older, with wider shoulders and more hair, my voice is mine the same weird ways of saying things, the same accent a bit deeper but fundamentally me, there was, to steal a metaphor no phone booth to fall into and come out a new man.

There is the trope of the trans person who meets their pretranstion friends and is a totally new person, unrecognizable, if this happens I have never heard of it. Although a friend was once asked if their sister had previously worked in the shop they now worked in.

I think there is a deeper question in here, our society doesn’t really accept yet that trans people exist, feminist bloggers (not linked) talk about doctors murdering women when they help trans men transition. Tell all documentaries feature parent who quite comfortably stand in front of their living breathing child and talk about morning that child’s death. They feel that their son, their daughter has been replaced by a changeling. They can’t see their child, their real breathing child with that same nose, that same smile standing right there.

I think I used to believe that, at some level that I would be replaced by a man, and yet I have not, transition is both profound and minor, socially and emtionally it is huge, and I don’t want to deny that for anyone who transitions, knowing your body as your own for the first time ever, that is huge, but then, this is my body, always has been, always will be, these are my hands, my nose, my chin, I never stopped looking like me.