I Still Do Not Pass, but Maybe I Look Like I Am Trying
I wrote before about a sliver of gender euphoria I experienced. A small moment in a store where trying on femme clothes did not feel weird, where the store clerk treated me as normal and I felt like I was allowed to be there
This is a follow-up to that, but it's more than just a sliver. It is a record of two visits to the same store, a hospital experience that made me hate my body, a haircut I was scared to get and a day where several small moments worked at once
I still do not pass. That has not changed
But for the first time I think I looked like I was trying
29 APRIL
On the 29th of April I had a flexible cystoscopy, which is basically a camera inserted through the penis
I wrote about the experience previously but the important part is that the procedure was physically and emotionally awful and left me freshly aware of the parts of my body I hate
I had prepared myself for the procedure but I had not prepared for needing to change into a hospital gown and return to the waiting room wearing it. The last time I wore a gown like that I was being prepared for surgery under general anesthetic so it immediately pulled me back towards something I was not prepared to think about
The nurses and reception staff were kind and everyone used my preferred name but I still left feeling exposed, ashamed and disgusted with my body
Afterwards I went back to the store from the sliver post
I did not go there as some planned act of recovery. I wanted to look at more clothes and I think I also just wanted to feel something different after the hospital
I ended up trying on a skirt made from heavy fabric with a nice subtle pattern. It fit me properly which is not something I take for granted. Trying on clothes I am excited about can easily turn into finding another way my shoulders, waist or general shape feel wrong
This skirt did not do that
The skirt made me happy but the store still mattered more. I had spent part of the day focused on the parts of my body I hate and then I walked into a store and tried on femme clothes without being treated like I was strange for doing it
The store clerk helped me like I was any other person trying to work out what looked good
13 MAY
On the 13th of May I had my brows done and got a haircut
I wish I could say I was excited but I was on autopilot. I had already booked everything and it felt too late to back out so I kept moving before the fear had enough time to stop me
Sometimes that is the only way I can try things. I need to get ahead of the anxiety and finish before I can fully imagine every way I might regret it
The brows were not a huge emotional moment. They were less messy and looked more femme in a practical, obvious way. Mostly I was relieved that they were done and that they had not made me look worse
The haircut felt much riskier
I hadn't cut my hair in ~10years apart from one haircut about three months earlier which I regretted
This time I got bangs
They read as more femme and they hide my forehead which is one of the parts of my face I usually dislike. I was surprised that I thought they looked good almost immediately
Then I stopped trusting my own opinion
I could look in the mirror and like what I saw then immediately wonder if I was wrong. Maybe I was delusional. Maybe I only liked it because I desperately wanted it to work. Maybe it was cocky to look at my own reflection and think I looked good
My partner liked it, which helped. Later when I went to the store again the clerk also said she liked it
It is embarrassing how difficult it is for me to trust something positive about my appearance without someone else confirming it
Looking like I was trying
I still do not pass
This was not a transformation where I walked out of the salon as a completely different person. I still dislike my face and I can still find plenty of things wrong when I look closely enough
But I think I looked like I was trying
One of my fears when talking about being trans is that people will not see it as something real. That if I still look too male or do not visibly present femme enough then maybe they will think being trans is just something I say rather than something that affects nearly every part of my life
Then the issues I have around being trans might not feel real either
My dysphoria might sound exaggerated. My grief might sound self-inflicted. My discomfort might seem ridiculous when I have not done enough to look different
I know presentation is not what makes someone trans. I would never apply that standard to someone else, but I still apply it to myself
Looking like I was trying made my transness feel harder to dismiss
I am used to hating my reflection and despising my body so it feels weird and almost cocky to admit there were times that day when I liked how I looked
I still questioned it immediately, but I liked it before the doubt arrived
That was new
Things I could actually use
I went back to the same store after the haircut
I wanted to see if there were more clothes, I also had something on hold that gave me a reason to return and I had enjoyed the banter with the store clerk during the previous visit. All of those were part of why I went back
I ended up buying three dresses that I love
Dresses feel safer than skirts because I do not have to work out what to pair them with. A skirt still leaves me trying to decide which top works, whether the combination looks feminine and whether I have styled it into something stupid
With a dress, the outfit already exists
I can put it on without needing to prove that I know what I am doing
At some point the store clerk also let me try the tinted lip gloss she uses
It felt like being invited into a small girl ritual
That mattered more than it probably should have
I bought the same lip gloss afterwards. Buying the exact product and shade made it repeatable. If I had chosen something different I would have kept worrying that the colour was wrong, that I was applying it incorrectly or that the one she let me try only looked good because she knew something about makeup that I didn't
Now I can do my lips without needing to solve all of that again
I also finally got my foundation working properly earlier in the day. It was not a dramatic makeover but suddenly several things that had previously felt difficult or inaccessible had become things I could actually do
The brows worked. The bangs worked. The foundation worked. The dresses worked. The lip gloss worked
For once, changing my appearance had not given me five new things to hate
Drinks
After some banter in the store I mentioned that we should grab drinks sometime
She said she had nothing to do after work
I took her to my favorite bar because it is quiet, practical and somewhere I already feel comfortable. We spent a lot of time talking about our partners and how happy we both are, so it was not romantic or confusing in that way
It felt like maybe making a friend
I know there is still a weird dynamic because she works at the store and I first met her as a customer. Being friendly is part of her job and I do not want to decide every kind interaction means more than it does
At the same time, I do not want to dismiss the whole connection because I am scared of misreading it. I liked talking to her and I hope we become friends
I do not know where the clean line is
During the night I told her that I had been having a terrible day when I visited the store on 29th of April and that talking to her had made it better
She told me that she had also been having a shitty day and that I had given her a distraction
That made me feel more comfortable than a generic reassurance would have
I am always worried that I am annoying people, burdening them or taking more from an interaction than I give back. Hearing that my presence had made part of her day easier made the interaction feel more mutual
I was not only someone who needed kindness
I had also been nice to have around
After the bar we got a takeaway spicebag and sat in a park eating it
It was not a huge or important event but I knew while it was happening that it would become a good memory. My new bangs, the lip gloss, my favorite bar and eating takeaway in a park with someone I had met while shopping for dresses
It had whimsy
The kind where life briefly feels more interesting without needing to force it
Trying paid off
I do not know what happens next
Maybe she becomes a friend. Maybe she does not. Maybe this stays as a nice memory attached to a store, a haircut and a lip gloss I now know how to use
I do know that I changed several things about my appearance knowing they might make me feel worse and somehow it didn't
I still do not pass. I still question every positive thought I have about my reflection. I still have things to dislike
But I looked like I was trying
For once in my life I found the confidence to change things knowing I might regret them and it paid off