When I first decided to start HRT, I didn’t realize just how much I had been dissociating. For the first time in almost 29 years, I feel alive.

I woke up today and saw my face in the mirror. I was reminded of a portrait I saw of my mom when she was younger. She looked beautiful in that portrait. I never paid attention to my face before, but now I notice I have her hair & some of her facial features, especially her eyes.

Why did I never notice before ? Ever since I was a child, family members always said to me “wow you look like the spitting image of your father”. It never felt true to me but they said it so often that I started to believe it. Would they have said the same if I never got the wrong hormones in the first place ?

And there’s the matter of boob growth. It’s only been two months on HRT so far. This is probably the most sneedy thing I’ll ever type, but every time I accidentally brush against my nipples, it hurts but I don’t dislike it: I’m reminded that at least something is happening. I don’t know how to describe it exactly, but it feels… right ?, it feels like a sensation that my body should have had all this time. Like it should have always been there but was missing all this time.

But all of this is bittersweet, because these boobs are growing on a male ribcage. And the features I inherited from my mom’s face are hidden behind facial hair and deformed by the effects of testosterone. A reminder that I can regain some of what was taken from me, but not all of it.