Some things from me:
- Early on, darkening of the perineal raphe was quite a surprise (aka the “sack stripe”). It’s not something I’ve seen mentioned in most HRT guides.
- How incredibly unreliable my own perception of how feminine I look is. People were treating me as a woman well before I could see even hints of it in my face.
- It’s nice that women will sit next to me on the train now. As the carriage fills up I quite often find myself in the center of a cluster of women, which is very affirming.
- Makeup areas in bathrooms. I had no idea this was a thing, and they’re great!
The number of people who misgender me simply because they hear I am trans. Not maliciously, they see me, a guy, and hear I am trans, and immediately assume I am transitioning to womanhood. They often get very weirdly offended and a bit hostile when I politely correct them and explain that I am FTM.
It is so frequent that I expect it to happen now, especially if I am dealing with anything medical. I have had to explain this to my insurance company at least a dozen times, because they were denying coverage for things and citing my identity, because “trans don’t need testosterone, they need estrogen” or “trans means you want a uterus, so you can’t get pap smears”.
Even in queer spaces I get this! Every year for Pride I have made a game out of it, where I wear an outfit that is androgynous or masculine and a big pronoun pin. If I get misgendered more than I am gendered correctly by other people at Prise, I wear a bigger pin the next year. I am on year 5 of this experiment, and I need a bigger pin for this year.
It mostly surprises me because I will go to places that I have been told by other trans people (most of whom are my friends who are trans women) are accepting. I don’t understand how so many places can be accepting of some trans people and not others. And that is without me getting super specific and telling people that I am technically nonbinary.