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Transition diaries
I recently did a reorganising of my books and came across my diary from the first year of my transition. As part of a documentary I am putting together I also went back through the photo albums from that period, and it striking how much I have changed since my teens. Both in world view and in looks I have evolved as I have aged, though what is telling is that the girl I was then would be proud of the woman I am today. My transition diaries put online have long since disappeared as Geocities, MySpace, and various personal websites have vanished into the digital ether. What I have left are those scraps, a transition diary that only gives brief snapshots of the past. Identity has become what I remember it rather than anything tangible.
It is common for trans folk to keep a record of their transition, especially the early years where the changes are most palpable. I occasionally look through Reddit’s trans timelines subreddit and see the joy that those folk bring to their posts. After 23 years it is hard for me to give a clear linear timeline based on images alone, as after a while the changes stopped and life just happened. I can tell you all the events that have occurred to me, though my actual transition was some 15 years done and dusted at this point. It is beautifully ironic that I am as much a relic to those starting their transitions as someone who started in 1985 was to me. That I have lived to tell my…
