For those who don’t feel like reading my long ramble here is a TLDR:
- I’m coming out as trans. I don’t know what my gender identity is yet, but I am certain I am not cis and that I have some sort of dysphoria.
- My preferred pronouns are they/them (de/dem in Swedish).
- My names are Tanja or Sergej (and you can still call me seal of course!).
I’m in the process of figuring myself out and I want to do it in the open. I don’t know where this road will take me, but I hope you’ll tag along!
So why am I writing this now? It’s pretty simple really. For one I’ve always tried to be pretty open about what I am going through because I think its important to talk about one’s feelings, emotions and mental state. Realising that one is not happy with one’s gender identity really throws a wrench in the whole well-being machine. Secondly, I am far from sure what it is I actually want, and I need the gender clinics help to figure that out. Since that process is quite lengthy and the waiting times doubly so, I just didn’t feel like hanging around in the closet for that long.
Where do I go from here? With my transition I really don’t know. The first hurdle to overcome is on Tuesday when I have an appointment with a doctor who is going to assess my case and decide if they even should send me to the gender clinic at all. Regarding this blog though I finally feel like I have something new to write about. Over the past few years my mental state has been quite unchanging, so I never really felt like I had any new insights to share. I didn’t want to rethread old ground either so that explains why things have been quiet here for a while. Going forward however I shall try to go over all the thinking I’ve done over the past few months and of course share any new insights, starting with where I am right now.
Looking back, I’ve realised that I’ve probably unknowingly been questioning my gender identity for a while, I actually started going by gender neutral pronouns and calling myself agender as far back as 2013 and have since played around with bending my gender expression. It wasn’t until this year though that it clicked for me that there might be something more going on. Signs I had overlooked or ignored showed themselves in a new light and feelings I had suppressed kept bubbling up and it all got to a point where I no longer could ignore it. I had to do something about it and I got in touch with a doctor to start the process of figuring out what the hell is going on inside my head.
Does that mean that I am trans? Yes, technically. As long as you do not identify with the gender you were assigned at birth, you’re trans. Although by that definition I’ve been trans since 2013 and that doesn’t feel right since that decision was based in ideology rather than any deep introspection about how I felt about my gender (but that’s a story for later). This means that over the past few years I’ve hovered in what I can only describe as a grey area or limbo between being cis and trans. As a cis man it felt ridiculous to claim to be trans due to an ideological statement and I suppose that mentality stuck while my feelings about gender identity kept developing underneath that lid.
Why did I then not write this back in January when I managed to unstuck that lid? My best hypothesis is that I had a certain image of what it meant to come out as trans. You have to know what it is you want, have a clear plan, a new name, maybe even begun treatment so it’s just a matter of flicking a switch. My situation could not have been further from that. I had just unearthed years of feelings and thoughts I subconsciously had suppressed, I had no idea what I was feeling, I was confused, a bit scared but most of all, not the kind of trans person I thought I had to be to be “allowed” to come out. I still don’t really have a plan, but the worst storm has calmed down and I’ve realised that there is no one right way to come out, only the one that feels right for me.
This feels right for me. I like sharing and writing helps me, or rather forces me, to sort out my thoughts to be able to put something coherent down for others to read. I can’t force myself to be someone who I am not while I wait, while I’m figuring myself out. I must be honest and true to myself about who I am right now. And right now I am Tanja, or Sergej, or Seal, confused gendertrash trans person who is going thorough a gender crisis.
Sergej Tanja Brändén 