Sometimes I feel like an imposter.
That is a strange thing to admit when I have known, in one form or another, since I was very young that something wasn’t right.
At that age, I didn’t have the words for it.
I didn’t understand gender dysphoria. I didn’t understand what transgender meant. I certainly didn’t understand the distinction between my body not feeling right for me and believing that I was somehow wrong.
I just knew I wasn’t like the boys everyone insisted I was supposed to be like.
But I still had to do boy things.
I wanted to play with my sisters’ Barbies. I wanted the dresses. I wanted the things that seemed to come naturally with being a girl.
Instead, I played with G.I. Joes, Transformers and Masters of the Universe.
And none of those things made me a boy.
I know that now.
I know now that there is no entrance exam for womanhood, but sometimes my own insecurities still act as though there is. At the same point, I seem to have created a checklist in my own head for what I should have done if I were “really” a girl.
And sometimes I judge myself against it.
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The Things I Didn’t Get to Learn
As a teenager, when I was beginning to explore who I was, there were things I desperately wanted.
One of them wasn’t even particularly dramatic.
I wanted the relationship my sister had with my mom.
I watched the little rituals between them.
Hair being braided before bed.
Rollers.
Conversations.
Just that different kind of closeness that mothers and daughters sometimes develop.
I wanted that.
Not because braiding someone’s hair magically makes somebody a girl, but because those moments represented something much larger to me.
They represented belonging.
They represented being seen.
They represented being included in a kind of girlhood that seemed to be happening just a few feet away from me while I watched from the outside.
There were other things I never did, too.
I never really experimented with makeup as a teenager.
Today, that sometimes feels like a ridiculous disadvantage.
Other women my age might have decades of experience figuring out foundation, eyeliner, contouring or which colors work with their skin.
I’m still figuring out things that many people learned while standing in front of a bathroom mirror at 15.
And occasionally that makes me feel like I missed orientation.
Like everybody else got the handbook and I showed up halfway through the semester.
There Is No Entrance Exam
I haven’t had facial feminization surgery.
I’ve been off hormones for a couple of years because life happened and things went sideways.
I haven’t been able to get permanent facial hair removal, even though I desperately want it.
Some days I shave more than once.
There are mornings when I can look at myself and feel fine, and afternoons when the shadow returning on my face feels like my body is betraying me all over again.
Those things can pile up.
No hormones.
No surgery.
No permanent hair removal.
Not especially skilled with makeup.
Not constantly wearing dresses.
And suddenly that nasty little voice starts asking:
Are you sure you belong here?
But that’s absurd.
A tomboy doesn’t stop being a woman because she doesn’t like dresses.
A butch lesbian isn’t required to put on lipstick before she’s allowed to call herself a woman.
A cis woman doesn’t have to prove her womanhood by shaving perfectly, wearing makeup, taking medication or having surgery.
So why have I invented a different standard for myself?
Why does being transgender sometimes make it feel as though femininity is something I have to continuously demonstrate to maintain my membership?
There is no entrance exam for womanhood.
There never was.
A Prison I Built Myself
That is the cruelest part.
A lot of this prison is self-inflicted.
There are plenty of people outside who are perfectly willing to tell transgender women we don’t belong.
I don’t need to build another guard tower inside my own head.
But sometimes I do.
My yearning for more makes me feel like I belong less.
I wish my face were different, so I convince myself my face isn’t feminine enough.
I wish I had learned makeup earlier, so I convince myself I’m bad at being a woman.
I wish I could wear certain clothes with confidence, so I tell myself my hesitation means something about my identity.
It doesn’t.
It means I’m human.
It means I spent decades being taught to hide things about myself.
You don’t undo that overnight.
Learning to Show My Shoulders
Even now, there are little things I am learning.
Recently, I became comfortable showing my shoulders.
That sounds tiny.
It isn’t.
For years, I would have been uncomfortable wearing a tank top in public.
Now I can.
And during a hot Jersey summer, that has been wonderful.
It isn’t just cooler.
It feels like another little piece of territory reclaimed from my own insecurity.
That matters to me because simply existing comfortably in public has not always come easily.
Sometimes the victory isn’t dramatic.
Sometimes it is just realizing that you’re wearing a tank top, your shoulders are exposed, and you’re not thinking about it anymore.
But dresses are still different.
Especially sundresses.
The Dress I Thought Would Make Me Normal
As a child, dresses were almost symbolic for me.
They represented everything I thought I was being denied.
I imagined them as part of being normal.
Part of being like the other girls.
Part of escaping a body and a role that made everyone look at me and see a boy.
You would think that would mean I would run toward them now.
Sometimes I don’t.
Sometimes I shy away.
I worry about my shoulders.
My shape.
My face.
Whether people are looking at me.
Whether the dress makes me more visible instead of making me feel more like myself.
And there’s something heartbreaking about finally having permission to wear something you spent your childhood dreaming about, only to discover that decades of shame can still whisper:
Maybe you shouldn’t.
Gender Expression Isn’t Proof
Clothing, hairstyles, makeup and appearance can all be ways we express gender.
They can be affirming.
They can be joyful.
They can help the outside world see a little more of what we already know about ourselves.
But they aren’t the same thing as gender identity.
A dress does not create a woman.
Makeup does not create a woman.
Long hair does not create a woman.
And surgery does not create a woman.
Those things may help someone feel more comfortable in their body or more at home in the way the world sees them.
But they aren’t admission tickets.
They aren’t credentials.
They aren’t proof.
There Is No Right Way to Be a Woman
Maybe that’s the lesson I’m still learning.
There isn’t a correct way to be a woman.
There isn’t a minimum number of dresses.
There isn’t a makeup proficiency test.
There isn’t a required hormone level.
There isn’t a surgery requirement.
There isn’t a childhood toy requirement either.
The G.I. Joes didn’t make me a boy.
The Barbies I wanted wouldn’t have made me a girl.
I was already me.
Gender expression can be joyful. It can be affirming. It can help us communicate something about ourselves to the world.
But it isn’t evidence submitted to a court.
I don’t have to prove my gender.
I don’t have to earn it.
And maybe someday I’ll put on the light sundress that the little kid version of me dreamed about and walk outside without thinking twice about it.
Maybe I’ll never become particularly good at eyeliner.
Maybe some days I’ll wear a tank top and jeans.
Maybe other days I’ll want something unapologetically feminine.
None of those versions of me is an imposter.
They’re just different ways of being the same woman.
There is no entrance exam for womanhood.
The hardest person left to convince of that, sometimes, is me.