My Story: Giving Advice to Anyone Starting Their Transition

MB gives advice to people who are starting their transition. She explains how having a group of trans friends was very important to her during this time.

Transcript:

OBOS Today: I was wondering if there was anything, like, you wish you knew before—I guess, like, starting any physical transition?

MB: Mm. I think when I first started transitioning, before I started hormones, I just thought that the rest of my life was gonna, like, feel awful, and that I was never going to feel like a full person. And that is just, like, so—like, everything that I thought transitioning was gonna be, was just wrong, and just completely, like, not accurate to what my experience has been.

I would say my advice for younger trans people—for transfemmes, if you’re going on hormones, get sublingual estrogen; for trans people in general, if you’re starting your transition, find trans people around you, however you can, even if it’s, like, awkward, and you’re meeting them on the internet, and I mean, stay safe. Don’t do anything crazy or that’s gonna put you in danger. But, like, even if it’s just like this awkward acquaintance that you kind of know and isn’t—and it’s, like, not, I don’t know. I think I wish that I had had more trans people around me when I started transitioning, and I’m so grateful to have all of the trans friends—

And yeah. Just the trans people that I have in my life now—make it so much better and so much richer and make me feel so validated in, like, who I am.

And I’m meeting more trans people all the time, which is fantastic. I went and got vaccinated at this clinic and I made one of my, like, best friends now. Their name is Sally and they, like, came up to me at the clinic. Ralph and I, my partner and I had been there, and we, like, were watching them walk by and they had, like, purple hair and we were like, “Oh my God, like, cool trans person, we should be their friend.” And then as we were walking out, they walked up to us and were like, “Do you want to be friends?” And then we became friends and now we’re like, we’re like best of friends and it’s amazing and yeah, so just do shit like that. Like, just go up to people, because you never know, you never know what’s gonna happen, and like, yeah.

And also, if anyone is mean to you, and you’re, like, a young trans person who’s starting out your transition, I’ll stop them. I’ll eat them. I’m your mom now and I will kill anyone who’s mean to you. So that’s my message.