Exactly two years ago today, I came home from a friend’s thanksgiving party. We had a bunch of fun, good food, wine & some weed. An overall very pleasant evening. Except for the moment when we were getting ready to leave around midnight and our hostess proposed a “ladies’ night”.

I asked her if I could come as well but she just replied “it’s ladies' night!”. So I asked again and got the same answer. And again. After the third time, I gave up and got dressed and left.

By the time my partner and I got home, I was still feeling really bad. Not quite sure why, but bad enough to talk to her about it. So around 1 am we sat down on our bed and talked about why I felt like crying. Why I felt so horrible.

What followed were 4 hours of me crying, her crying, us desperately trying to figure out what the hell was going on & what we could do.

The end result was that I was finally able to give myself permission to think & even say something, that had been festering in me for decades.

That I despised being a guy, that it made me sick to my stomach when people treated me in a gendered way, that I had always been jealous of girls and women, that I had always wished I hadn’t been born the way I was. That I was incredibly dysphoric and depressed.

These thoughts had always been there. I remember being jealous, I remember hating being a boy, I remember dressing up when I was 12 and being overcome with happiness. The desperate tears I cried every time my dad cut my hair back to 5 mm.

The role playing games I played as a child, always focused on playing women, to the point where my friends got annoyed and stopped playing with me.

That decision I made exactly two years ago, was the bravest, most life-affirming and most difficult thing I have ever done. What followed were months and months of being scared, anxious and full of doubt. Every step I took towards the real me, was so incredibly terrifying.

But I always knew what the right direction was. I never really felt disoriented. I had finally found a direction that made sense to me. Now I just had to learn how to progress, how to get to where I knew I needed to be.

Looking back, I have no idea how I managed it. But I am infinitely thankful, that I had the chance of becoming myself and that I took it and held on to it for dear life. The person I have become feels so much more real than any sorry attempt at being a dude I had ever launched.

I cannot believe that I get to be myself now. Every fucking day. Just like that. How wild is that? How incredibly lucky am I?

I have learned so much about myself. And I have had the incredible opportunity to meet and befriend so many amazing, beautiful, inspiring people.

The other day I said, I wouldn’t want to be a cis woman if you ever offered me the chance.

And a big part of that is, that this is my home. This is my community. And many of you are my siblings. I never want to lose that, I never want to not be part of that.