I turned twenty-one last month.

I also only started HRT a few weeks before my twentieth birthday, with the beginning of my transition being really lonely because I was terrified to tell people who I am.

At home, I had the support of a few of my friends, but they weren’t with me at school. I didn’t have my parents to lean on as they were vehemently against me transitioning. They threatened to stop supporting me through school, and I was scared I was going to get cut off completely–losing my health insurance, and maybe even a place to live. They invalidated my feelings, but worst of all, they made me doubt that my friends would support me through my transition.

They didn’t cut me off, but succeeded in making me uncomfortable with presenting as a girl and coming out to people. I was so terrified that I didn’t come out to anyone for 4 months after telling my parents. This included one of my best friends and people who I knew would love and support me through this. My parents’ words isolated me not just from themselves, but from everyone else in my life that would have stepped up to fill the void that they created. It was a period where I quickly learned that I didn’t have unconditional love. I remember carpooling with my mom on the way to work with her lecturing me to “think about the future” and to think about how I can “build my resume” to get a “good job” once I graduate. Her looking so far ahead in my life that she failed to see I was struggling so hard to make it to the next day.

Towards the end of November, I ended up telling the world I was trans in an Instagram story. I still wasn’t presenting as a girl most of the time, but I was tired of keeping my identity to myself. IRL, however, I still didn’t say anything about my gender identity and no one really asked. I didn’t have the confidence to tell people that I’d like them to use different pronouns and a different name. Obviously, some people knew, but I was still in the closet. The door just now had some frosted glass on it.

When my next semester started in January, I finally started using she/her pronouns and changed the preferred name I had with my school. I still wasn’t that confident dressing all that feminine (I would only very occasionally wear a skirt or crop top), but I was out and starting to mostly live as myself at this point.

My friends and classmates that I’ve known for a while began to pick up that I’m trans and started treating me like I was a woman. The joy from being treated in a manner consistent with my internal sense of self was euphoric, but I still didn’t explicitly say I was trans, ask people to start using she/her pronouns, or even tell people to use my new name. It kinda just happened over time without me explicitly asking for it. I pretended not to notice when people switched pronouns/names, but I did, in fact, notice every single switch, and every single one made me so happy. I also love the people who asked me what names/pronouns to use, heard me say “anything’s ok,” and correctly determined that I was just too scared to tell people to use my new name/pronouns, and used them anyway.

During this period, I also began to be consistently read as a woman by strangers. Seeing the double-take TSA did when looking at my ID was so funny and euphoric.

My summer internship was also amazing. I was just a full-time girl, nerding out about Rust and figuring out what the heck Kubernetes is. My confidence grew working and socializing with my coworkers who only ever knew me as a woman, Adalie. I regularly wore skirts and feminine tops and was accepted as who I am without a second thought. I finally felt just comfortable and confident as the person I am, having transitioned for just under a year.

Now, even my parents will tell you that I am infinitely happier now. I’ve changed my legal name and gender and am only referred to as Adalie with she/her pronouns.

But even now, I still don’t really talk about being trans. Like sometimes I’ll allude to it (like “haha i’m losing more rights”, “haha i’m breaking the law by using the restroom”), but I never really talk about my experiences and struggles related to being trans. It’s almost like I’m afraid that if I remind my friends that I’m trans that they’ll see me as less of a woman. Like my goal with transitioning was just to become another woman, not specifically a trans woman. I don’t want my identity to always be linked to the adjective, trans–obviously being trans will always be a part of my identity, but I want to be able to disconnect from it and just be another one of the girls.

At the same time, I think I’m avoiding talking about trans things too much right now. Like I wanna just be able to complain about my health insurance and rant about how this administration is killing trans kids with their policies and how this shit is also affecting me.

I think this circles back to me being incredibly scared to come out to my friends. I know, logically, that letting the trans part of my identity into conversations won’t change how my friends see me. But, for some reason, I’m still scared it will.

To give myself some credit, transitioning is one of the hardest things I’ve done, and talking about being trans is sharing some of the most vulnerable parts of myself. I avoid talking about being trans because it’s scary. Being trans is scary.