So I was born in 1980. My Scandinavian public school system probably had “progressive“ sex-ed, we had those classes maybe age 13-15. It covered contraceptives, pregnancy, and some stuff about consent without using that word, basically “it’s OK to wait until you want to“ but the assumption was implicitly that in a few years a lot of us would be having straight sex with each other. I felt that was shallow and stupid and determined to wait until university or marriage or whatever. Some anatomy, some menstruation, some baby development and nurturing. Not much of communication or relationship, but stuff on planning economy together. Lots of STD protection details. Token mention of there being gay people and that is OK, one visited school at some point to talk (he was an HIV positive gay man I think). I remember nothing about trans and nothing else more complicated.

Other sources was a magazine for teenagers of all sexes, which was basically similar in scope, what little I sneaked from my sisters’ girl magazines, and what books my parents had around from their psychologist schooling in the 70s. Pre-google internet on a shared computer, webrings etc. Nothing there.

So I really did not have an idea of anything trans related until… sometime? Apocryphic references here and there. Some TV mention of transvestite prostitutes having gotten breasts from unethical plastic surgeons, that was what I remembered. The idea of “traps”, probably. I got into second- and third wave feminism (because I identified with women as a group) and learned about gender roles as socially constructed and of the patriarchy. That was it until at university, in my much queerer circles, I encountered queerness and genderqueerness and like one or two actual trans people a few steps away from me. I was curious and scared, because the idea of gender identity was anathema to my life raft of all aspect of gender as socially constructed and about to be dismantled by the queer revolution.

Even then, I had no idea about hormonal transition. I thought as a trans woman, you had your genitals cut off so you’d stay with a sore and raw muscle surface and never feel arousal again, that you had breast implants and otherwise used heavy makeup and stereotyped clothing to try to pass. It seemed to be about being allowed to be a stereotype socially at a high cost physically.

I wonder how it would have been if I grew up now? What information could I have gotten as a teenager? Crucially:

– Yes, gender roles are constructed and harmful to all. But not all of gender is socially constructed, no matter what you hope. Some follows from body one way or another. I don’t think I could have accepted that. I would have struggled until overproven, and at that point, I would have sought transition. Which is essentially what now happened in my thirties instead.

– No, gender and sexual orientation are not linked. Also it really is OK to like anyone. When I told my mother boys in school said I was gay, she told me they feared their own sexuality and that I showed no sign of being gay. Having another form of acceptance more widely might have changed how I relate to that part.

– There really are people feeling much better anchored if they transition, either suffering if they do not, or gaining better happiness if they successfully do. Transition works, involves triggering another puberty track, and changes your body and mind; this prepares you for later surgeries if you want them. You won’t have more problems as a trans person than you already do for being a complete and utter outsider. The last may or may not have been true then in the small town, but true enough. I have no idea if I would have wanted to transition as a teenager. I was alienated but it was so hard to separate bullying, outsidership and other factors from each other. I don’t know if my dysphoria was that strong then.

There does exist a possible scenario wherein during my teens I would have wanted to transition based on euphoria. That is, I would have linked transition to agency and to coming out of my social shell. The close friends I made were largely girls and there was a homosocial component (though also with nerd boys, granted). If I had believed – through support from the world – that I could become a girl then, then I would have experienced potential social gender euphoria, and if I thought I could be accepted by at least the parts of society I care about – my parents, my outsider friends, counterculture, academia – then I probably would have wanted to transition. Most likely first via nonbinarity, and then girlhood as I felt I could. So again, honestly mirroring what I did in my thirties.

Writing this was an experiment to check, would I have wanted to transition if I grew up with the information available? I still cannot be sure, but from typing down the thought experiment, then it seems like I would have done surprisingly much the same thing as I ended up doing now. Where I was then the reluctantly male soft person nerd poet hacker progressive, I would be the same but embracing my girlhood with much sturm und drang. I probably would be about the same degree of weird that I ended up being, but my body would have been cis-passing. Oh, well…