This is why I am afraid: https://normvjulian.medium.com/why-are-trans-people-so-defensive-9f18494151b7

I am more gender-nonconforming now as a man than I was as a little girl. Gender nonconformity was not my issue, nor what drove my decision to transition.

Personally I am just a neural male, a baseline that comes fundamentally before any social icing on the cake. It is both a big deal for me personally (my mind requires testosterone to feel comfortable and normal) and, ideally, NOT a big deal, because, indeed, I want the same gender-equal utopia at the end of the day.

The difference is that even in a world with true gender equality, transsexual people like me exist.

I could theorize about why--for me personally, I suspect it was prenatal androgen exposure--but at the end of the day, I simply wish to be respected, trusted, and guaranteed safe access to my medication. The linked writings and others in my history try their best to explain how this medication feels and affects me, and I implore others to explore them (particularly "Out of the Gray").

Testosterone was not a 'quick fix' of any kind but, rather, a personal decision after putting myself through extensive therapy to address my guilt and shame (none of which was guilt and shame about social behaviors - it was all about how me simply being male would hurt others, as I believed at the time).

Two years in, it remains the best decision of my life--a life that I can actually call 'mine' with conviction, because there is actually a 'me' now.

I can tell you seriously that I would rather die of unlikely cancer in 5 or 10 years on HRT than discontinue it and live to a ripe old age (although I'm quite sure that my risks of anything simply align with that of a cis male now). It is that much of a mental difference.

I continue to ramble because, well---yes, I am scared.

As I am autistic, I am a constant target for my transition being pathologized instead of respected and dignified.

I do not mean to say I feel attacked, but rather terrified that sentiments like this will lead others to cause great harm to people in my situation because they believe that everything comes down to sexism.

I am receiving exactly the care I need, and I am being kept safe. Well-meaning fear-mongering will make me unsafe.