If I could have a talk with teen-aged me
I'd say 'there is no need for you to cry –
in time indeed a woman you will be.'

​'For you, "to be a boy" does not mean "free",
it's hard', I'd note, 'however much you try',
if I could have a talk with teen-aged me.

​'The rules of boys are for what you can't be,
but those for girls do not yet suck you dry
(in time indeed a woman you will be).'

​'A wider range of choices you can see
because', I'd say, 'the norms you must defy',
if I could have a talk with teen-aged me.

​'Though hard at times, it has been good for me
to build from male and female my own way –
in time indeed a woman you will be.'

​I'd also tell of happiness and glee,
careers, family, bad times passing by,
if I could have a talk with teen-aged me.
'In time indeed a woman you will be.'​

The recent passing of a colleague reminded me again of how it is one thing to figure out you are trans, and a whole different thing to figure out how to deal with it. While I couldn't stay in my own closet in the way referred to in the small elegy I wrote for her, I'm still convinced that if I could go back, knowing what I now know, I wouldn't choose a different path. Yes, there have been hard stretches, but bypassing them would also mean missing many things I couldn't bear to lose. And having to say 'no' (or in a few cases 'hell, no') to social expectations did open up options that I wouldn't have realised were there if I had been cis, either gender.