New name: Gwen.
New pronouns: She/her.
Gift cards to Sephora, Anthropologie, and Long Tall Sally accepted in lieu of flowers. 
If youâre feeling disappointed or mad or just confused about this, please, please take a second to look at these frequently asked questions and see if you have any of those same questions. I wrote a whole bunch of stuff specifically for the many people for whom Iâm going to be the one of first people they know and aware has transitioned.
Q: Why are you trans?
A: Scientists have published research suggesting that trans people are created between the second and third trimester of pregnancy, when the genes responsible for encoding the parts of the brain that interface with the body encode the interface for a different sex from the body thatâs already growing.
The ancient Greeks believed that sometimes the gods got drunk and put a womanâs soul in a manâs body, or vice-versa.
In many cultures, past and present, trans people arenât seen as having a body/brain/soul mismatch at all; these cultures have more than two genders, and trans people have specific, named gender roles and functions.
I donât have an answer I really like myself yet, but, one thing all these explanations have in common is an understanding that trans people are born this way.
Q: How do you (or how did you) know you are trans?
A: I figured out that was the word in my mid-twenties. I donât even remember what finally clued me in, I just remember being like âah-hah, thatâs whatâs so fundamentally weird about me!â At the time, I didnât think it bothered me much.
Another big piece of the puzzle came from a âzine in 2014-ish. It contained a visceral description of gender dysphoria. And thatâs when I realized being trans actually bothered me a lot.
Until that moment, I just thought everyone felt that kind of terrible all the time. Nope⌠just me and other trans people, it turned out.
Q: Gender dysphoria? Dys-for-what?
A: âGender dysphoria describes a sense of unease or dissatisfaction due to a mismatch between biological sex and gender identity. It leads to anxiety and depression.â
Itâs the classic âwoman trapped in a manâs bodyâ (or vice-versa) feeling. The big problem there is that having a painful divide between âyouâ and âyour bodyâ makes you want to separate the two. This is part of why 32% of American trans women and 50% of American trans men attempt suicide; itâs the most immediate and logical-seeming conclusion to gender dysphoria.
The only known treatment is transitioning. When transition is socially successfulâthat is, when people treat you as the gender you think of yourself as beingâit can give you âgender euphoria,â a sense of joy and relief at finally having you and your body recognized as the same person. This is part of why âpassingâ trans peopleâthat is, no-one can tell that theyâre transâattempt suicide at half the rate of ânon-passingâ trans people.
The deal with transition for non-passing trans people is, as far as I can tell, that the human brain relies hugely on signals from other humans to determine what reality is, to the point where those signals can override physical perceptions. So, my brain has some scrambled signals about sex and gender, but getting the right signals from other humans can de-scramble it.
So, when other people look at me and signal they see a man, I feel bad. Later I look in the mirror, I feel bad some more. With transition, when other people look at me, sometimes they signal they see a woman, and some part of me goes âyep, thatâs right!â and I feel good. Later I look in the mirror and I feel⌠pretty good, sometimes, for the first time in my life.
This âpeopleâs signals override my realityâ thing isnât just me, and it isnât just trans people; everyone is easily fooled by what the people around them do or say, and I donât think youâll have trouble finding examples of that once you start looking. Treating gender dysphoria just happens to be a positive application of it.
Q: Youâve been in the closet for more than ten years?
A: I guess itâs been about twelve years since I found out the word for it. I only told my therapist (who advised me to stay in the closet), and my wife-to-be, until the past few years. If I had been able to pass as a woman, Iâd have transitioned as soon as I figured out I was trans. But the prospect of being a permanently non-passing trans woman was just way too much. My intention was to never come out.
Q: Why are you coming out now?
A: Closets just keep getting smaller and smaller. Hiding a significant portion of myself seemed like a reasonable price to pay for comfort and security, and above all, not being laughed at, when I was twenty-five. By thirty, that price seemed awfully steep. By thirty-five, Iâd spent ten years knowingly pretending to be someone I wasnât, and getting laughed at didnât seem like the worst thing in the world anymore.
Also, thereâs been a big cultural shift. Until very recently, passing was critically important to transition changing anything about the way that people treat meâor at least, changing anything positively. Now I can fail to pass, and still realistically hope to be referred to and treated as a woman, by a handful of people in a liberal urban bubble, like Seattle or my hometown of Evanston.
Part of that shift was people have coming out and saying âIâm not a man OR a woman!â And I was like⌠hell, non-binary people donât even a gender to pass as. If they can come out knowing that theyâll never pass, I can too.
Lastly, cancer, twice. It was one thing to be like âIâm gonna take this to my graveâ when I thought said grave was a long time in the future. When faced with maybe dying in the closet NOW, it just felt like a waste. It seemed like people might want to know the real me before I died, and it seemed like a shame not to find out.
Q: You need Jesus.
A: I understand that youâre saying that out of a genuine desire to help, and I appreciate it. Iâve prayed non-stop about this my whole life, though. Some people insist my problem is that I never tried it at their one very specific church, but I prefer to believe in deities whoâd answer a prayer to them regardless of the address it came from.
Obviously, I would have preferred a tiny bit of help from God, to giving up my public safety and my public dignity by telling the whole world that my six-foot-six self is a woman. But after two decades, it seems like if any higher power intends to help at all, itâs only going to be after I help myself.
Q: Have you tried ______? Are you sure this isnât just some kind of _________?
A: In addition to prayer, I spent two years working with a therapist who was advising me to stay closeted, checked into several other forms of therapy, psychiatric drugs, looked into hypnosis, virtual reality, and probably some other stuff Iâm forgetting. Every reputable source I could find said that transition is the only treatment for gender dysphoria with any success rates at all. I gritted my teeth and spent another five years hoping for some kind of medical breakthrough, but I donât think itâs coming. I am open to suggestions, though.
Q: So, do you like wearing womenâs clothes?
A: No, sadly. That was one of the things that kept me from figuring out I was trans for the first twelve years or so, I actually kind of dislike them.
(Women know why, but for the men reading this one: Womenâs clothes are, at every price point and in every context, more expensive, yet worse made, from worse materials. They never have pockets, or at least not useful ones. They often seem designed to inhibit motion, modesty, utility, or all of those at once. Theyâre also hard to buy, because the sizing is completely inconsistent, even within brands. And for obvious reasons, theyâre especially hard to buy to fit me.)
But if I donât wear womenâs clothes, getting anyone to call me âsheâ goes from a painful leap, to downright impossible. Whereas, when Iâm looking sufficiently feminine, people often donât even need prompting to address me as a woman. So, thatâs what I wear most of the time now! And it is satisfying when I do find something that looks good.
Q: So, are you gay?
A: Noâbeing trans isnât really connected to sexuality at all. There are gay trans people, there are straight trans people, and there are bisexual trans people. Iâm one of the bi ones.
That was another thing that kept me from figuring out I was trans for so longâI thought that my wanting to be a woman was linked to my being attracted to men. A key part of my figuring out I was trans was having some very nice gay men explain to me that actually, they *love* being men.
Q: Do you expect me to call you âshe?â Or to stop calling you Kent? What about when Iâm talking about you in the past?
A: I mean, yeah, I think you should give it a try. It makes me feel a lot better, and it doesnât cost you anything. Itâs just like a âpleaseâ or âthank youâ that way.
Itâll take some getting used to, but Iâm not gonna get mad at people while theyâre working on it!
As for referring to me in the past, I wasnât sure about that, but Iâve tried it both ways, and what Iâve found is, if I only refer to âKentâ in the past tense, and âGwenâ only in the present and very recent past, it kinda sounds like âKentâ is dead. Which is kind of a sad thought, because most of that guy is still right here, actually. So, so far, itâs awkward both ways, but it seems to make slightly more sense to stick with Gwen in past and present.
Q: Are you having any surgeries? Are you taking hormones?
A: Iâve wanted facial surgery since I was twelve or thirteen, I just didnât realize why until I was much older. As of right now, though, bad luck has given me enough surgeries and hospitals to last a lifetime. Not to mention the cost.
I am getting my beard lasered off. It hurts like a bitch and costs as much as a used car, I really canât recommend it.
I started taking estrogen hoping that it would fix my dysphoria and I wouldnât have to come out at allâit does that for some people. I tried a few different doses and methods and so on, and ultimately, I was like âwell, this doesnât work, but itâs keeping me from going bald, which is great because that was really getting to me.â Itâs also making me grow tits, which I was pretty âmehâ about initially, but it turns out when your goal is to get people to address you as a woman, tits go a long way.
Iâm also on progesterone, for mood stabilization. Thereâs a whole emotional aspect to the hormones that Iâll definitely get into writing about some other timeâthat isnât so much a frequently asked question. The ups and downs of hormone replacement therapy has, in general, been a wild ride that has made me much, much more empathetic towards cis women.
Q: Cis? Whatâs cis?
A: Pronounced like âsis.â Short for cisgendered or cissexual. It just means ânot trans.â So a cis woman is a woman who the doctor assigns as female when sheâs born (or even before) and who continues to identify as a woman throughout her life.
Q: So, are you having any OTHER surgeries?
A: In general, when you find yourself curious about someone elseâs genitals, pause, and ask yourself: âDo we really have that kind of friendship, or would it actually be kind of weird if I brought up genitals?â
Q: Howâs Sunshine taking all this?
A: Like a champ. She carried being the only person who knew I was trans for years, she married me right as I was starting to make noises about maybe letting some other people know too, and sheâs being super supportive as the rest of the world is getting to find out right now.
Q: How about your family? Friends?
A: Oh, most definitely. I couldnât be doing this without my community of friends here in Seattle and elsewhere, who have been just incredible. And Iâm so damn proud of my parents, and my brother and his partner, for being just hugely supportive right from the instant I started to come out. Also a special shout-out to my bestie Kiki, no longer on Facebook, who not only talked me through this entire journey, but also has been showing me how to do the whole female presentation thing.
Q: Career?
A: To be honest, leaving a freelancing career for a full-time job is a lot of what made me feel like I could do this. You should hear the shit people say about trans people when they donât think there are any around.
Q: What are your goals here? What are you hoping to achieve?
A: My transition goal is to pass, not as a woman, but as a trans womanâthat is, for strangers who are aware of the existence of trans women to address me as âsheâ and âher,â or at least ask my pronouns.
My personal goal is to find some kind of peace with my sex and gender.
Iâm hoping to achieve authenticity, and service.
Authenticity: Iâm really looking forward to finding out who I am when Iâm not consciously lying about myself. At its most obvious, that looked like keeping my mouth shut, as friends, co-workers, and acquaintances said fucked up stuff about trans people, knowing that there was no way I was going to be able to argue about the subject without outing myself. But itâs lots of little shit too, all the time. Pretending to be somebody else takes up so much head space, even when itâs become automatic, and Iâm excited to see who I am when I have all that space back.
Service: I have a lot of privileges that most trans people donât. Iâve got a stable job, a supportive wife with a stable job, a house, a car, supportive and loving parents, a strong community of accepting and understanding friends, an incredible wife, the whole just-for-showing-up gift bag of white privilege, the confidence of someone who got to be a man for a long time, a really good education, and more. The least I could do with all that is to support other non-passing trans people by being visibly out, and support trans people in general by engaging with cis people on this subject.
Q: What can I do to be supportive?
A: This has been my most frequently asked question, because my friends and family are awesome!
–If youâve got contact info for me in your phone or computer, change it! New email address is Gwendolyn -dot- Cubbage -at- Gmail -dot- com. Same number same hood.
–If you are ever in a position to give input on adding or changing bathrooms or locker rooms in a public space, workplace, etc., advocate for one or more to be gender-neutral. Currently at most places my options are âwear a dress into the menâs roomâ or âscare the shit out of whoever else is in the womenâs room,â and, yknow, those are both just huge bummers.
–I could really use a trans woman friend or two in Seattle. Coming out during the pandemic has made it really rough to make social connections in general, and itâs been a particularly rough couple years for trans people specifically.
–I could really use a place to get reasonable-looking womenâs shoes in a womenâs size 15.