i put “passed” within quotes because what is passing? passing is safety in a normative world. aside that, there is no definite destination, no goal, no benchmark for who a trans man is. cis men do not set the standard and i am learning what it means to be a “trans man” by simply being myself. i am meeting trans people with diffracting, prismatic identities, with their own hieroglyphics, codes, secret languages of self, a movement specific to their own world… there is no one way to be trans either, as there is simply no one way to be alive. in the first two years of my microdose, the testosterone soothed the voices in my mind. tbh, i started feeling the effects the moment i got my hands on my first bottle of t. the first time i saw a bottle of testo gel, my shoulders burned. my body is a beautiful feeling portal. that too, is part of being trans. to remember that trans is a memory, a remembering, a recovery, an imprint, a contract between a spirit and its vessel. i was parched and testosterone struck a dormant flame in me. i had hibernating for too long.

when i began micro-dosing, i saw myself more on the fluid spectrum. and then suddenly, to my utter shock, i started telling myself, louder and louder: “i am a trans man”. things became pressing. i’d die if i didn’t speak my truth, yes, that was it. the shock of knowing that i (a deep hidden i) wanted to live as a trans man, and that life as i’d known it had led me here, right here and nowhere else. i sat down as i finally understood the words of veteran and elder trans people: “being trans is not a choice” and the more terrifying: “i wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy” (i was turned inside out, my world collapsed, loved ones left). it came as a calling and i wished to run away, but there was no running. there was simply no other way for me to be, to live on. this is the only way.

i know i am, for i told me so. i told me so as i am. you told me so i may come into being. i was then and so too now. i knew before you told me. i have always already known. i flip the coin. the shadow of this life was in my memory all this while. i call me by my new name and think i’d never get used to it, but i do so swiftly. i am so eager for my new life and my shoulders feel large, these are the wings i wanted.

anyway, in march 2024, my hair also screamed at me. i went in for the big chop. my dearest barber, a trans man himself, called it his big catch and posed with it! i could immediately tell that the haircut threw relief to my ignored moustache. it pulled a number even on me, for i too realised my moustache. the first demographic to see me as a man in public space were white women and the last demographic to see me as man were black and brown men.

i’d dropped in a taco place in my neighbourhood to ask the owner if he had any openings for the summer. One of the workers, a pale-skinned woman told me to wait and went to inform the owner. i heard her say “he wants to talk to you about a job.” i couldn’t stop smiling. i only know as i go…