Giant Steps Ch. 04

Chapter 4 - A personal twist

Authors Note:

I probably shouldn't share such personal information here but here I go. Between writing the last part and writing this part, I realized that I myself am trans. I also realized I had been writing Sam and Jane as sort of outlets to explore my own feelings of transness that I could acknowledge for the characters but couldn't in myself. In that way, this series, and the last part in particular, serve as a living document of the end of my time before coming out to myself. I see that as kind of beautiful in a way.

As such, I feel compelled to continue this series, but to ground it in my actual trans experiences. As I was writing Sam as trans the whole time without even realizing it, it seems fitting that I'll let her go through the same experience I did. Besides, it would almost feel unjust for me to leave her hanging in a fictional pre-transition limbo.

I also want to write the kind of story I wish I had read before realizing I was trans; that is to say, a semi-realistic portrait of pre and early transition starting from denial. This isn't meant to be a callout per se, but much of the work in this category and in my own writing in this very series often treats trans women as functionally cis women with penises. That is a...limited viewpoint to say the least, and one that obfuscates the whole process of transition in ways that can be potentially harmful. Again, I'm guilty of this and often it's not a huge deal, but going through this myself, I feel the need to correct the record somewhat and portray an authentic trans experience that wallows somewhat in the beauty and awkwardness of transition.

Having said that, there is no singular trans narrative. These are all reflective of my personal experiences and conceptions. Further, this is still very much fiction and to some degree fantasy. Sam's timeline is going to be fairly condensed compared to a real-life transition. It took me and most trans people I know a lot longer and more complicated process to come out to themselves than what Sam will go through in this story. I'll allude to the difficulties and patience required of transition, but it's a lot of frustration and repetition that I doubt would read very well. I will also roughly go about having characters explore and define dysphoria, but keep in mind that dysphoria is a giant, multifarious, and strange beast which language fails to capture very well if you haven't gone through it yourself.

I'm also writing this to say that the smut is going to take a backseat to the plot and characters for a bit. I'll still probably include some explicit scenes, and use this platform as a way to broach some of the more taboo elements of being trans, but my focus is largely on the characters' experiences for now. That is to say, this chapter has nothing explicit in it; all plot, no porn. I completely respect if that's not what you're here for and implore you to check out some of the other amazing authors in this category for your more sexual needs :)

Lastly: if you find yourself connecting with Sam a lot, particularly at the end of Chapter 3, I highly recommend looking into trans resources like the Gender Dysphoria bible and reddit spaces like r/egg_irl. While nobody can tell you you're trans but you, there can be certain indications, and internalized transphobia and other pressures can leave you denying your transness without addressing it and looking to unhealthy outlets. It certainly did for me. I thought I didn't have dysphoria until I actually found out what dysphoria was. I gave Sam the same curse, and I'm lifting that curse now from her.

Being trans is scary, but it's also beautiful. I've never felt happier or more alive in my life and I'm appalled at myself that I ever tried to live any other way. By way of metaphor, when I was in early high school I took for granted that things were just blurry until I tried on a friend's pair of glasses and realized I could barely see the world. Being trans can be kind of like that, because once you put on the glasses, you'll realize how much you were missing and how uncomfortable that life is.

And last last thing: I use he/him pronouns for Sam in the narration of this story until the moment when she is able to self-actualize and ask to try the correct pronouns with Jane and Holly. I do however ask that you use she/her pronouns for Sam when talking about her in the comments as those are the correct ones and will be used exclusively moving forward.

***

Part 1 - Awakening, or, the Trans art of self-rejection

"Sam, I lied." Jane sat completely upright in bed. Light was streaming into the room but she wasn't sure what time it was.

"Whaaa I-" Sam groaned and muttered incoherently. He was too tired to make sense of the world. He tried cozying up to Jane and rested his head uncomfortably on her thigh.

"Sam, I-" She stopped, unsure if it was worth addressing in his zombie state. She wanted to get it off her chest. The thought had kept her up throughout the night.

Sam, for his part, was still deeply tired. He fumbled his arm up to her face and tried to pet her hair while mumbling "sleepy."

She looked down, unable to wipe the expression of concern from her face.

She breathed a deep sigh and left the bed and the dead-to-the-world Sam in it.

She walked over to the kitchen and started brewing some tea. Just as she was pouring the water over the tea bag, the door to the apartment opened quietly and Holly attempted to quietly step in. She took off her shoes and looked up in surprise at Jane.

She cocked her head slightly in a questioning pose. Jane put her finger over her mouth in a 'shh' gesture. Jane had never been more relieved to see her roommate. She gestured for them to go into Holly's room to chat.

As they entered, Holly could see that her chair and other small things had been displaced in her room. She shot Jane a look of "really?" and Jane shot back a look of "sorry."

Jane shut the door behind them and took a deep breath.

"Early morning?" She asked Holly, trying to keep her voice down.

"Jeremy had work and I didn't feel like staying at his."

"Is everything okay between you?"

"Yes, of course, holy shit Jane." She smiled as she put her purse down on her desk. "I love that boy."

"Sorry, sorry. I feel like I don't know what going on in your life as much lately and I--"

"Jane, you okay?" She interjected.

"Uh, no, no I'm not. I didn't sleep well."

"I assume we're all hush hush because of boy?"

"Don't call him, er, Sam that."

"So it is about him. Is something wrong? Did he do something? Do I need to go beat him up?" Holly said, jokingly bringing her fists up in a boxing pose.

"No, no, no." Jane put her friend's hands down for her. "I mean, yes, it's about him, but it's something I did."

Holly scrunched her brows in confusion.

"I probably shouldn't tell you this for his sake, but we talked last night, and, well," She made sure her voice was a low whisper. "I'm pretty sure Sam is trans."

"I KNEW IT."

"Quiet down!"

"I knew it!" She repeated in a whisper.

"You did?"

"My egg radar was getting some pings." She smiled smugly.

"Well, mine wasn't. And somehow I got it in my head that he couldn't be and I kind of told him that."

"You what?"

"Okay, it wasn't quite that bad. I told him there was a good chance he wasn't cis, but I also kinda told him he wasn't trans."

"Jane, that's contradictory."

"I realize that now! I stayed up all night realizing just how eggy he was being and kinda has been this whole time. I realized that what I said will probably really fuck with him later when he realizes. Fuck. I just haven't been in that state of mind for a bit and ughhh I'm an awful person"

"You're not an awful person, darling. But you do have to tell him. I think we'd both agree that we wish we'd had someone to guide us through this whole thing that's already been through it."

"Fuck."

"What are you thinking?" Holly asked.

"This is gonna be a whole thing."

"Jane." Holly gave a stern look.

--

Sam could hear conversation in the next room but he couldn't make out the words. He hadn't slept in in a long time. He was confused at the disappearance of Jane from the bed.

He got up in a daze. He couldn't get back to sleep with all the talking in the next room.

He looked down and remembered he was in Jane's boy shorts. It felt nice. It felt nice? What? Sam's comfort morphed into shame and confusion. He wanted to stay in them all day and change out immediately at the same time. He didn't have his own underwear to wear however, so the decision was made for him.

He went over to Jane's closet and grabbed a relatively loose shirt dress with a wide neckline. It had the album art from Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures" but instead of saying Joy Division it said "Boy Division." Sam laughed at that. It was long enough to go to his thighs. He wore it in such a way that it looked off-the-shoulder. He glanced in the mirror and got a strange pang of joy again. Then he looked down at his legs and cringed at the image of hairy legs coming out of the dress.

He got up and walked over to Holly's room.

As he neared the door he could make out Jane saying "I don't know how or when to tell Sam"

Without further thought he opened the door to the shocked and frozen faces of Holly and Jane staring back at him. He'd clearly intruded on something not meant for him.

Jane looked up at Sam in her shirt dress. She laughed a little on the inside. Minus the stubble and the leg hair she felt like she could see Sam's future already.

"Tell Sam what?" He asked, hoping it wasn't a big deal.

Holly and Jane exchanged a look.

"What?"

"We might as well now." Holly turned to Jane, who felt her stomach drop out.

"Take a seat on the bed, Sam." Jane gestured towards the bed and he hesitantly obliged.

Holly took a seat in her desk chair and Jane remained standing up.

There was an air of tension in the room.

"Sam."

"Jane." He smiled.

"I've been thinking a lot about our discussion last night."

Now it was Sam who felt his stomach drop out. His heart started pounding.

"This isn't usually how this goes." She took in a deep breath. "So, remember how I told you I didn't think you were trans?"

"Yes." He said with trepidation.

"Well, I was wrong, or, er, rather, that was wrong of me to say then."

"I don't..." He trailed off.

"Those things you were saying, were very..."

"Eggy is the word you're looking for." Holly interjected with a light laugh.

"Eggy?" Sam queried.

"It's a term in the community we use for trans people in denial."

"They're an egg until they realize they're trans, then the egg cracks and there's no going back." Holly explained. "Oh, and usually a chick comes out, but we don't dwell on that because we don't like to exclude our transmasc and enby friends."

"You're saying I'm an egg? You're saying I'm trans and in denial?" Sam could feel the gears in his brain grind to a halt.

"Well, no, not exactly! What I'm saying is that a lot of the things you said sounded a lot like things an egg, er, a trans person in denial would say. Only you can actually say if you're trans." Jane said.

"What's an example?"

"Well, remember when you said you often look at girls and think 'I want to be them'"

"Yeah, so?"

"Sam, that's not a thought cis guys have as far as I'm aware. I mean, maybe for a second, but you seemed to suggest the thought comes up somewhat frequently. That's called gender envy. I had that a lot before I realized I was trans."

"Same here." Holly chimed in.

"And before that you had said something like 'I wish I was born a girl, sometimes I wish I just was a girl.'"Jane said.

"Next you're going to tell me cis guys don't think that?"

"They might, sometimes, but usually they think about it once and then don't really entertain the thought. But for you, I'd make a bet that it comes up and has been coming up periodically as a thought in your head for as long as you can remember, and that no matter how hard you try to dismiss it the thought keeps coming back."

Sam glared at her. He could feel tears start to well up but he couldn't help but hold them back. His head began to pound.

"The only real symptom of being trans is wanting to be another gender from the one you were assigned, and well..."

"But it's just when I'm horny!"

"Is it? Are you horny when you're looking at those girls in the gym?"

"No! Of course not!"

"Does it go away after you orgasm, or do you just feel weird and floaty and disconnected from everything?"

"I, I've never really thought about it. I mostly try to not think about it. That's not...that's not normal, is it?"

"Well, I don't know how normal or not normal anything is, and of course I'm not cis...but I do know at a baseline it's not healthy and that it's a sign that something is wrong." Jane said.

"But it's a fetish, I, I..." He gave a bashful look to Holly but proceeded anyway. "I get turned on in women's clothes."

"Women, and trans women too, are allowed to be turned on, and they're allowed to get turned on being themselves. Something that happens to a lot of us is we can't express ourselves in daily life and we are often sexualized or framed as fetishists in the media, so we try to relieve our dysphoria through sexual things. Then we feel all weird because it didn't fix everything and makes us feel ashamed."

"But I'm not...I never played with girls toys as a kid!"

"Neither did I." Jane said.

"I did." Holly said, with a slight laugh.

"But I'm too old!"

"You're 21, Sam, some people don't figure this out until their 60s, or later even. I was 18 when I figured it out. There's no minimum or maximum age to be trans. That's not how this works."

"But I don't feel like a woman trapped in a man's body."

Holly let out a big groan. "Nobody does. I haven't talked to one trans person who felt that way."

"Holly's right. I never really understood that line. I'm pretty sure it's something we just say to cis people out of convenience because they can't really understand. I'm not here to doubt trans people that feel that way but for my money it's an awkward use of language. I don't know what it means to "feel like a woman" or any gender to be honest. But I do know what it's like to feel wrong, this deep sense of wrong in your being. And I now know what it's like to feel right, Sam. I don't feel like a girl, I just feel good."

"But I'm okay with being a boy."

"Are you "okay" with it, or can you just "tolerate" it."

"Fuck, I don't know. I guess I kind of just tolerate it. Fuck. but I can! I can tolerate being a boy!"

"That may be so, Sam, but you shouldn't have to."

She let a silence fall after that. Sam could feel his head clogging up. He looked down at his feet and then looked away, not wanting to see his unshaven legs."

"Cis people don't have to "tolerate" their own gender identity, and you shouldn't have to either."

Sam's heart was beating. "I can't be, not me."

"Sam, I don't know how to put this best, but that kind of thinking is called internalized transphobia. If what you're going through is anything like what I did, you're scared of the thought of being trans, even if you're conceptually okay with other trans people."

"Fuck." His face was scrunched up

"Sam, I realize this is a lot, and I didn't really want to do it like this. I know how overwhelming it can be. I...you don't have to confront this all at once."

Sam looked up at her with a desperation in his eyes. He couldn't quite explain why but he was devastated. Though he'd thrown his excuses at the pair, he couldn't help but sense the overwhelming truth of their words. On one level, he could deny it all day, on another, he knew everything they were saying was irrefutable and that this truth had gone unacknowledged for his whole time on earth until now.

Jane moved towards him and took his hands in hers. "Sam, you're going to be okay. You may not see it now but this can be the start of something amazing. I want to reassure you of that."

Sam couldn't reply. He was starting to hyperventilate.

"Sam, calm down, you're alright."

"I...I....I want some space."

"Okay, that's fair. Here's the deal. I'm going to take you back to bed and give you some time to think and rest and process. I'll make you some calming tea and when I come back we can pick out a record to listen to if you're down. We'll be right here for you. I'll be right here for you." Jane said. "It may not seem like it but today will be a good day, I promise."

At that, she guided Sam back to the bedroom and tucked him into her bed.

"Let me know if you need anything." She said, after giving him a kiss on his forehead.

She left the room and closed the door behind her.

"Sam's gonna be alright." Holly reassured her friend.

--

Sam was not alright.

Sam started replaying the last 21 years of life through his head.

All the crossdressing, all the porn, all the conspicuous fixation on trans women. It all had a common thread now. The gender envy, the general sense of body discomfort I could never explain. His trouble connecting with men and ease connecting with women, especially queer women.

"But how could I have gotten this far and not known? How could such a big thing be so hard to see? If I was wrong before, what else am I wrong about? Who am I? What am I?" Sam questioned himself in his head.

His mind was spinning further and further into the rabbit hole.

After an hour of wallowing and spiraling, Sam finally called out.

Jane opened the door with tea in hand and looked at him in bed.

"Jane, what do I do now?"

Part 2 - Arise

"Now? Now is the fun part!"

"This doesn't feel fun so far."

"Deep breaths, Sam. Here, have some tea." She handed the tea to Sam and let him take a sip. "Right now I'm gonna take a bet that you're questioning if you're trans or not, over and over again."

"How did you know?" He broke from his confusion to laugh.

"It's usually what happens. We usually have to wade through a lot of shit to come out to ourselves. Like how about the assumption that you must be cis and that you 'can't be trans.'" She said with a mock dramatic affect.

"Are you making fun of me?"

"Sorry. No, no. I know you're in a vulnerable place right now. It's just, well, you'll find that assumptions like that get sillier and sillier as you get more into it."

Sam took a sip of tea. It was perfect. Just the right temperature, with some honey and oat milk. He hadn't remembered telling Jane how he wanted it, but she somehow nailed it. He smiled, paused, and looked concerned again. He looked up at Jane.

"How did you know? How did you become sure?"

"Well, there were signs, thoughts, over the years." She let out a small laugh. "When I was in elementary school, I would, not infrequently, wish I had shapeshifting powers. And conveniently the first and only thing I'd want to change into was a girl."

"Holy shit, I did the same thing. I didn't realize other people thought like that."

"Well, mostly trans people think like that Sam." She laughed. "But things like that, well, they're not what make you trans. I like to think of it like this; euphoria and dysphoria manifest in different ways. They manifest in thoughts, urges, feelings, in desires...often disparate and disconnected yet relating back to your gender and sense of self in some way.

"For me one of these manifestations would be these weird recurring fantasy where every time I was in a clothing store or mall I'd imagine some kind of apocalyptic scenario where I was locked in the story alone and I could wear all the women's clothing I could dream of free from the gaze of others."