'I was used to feeling like my body wasn’t quite my own,' writes FineComic
Photo-Illustration: Josiah; Photos: Getty Growing up, I could never imagine being pregnant. Like many trans people, I dealt with puberty by creating a lot of mental space between myself and my body. I didn’t know what I was, but it couldn’t be this.
A few years later, my spouse and I started talking about becoming parents one day. I realized I wanted to try. We discussed at length whether I really wanted to carry a pregnancy. It meant coming off of testosterone, and I dreaded being perceived as a woman as my appearance lost the careful balance of androgyny it had managed to take on after two years on T. But ultimately, I knew my body was not for other people. I wanted to know what my body could do.
The strangeness of pregnancy delighted me. I had expected to feel dysphoric, alienated from myself and despairing for it. After all, the internet abounded with articles written by cisgender women who felt their bodies weren’t their own anymore after they became pregnant, who didn’t recognize themselves in the mirror as their bodies changed. These stories echo the way gender dysphoria is experienced by many trans people, including me.
I deployed every coping skill I had and borrowed some new ones from other trans folks. I knew how to advocate for myself with health-care providers. I thought back to when I was on hormone replacement therapy and felt truly comfortable and good in my body, and knew that I could someday feel that way again. In my mind, I repeated a refrain: “I chose this. I chose this. I chose this.”