Well, the egg “cracked” I guess. After 24 years, I’ve realized that I’m probably NB or trans. Looking back, I think that for a long while now, there’s been something in the back of my mind. Like a seed of doubt. I can think of any number of things that could’ve contributed to it. And it’s weird to me because I haven’t really felt any dysphoria, at least I can’t think of anything off the top of my head. But I know that there’s something off.
But anyway, over last weekend I was thinking about it a lot and after I came to that conclusion it was like this buzzing in my head that I hadn’t realized was there went quiet. And now that I know that… I have no fucking clue what happens next. The only people that know are close friends and I will absolutely not be letting anyone else who knows me know. HRT may be a very long ways (potentially 2 years, haven’t looked into it too much yet) away depending on a pending federal job.
Realistically for many of us, living in fear and not transitioning is often much worse than the reality of transitioning, and there are functioning gender clinics in both the U.S. and China, and there are no laws outright criminalizing trans people in those countries.
The Middle East and Russia are worse, those are places maybe worth moving out of first.
The U.S. is also still one of the best places to be trans, with some of the strongest laws and protections of any country in the world. Canada and certain western European countries are better, but I would not avoid transitioning because you live in the U.S. - this is still currently an objectively great place to transition, even as the situation is changing.
EDIT: I should say, I live in one of the worst states in the U.S. for trans rights. Fear played a role in keeping me from transitioning for a long time, which I deeply regret and resulted in masculinization I can’t reverse. I lived here through the 90s and the world was a much less safe place then for trans people in many ways.
So I was shocked once I socially transitioned that for the most part people were indifferent to me when I was visibly trans - the worst situation I experienced personally was the TSA refusing to pat me down.
To my surprise, a lot of people went out of their way to be kind to me, to compliment me, to make me feel included. These experiences far outnumbered the concrete instances hate and stigma I experienced.
That said, some of my sisters lost their jobs due to discrimination, and that’s not uncommon. Some remain stealth even having medically transitioned for years now and relatively cis passing, so as absurd as it sounds, that might be an option if your employer is overtly conservative (i.e. medically transition while remaining closeted at work).
Also, the risks from being trans are compounded by being a person of color, a trans woman, poor, and whether you are a sex worker. If you are white and middle class, the risks of violence are very different.