I spent like 3 years in that subreddit without really believing I was transgender. Around 2021 I shocked myself when I responded to a bigoted comment and automatically wanted to say "we" when describing trans people. I was so immersed in trans culture and felt such an affinity for them that I was already thinking of myself as a transfem before I was ever consciously certain. Simply not knowing I wanted to be a woman held me back for my entire childhood, but because of r/traaa, I could finally graduate from ignorance to denial.
r/egg_irl had a big impact, but if hadn't spent so much time in r/traaa, then the egg memes would've scared me off. If I haven't spent so much time there, then I might not have cracked and finally gotten to experience actually living for once. If not for that safe space, I might've never been able to disarm all the internalized transphobia and gatekeeping that can be all too common in more pickme trans spaces. A big part of why blahaj.zone is so important to me is that it reminds me of that place which no longer exists.
I've come to realise that ultimately, it doesn't matter how close we fit the transphobic narrative that was drummed in to us all about what makes someone "really" trans, if we deviate from it in any way (and we all do) we will beat ourselves up over those differences.
Take me. I "knew" from a young age. But what I knew is that I "should have been a girl/woman". Not that I was. I knew that I wished I was trans, so that I could access bottom surgery. But I told myself that was the same as wishing I could win the lottery. A nice dream, but ultimately a fantasy, not something to build my life around. And on top of that, I'm not feminine and never have been. I have no more of a meaningful relationship with femininity than I do with masculinity.
It took me decades to work through that stuff, even though I literally knew what I wanted in clear and explicit terms from a young age.
It's why I value community so much. Because every one of our stories is different, but at the same time, we all have a lot in common. And it becomes much easier to understand ourselves when we can talk to people about their experiences and our own.