Evey Winters

What are you most looking forward to in your transition? Is there anything that has surprised you during this process?

June

Evey's Response

Oh gosh I mean.. what am I looking forward to? What am I not, you know? I think we can do both of these questions at once.

This whole experience has really touched my life in ways I couldn’t predict, and things that I thought were going to be small or insignificant have ended up being incredibly powerful.

Example. I knew I was going to need a new name. My assigned name wasn’t anything approaching gender neutral. I picked out a new name after testing it out a while and I really liked it. But once I started really using it? I thought it’d get old, or casual, but my heart and my ears both perk up any time someone uses my name. It is like honey for my soul every time I hear it. And once you’ve tasted that, going back to that name that’s just.. not you.. that hurts. So I’ve kinda started avoiding situations where I might have to prove my identity, mostly that’s meant that I don’t go out drinking with friends anymore or any such thing.

So in the immediate future the thing I’m most looking forward to is having the court order that my name has been changed. There’ll be a lot of work to do when that happens but I can’t wait to order a Bloody Mary while I’m out, again.

And I think that process there is the most surprising thing. I really wasn’t adequately prepared for the way that when I try on something that’s new and affirming, even if it’s not amazing, I gain awareness of how much the old thing hurt me. I’ve been through this process a few times now with my clothing, jewelry, my name, my photos, pronouns, pet names, and what have you — it never fails to surprise me how heavy the things I carried were.

Facial hair is another great example of this. I knew it bothered me, but it mostly bothered me in the respect that I didn’t feel comfortable going out in certain light or after certain hours because my face would get me clocked, right? And then a few days after my first laser session, around 8pm, I noticed I still looked like I did that morning and gosh, I cried. So that’s another thing that I’ve started to put down and now that I’m letting that weight go I realize how heavy it really was.

As an aside: laser stuff for faces is very expensive and if y’all would like to share this link for me that’d just mean the world: Evey’s Laser Hair Removal GoFundMe

But there’s a lot to look forward to in the small stuff. I live for seeing what small changes are apparent in my body day to day. I love to put together outfits and learn my way around all this new fashion. I love trying on new colors and tasting new flavors. At this point there’s very little about this experience I don’t look forward to.