Transness and Identity
I've been trans for upwards of a year now, and was genderfluid for 3 years before that. My full transition happened while I was at Uni, including a majority of HRTs effects, which made it a lot harder for my friends from high school to recognize me.
I understand that being trans means giving up your old name, but never your whole identity. I mean, close friends from high school still remember me, they still recognize me, but people I haven't seen since graduation, since two-ish years ago? They don't. I have to go up to them, introduce myself, hope they remember who I am, and almost always end up having to drop my deadname, just to see that little bit of recognition.
It always gives an off feeling when that happens. It either becomes a case of them not remembering me well enough, or them just not recognizing me now. Not recognizing "who I've become."
Those words are the worst way to put it, but it's what I hear nearly every time. It makes me feel like I've shifted into someone else, like I swapped who I was to who I am. And in a sense, yes, I did that, but also... No?
In the end, only three things were changed: my gender, my name, and my hormones. But it's enough to cause a massive shift in how I'm seen, and I'm not just talking about random stares in the supermarket.
In all honesty, I think this is a small thing that is over looked when transitioning. I know a lot of people just want to change their name and move to somewhere no one will know them, but I also know that having that experience in your hometown is terrifying at worst, and eerie at best. It becomes a place where I say to myself "I remember them, do they remember me?"
And more often than not, the answer is no.