Four Years Down

Looking back on my T-versary and the expanse that lies ahead

I almost missed the day entirely. At around 10:15pm on Saturday June 6th, 2026, I was sitting in bed, watching something on TV and doomscrolling on my phone. An all too common routine these days.

Then something jogged my memory… “wait, what’s the date today? Oh shit, it’s the 6th!”

Four years ago, on June 6th, 2022 I took my first testosterone shot. After months of therapy and consideration, it all led up to that single day. I had gotten my prescription, took all my needles and supplies and went to my doctor’s office. A nurse there walked me through exactly how to do the shot. She watched me and gave a few pointers as I put the needle into the tiny glass vial full of liberation.

I gingerly pinched some of the meatier part of my belly, took a deep breath and pushed the needle into my abdomen. Slowly pushing the plunger down until the contents disappeared into my body.

It was official… I had started T.

I wasn’t 100% sure back then exactly what I wanted out of this whole thing. I mostly just wanted to feel whole. To feel like myself.

It was hard to decipher what I wanted out of the potential changes coming my way. Did I want a full beard, what about a mustache? What about back hair?? I definitely did NOT want back hair. A deep voice? Yes please. To stop going into the women’s restroom and getting dirty looks? That would be a nice treat. Although, I wasn’t excited about the premise of the men’s bathroom either.

The good news is that I had time. The changes from gender-affirming hormone therapy don’t exactly happen overnight. Often, it can take months or even years. I mean, you didn’t go through puberty all in one night, right?

You do not have to take hormones and get surgeries to be trans. But for me, starting T was at least some sort of marker of “transitioning”. As each weekly T shot went by, I found myself exploring what gender meant to me. Unfortunately, much of that exploration centered around trying on many of the tropes that the cultural binary calls masculinity. In hindsight, those early days were less exploration and more performance.

I was taking my cues from the world outside. Looking for other trans guys, cis guys, and cultural norms to tell me how to act. To be fair, since I had spent my whole life never really fitting into the neat corners of the specific boxes we’re supposed to check, I was stuck in performance mode.

As it began to dawn on me that whatever the hell I was performing STILL didn’t fit. I was distraught. I’m on T. I’ve had top surgery and I definitely feel closer to something. Some intangible thing I’ve been trying to put my finger on for my entire life. But it just wasn’t clicking. I was as disillusioned as ever. If this didn’t fit either, then what did? WHO THE FUCK WAS I??

It didn’t help that at the same time, I was juggling the soul crushing experience of top surgery uncovering breast cancer.

The all consuming cancer thing took over everything. I was exhausted, dismayed, isolated, and still, had no idea who I was.

Finally, I threw in the towel. I decided I couldn’t manage the daily overwhelm of what was physically happening to my body from chemo combined with the emotional and psychological destruction that came from a gender-identity-crisis/cancer sandwich. I couldn’t quit chemo. So I quit testosterone. It was a reactionary, momentary decision. Born from frustration and lack of control. Cold turkey. I just stopped T entirely. For about 3 weeks, I stopped the injections. I stopped the performance. And I just did cancer.

After a few weeks of that, I decided that I wanted to go back on T. I didn’t like being off of it either. But I just had no idea where to go. So, I started my injections again. By then, cancer had taken a prominent lead in my day-to-day, and I was too exhausted to perform anything anymore. I was just trying to get through it all. I was existing.

Simply existing is not the way I want to live my life. But it gave me space I didn’t know I needed at the time. It allowed me to settle into my transition and into myself. It led me to choosing boxing when I needed a physical outlet. Choosing boxing slowly gave me the confidence to keep making choices simply for the sake of doing things that were new and interesting, judged against the sole criteria of, “I’ve never tried that before, why not?”

The overwhelm of trying to do chemo and gender transition simultaneously was brutal and not something I’d recommend. I was simply too tired to keep performing anything. The curtain had finally closed on this act I’d been playing for my entire life.

When that curtain closed, something subtle happened. I started discovering instead of performing. When I had the energy, I spent time doing things because they felt fun or restorative. I did new things simply for the sake of doing new things. I now inhabited a different outer shell that could do things that the previous shell wouldn’t allow me to do.

The confidence I gained from boxing combined with the curtain call of performance provided new tools that I didn’t quite know how to use yet. So I started tinkering, toying. Experimenting. Trying things on, not because expectation told to me to but because I told me to.

I was jumping out of planes. Defining a new career. Charging toward something undefined. I was seeking. Unbeknownst to me, underneath it all, I was emerging. Without a lot of pretense and without the trappings of the expectations I had placed on myself and let others place on me.

Today, I can’t say that I never perform. I don’t even think performing is bad. Sometimes it’s survival, sometimes it’s all we know. Sometimes it’s intentional. Sometimes it’s entertainment. But for me, the particular performance I leaned on for so much of my life put me on a path of disillusionment that somehow, cancer cured me of.

Doing cancer and gender transition at the same time was the most painful experience of my life. Worse than anything I could describe and I’ll live my entire life never finding the right words to fully explain it.

I took a leap four years ago.

Starting T lent me the courage to get top surgery.

Top surgery led to finding the cancer that was already surging inside me.

We caught it early. It saved my life.

The cancer was removed.

The performance stopped and I stepped into Ash.

I’ve always been Ash and I always will be. 2022 Ash is vastly different than 2026 Ash. Through the tinkering and toying, I’ve given myself soft clay to mold over and over again. After the brutality of it all, I’ve earned the right to shape myself however I want.

I don’t know what 2028 or 2040 Ash will be like.

For the first time, not knowing is liberation.

Trans liberation now. Trans rights are human rights. Gender-affirming care saves lives. Trans is beautiful.