Fun fact: I’m the eldest in the whole family. Father and mom were both the eldest, and I’m the bigger twin, so I guess my “male responsibility” matches my position in the finance papers. But even if I have to reject from this family’s legacy, I would choose myself any time.

One thing that I must learn, or unlearn, is the misogyny I was surrounded with. “Get a wife to do the housework”; “Stop acting like a girl”; “Even women drive better than you”; “You’re such a pussy” were just a few of the plethora of sentences I heard thrown at me. I was also a benefactor of male privilege, evidently in the fact that I never had to do anything except for studying. Back then, I could just lie there on my bed not helping with cooking or cleaning, I could get away with starting troubles, I didn’t have to be forced to be dolled up for anyone; and I was put on the side of the people who thought they were the “owner of the house” despite giving both the workload of making money and raising a family to their significant other. It was difficult to unlearn all of those when you were on the side of the oppressors.

Sometimes I felt jealous of other girls. Not because I hated them for being successful, but because I desired their ability to be confident, to be pretty, and to be whole with themselves. For a long time, I would feel so guilty for having these thoughts, and while I always congratulated them. I usually felt like I was being fake, and that I was having these emotions that clearly contradicted what was right. But I’m beginning to feel happier for others, even if I may not look like it.

I don’t want to be a man child. It’s obvious that knowledge has led me to rationalize and confront my feelings, but it took so long for my body to cooperate with my brain. I’m having more of a girlhood now though, and I think I’m starting to feel girly again. I can say sorry, I can feel happy for other girls’ achievement, and I’m better at talking in a sense.

How could I mature as a man if I’m not one? How could I honor the family’s name as the “Golden Boy” if I’m a girl? How could I be so stubborn and toxic in my way of thinking despite being fully aware that it was ridiculous?

It felt like guilt. Immense guilt. Guilt that I was taught to take and endure. And now that nobody was here to give it to me, I began to place on me myself.

No one has ever said or confronted me about my behaviors, probably because I never acted on it. But it felt so guilty. That I don’t deserve to be a girl, that I’m not worth experiencing being a woman, yet being a boy would be worse than being non-existent at all.

I guess that’s why I was hesitant to transition, even being closer to begin this journey. However, I have motivations.

I have motivations, and that was why I’m certain on transitioning. I won’t cry to sleep again, I won’t go back to where I was before, when it was better to paint wherever I saw as “unwanted” in red. Who cares if I may not be a woman? I might not be a woman by then yet, that means I can earn becoming a woman in a farther future. It gives me a purpose to drive actions, and the power to improve on find myself.