This week was rather uneventful.

I have new duties at work. My new supervisor gave me tasks on employee improvement training; he thought it would be good for me to learn about motivational interviewing. I was doubtful for a moment since I didn’t know how it would be used, given that I am not a counselor, but it gave me more insights than I expected.

It used to feel uneasy knowing that I was making a decision I might regret. But when I tried to analyze my fear, I realized it was rather irrational.

“Why would I regret being a man?” I wondered. I had happy moments in my childhood: a good score, a monetary prize, an academic award, a gaming session, a dedicated drawing, or a place to travel to. But those moments were never because I liked myself.

Could it be societal expectations? I already know that it will be dangerous, but I’d rather die having lived than live feeling like dying. Medical risks? I’m lucky enough to not have to risk DIY treatments for now, and I have been researching transitioning for weeks. I don’t have the slightest worry about such things.

Then it hit me. I wondered how I would act regarding my family.

I have actually never come out as gay. Technically, I did when my mother was helping pack my stuff for my flight to the U.S.

“If there’s any problem you have, even if it is about your gender, I will listen to you,” she said. What came after that was a long conversation where she mixed up sexual orientation with gender. Speaking of which, I guess she failed successfully now.

But I think everyone knows, mostly the women in my family. The exceptions are my paternal grandma and some of the men; I think they are in denial. I think even if I came out as a trans woman, I would do the same thing I have always been doing: ignoring the elephant in the room so that I can harvest as many resources as possible until I face the consequences of my actions.

Fun fact: I’m the eldest in the whole family. Father and mom are both the eldest, and I’m the older twin, so I guess my “male responsibility” matches my position in the financial papers. But even if I have to reject this family’s legacy, I will choose myself every 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”; and “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 study. Back then, I could just lie there on my bed without helping with cooking or cleaning. I could get away with starting trouble, and I didn’t have to be forced to doll myself up for anyone. I was put on the side of the people who thought they were the “owners of the house,” despite giving both the workload of making money and raising a family to their significant others. It was difficult to unlearn all of those mindsets when you were on the side of the oppressors.

Sometimes I felt jealous of other girls. It was 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. While I always congratulated them, I usually felt like I was being fake, and that I was having emotions that clearly contradicted what was right. But I’m beginning to feel happier for others now, 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’ achievements, 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. It was guilt that I was taught to take and endure. And now that nobody was here to give it to me, I began to place it on myself.

No one has ever said anything or confronted me about my behavior, probably because I never acted on it. But I felt so guilty. I felt that I don’t deserve to be a girl, and 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 as I grew closer to beginning this journey. However, I have motivations.

I have motivations, and that is why I’m certain about transitioning. I won’t cry myself to sleep again. I won’t go back to where I was before, when it felt better to paint whatever I saw as “unwanted” in red. Who cares if I may not look like a woman yet? If I am not a woman by then, it just means I can earn becoming a woman in a farther future. It gives me a purpose to drive my actions, and the power to improve while finding myself.

“흠 음음 아가
어서 잠들거라
눈을 감으면 낙원에서
뛰놀거라

흠 음음 아가
스륵 잠들거라
그새 초라한 달은
꿈을 꾸나

…

부스러진
슬픔이 춤추고
무던하게
새벽을 깨려 할 때

자연스레
품을거야
노래하던 바다

…..

루카, 사랑하며 살아.
아픔도, 나약함도, 못봐주게 부러운 순간들도 받아들여.
스스로를 용서해.
몇번이고, 몇번이고…
모든 건… 그 때부터 시작이야.

(Hush, my child
Drift into slumber
In your dreams, you’ll run and play
In paradise

Hush, my child
Gentle now, go to sleep
And somewhere in that moment
The lonely moon will dream

…

Scattered sorrow
Sways and dances
As dawn rises
Unshaken and sure

And without a word
You’ll embrace
The sea that sings

……

Luka, live with love
Embrace the pain, the frailty,
Even the moments that is
unbearably shameful
Forgive yourself, again & again
Because everything, starts from there.)”

-Alien Stage. VIVINOS, BL8M, 6FU; Wiege. 2025