Now I Make A Lot More Selfies Than Before - Tumblr Posts

cw: gender dysphoria

been thinking abt the "these generations take too many selfies! its bad! too self absorbed" thing and while yeah, i suppose i agree on *some* parts (like i dont think we should be taking 50 photos of ourselves every single day) for me when i first started taking selfies, that was really a turning point and an important part of my transition.

throughout 2021-(early/middle)2023 i quite literally had about 2 or 3 photos of myself on my phone. i realised (recentlyish) that that was because of my really overwhelming dysphoria, and that i just did not recognise the person in the photo as "me"; i couldn't bare to look at myself. every time i looked in a mirror too, it was just emptiness at a face that wasn't mine, which looking back on that is really, really scary that i just failed to recognise myself as me. back then, while i did ID as nonbinary (to just myself and friends) i presented as female and was very feminine, also why i feel like i had two seperate "egg cracking" events for myself (i found out i was bigender (male/nb) in around september/november 2023)

when i realised i was actually bigender and not just nb, and i began to socially transition (i switched out most of my "fem" clothes to "masc" clothes, and got a haircut. previously, i had very long hair that i almost never cut.) this was just HUGE for me. that haircut was probably the most important part of my transition so far, because a short while after the haircut, i realised that i actually quite liked how i looked. it felt like i was actually looking at myself completely, and not just a random body my brain had woken up in. the ability to look in the mirror with my real name and real gender and actually like how i looked was just so empowering, and i'm so much happier and better off with it.

then, i started actually being able to take selfies without cringing at my face; my friends could now see me when i was away from them, and i could happily look back on memories from past adventures and fully feel like i was there.

of course, as i mentioned before i'm not a person who takes many, many selfies in a day, but selfies to me are just so nice to take and to look back at once time has passed. they remind me that i am in fact alive, and how much happier i am and can be in the future.

that haircut really did change my life.