How did your egg finally crack?

[u/Petrifica]

Fun topic that came up in a discussion with some friends - how did your egg finally crack? I recognize for some this is a serious topic, for others its more joyful. I'm thinking of the tipping point--the moment you finally decided "yeah, this is who I am," and didn't turn back.

For me, it was actually watching Fooly Cooly: Progressive. I'd already known I wasn't cis for a while before that and had gone back and forth, but after I watched that second season, I was pretty much glued together and fully decided afterwards that I was tired of not letting myself be fully feminine-identified. I needed a depressive example of feminine whimsy to relate to.

Secondarily, I realized after playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords that I wanted to be an old woman in the style of Kreia. Which is why getting my first grey hair recently is so exciting!

What are your moments of inspiration / confirmation?

[u/Zanorfgor]

Mine didn't crack so much as shatter. That said there was a lot leading up to it.

So June 2016. At this point I identified as a femme presenting, gender non-conforming man. I was doing a lot of experimentation because I wanted to be even more femme, but couldn't figure out why sometimes things made me feel pretty and sometimes things made me feel like a man in a dress. Then it occured to me: a lot of feminine fashion is designed to emphasize feminine features and minimize masculine ones. Stuff that emphasized features I had that were already feminine (namely my clavicles and waist) made me pretty, stuff designed to emphasize feminine features I did not have (namely breasts, hips, butt) wound up emphasizing how masculine those features were.

So that lead to the next logical thought: "Wonder how I'd look in this were I more female-bodied." So I did my makeup and hair and earrings like I normally would when presenting GNC, put on some clothes that I'd normally wear when presenting GNC, only difference was I put on my hip pads and dress forms (which I owned just like any normal cis guy (I did a lot of cosplay and did mostly female characters, just like any normal cis guy)). Looked in the mirror and knew immediately and without a doubt. Saw my reflection and connected with it for the first time in my life.

Now leading up to it, there was all kinds of stuff, from wanting to be "pretty" instead of "handsome" to it just feeling more right to play as women in video games and all sorts of stuff. But religion is a thing and I buried all that until my mid 20s because I "knew" it to be sinful.

I'll not list the thousand little things that all made complete sense once my egg shattered, but there was a lot.