Most of my pre egg cracking symptoms started at around eleven or twelve, but I was a pretty masculine child in personality.

I greatly exaggerated having voice cracks when I was going through first puberty. It made me feel masculine.

I always spoke in the lowest possible vocal register.

I refused to shave any body hair and never even entertained the idea despite significant outside pressure to.

I rarely showered because I wanted to stink like a teenage boy. I also dreaded any puberty pains or growth that was happening. It felt like body horror.

I had so much trouble understanding pubescent girls in the media, how they were so excited to have their first period or wear their first bra. I thought everyone experienced the absolute dread that came with puberty and they were all just pretending. I was fully expecting to get a huge growth spurt one day and grow to be 6ft tall and look like Jim Morrison. It felt like someone had made a mistake and it would correct itself naturally.

I remember getting on my knees and praying to God (i didn’t even believe in god, that’s how desperate i felt) not to let my chest to develop at all. I remember one time I read in a news article about moms in indonesia or something would put hot rocks on their daughter’s chests to prevent any breasts from growing and it was being touted as a gross human rights violation. I tried to put burning hot rocks on my chest when I was maybe thirteen or fourteen. Didn’t work, unfortunately :'(

I always wanted to go shirtless all the time. My mom had to practically wrangle me into a bra. At the same time, my newly developing chest seemed wholly foreign to me. It felt like a completely separate entity that was latched onto my real body.

I never really related to any girls my age when I was growing up. Always felt like an outsider in large groups of girls. Felt like they spoke a language I couldn’t understand. Of course, I always had extremely codependent intense “friendships” with one girl at time. Took me a while to realize that was me liking girls.

I watched a lot of anime around that age, and for about a week after finishing one I’d adopt the personality and mannerisms of any male character that I thought was cool. One time I barely talked for a week so I could be just like jotaro from JoJo’s bizarre adventure 🤦🏼‍♂️

Despite all of this, it would take me a while to figure out that I’m trans. That was never an option for the longest time.