CW internalized transphobia, gender dysphoria
To be clear, I understand there’s no cutoff on the age of transition. But I swear to god I keep coming across this talking point made in the worst way possible. They’re trying to reassure young people who are insecure about having gone through their first puberty already but they’ll say some shit like, “I didn’t start transitioning until I was 24 and it still turned out well for me.” And you look at their before pictures and they were conventionally attractive and had other advantages like being transfemme with minimal natural body hair growth. Like goddamn that is not reassuring.
Even if the idea of living out publicly as trans seems impossible at this point, you can still take important and worthy steps toward reducing your own dysphoria. For instance, you could try to embrace and accept your feminine side or feminine aspects of your personality instead of feeling negatively about them. Medically, if this is something you are interested in, you could try low-dose HRT or just androgen suppression or blockade (although this can impact your bone health long term).
While some influencers may come off as blase or feel like they are pitching to people too young to feel relatable, its important to realize the enemy is not these influencers but the transphobic society which makes it feel hard to accept their message; don’t kill the messenger!