I'm a trans woman and I'm otherkin. Both labels describe parts of me, but neither describes all of me. Yet at the same time, they're both closely intertwined, both key parts of my discovery of who I am - and both more alike than one might expect.
I knew I wasn't supposed to be a guy. Even from a young age, I was drawn to feminine things. I wanted to be a girl - I just didn't have the words to say it, didn't understand why I felt the way I did. And as I grew older, that feeling crystalized. I tried to deny it, to pretend it didn't matter. Besides, it was never the conventional picture of dysphoria - I could manage being a guy. It was tolerable. That was enough, right?
But it wasn't what I wanted. I knew I'd be happier as a woman - I knew it with a certainty and clarity I could never put to words. I knew, and the moment I realized there was a path forward, a way to be who I knew I wanted to be, I took it. I transitioned. It cost me a lot - my home, my years spent in college, my friends and stability - and it was all worth it. Having that weight off my chest, getting to live as who I always wanted to be... it made everything else so much easier. It's like a good night's sleep - sure, you can manage without for a while, but it saps your strength, makes everything else so much harder.
But as I transitioned, as I embraced my life as a woman, I realized... I wasn't quite where I wanted to be. I was closer - so much closer - but I wasn't there yet. There were a lot of little things I wanted to change about myself... and one big one.
I wanted to be something other than human.
At first I denied it, pretended it didn't matter. I had done so many things I'd never thought possible - I'd transitioned, I had a good job and was living on my own. I had good friends and the freedom to steer my own life. Wasn't that enough?
And those words were familiar. The feeling was familiar. It didn't take me long to put two and two together. And when, one day, an impulse art commission gave me my first ever picture of myself as a sphinx...
...I knew. I knew that this feeling was the exact same one that drove me to transition. I knew denying it would work about as well as denying that I'm a woman. So I decided not to. I decided to accept who I am.
I'm a woman, and I'm a sphinx. I'm transgender, and I'm otherkin.
Otherkin. Somehow, it's an even more loaded word than transgender. It implies so much, and that made it harder to accept. I don't believe in other realities or reincarnation. I don't believe I was a sphinx in a past life or other world - I'm really not spiritual at all. So how can I call myself a sphinx if, objectively, I know I've got the body of a plain old human?
The same way I knew I was a woman.
I'm not ignorant of my biology. I know what's coded into my DNA and what my body is shaped like. But why should any of that have any say on who I am? I'm more than my body, more than the chance outcome of genetics and evolution. I get to decide who I am - and I choose to be a woman, and I choose to be a sphinx. Why? Because it makes me happy. Because it feels right. Because it's my life to live and I get to live it how I want, so long as that doesn't hurt anyone else. Sure, I can't transition to be a sphinx in real life (not with modern technology, anyway), but when has an inability to transition ever made anyone's identity any less valid? I'll do what I can to make my body more comfortable and live with the rest, because the alternative - pretending what I feel doesn't matter - isn't living.
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