Introduction, howdy everyone!

Hello all the folks in the Transfem community!

I thought that it might be a nice idea to do an introduction myself after coming over in the great reddit migration and being inspired by posts from Rose, bee, Catherine, LadyAutumn, and Ada (and anyone I may have missed). Also big thanks to LadyAutumn for moderating this community and Ada for being an admin for lemmy.blahaj.zone!

So, hello, my name is Valerie and I'm a high school teacher. I'll be 42 in a few months and I tend to be a bit reserved and quiet until I get to know people, then I'm sometimes difficult to quiet down. (I'll admit that I was only ever a lurker on reddit so, this post is sort of big deal for me.) I live in the U.S. but in one of the good states for trans people, although in a not great town. However, I just got a new job in a great city and I'll be moving by the end of next month! So yay!

It was actually seeing some of my students coming out and being so brave and honest about who they really were, despite potential backlash from peers, parents, and the community, that made me think "Why the hell am I hiding myself?" since I had know for over 10 years at that point that I was a trans woman. I definitely did the whole denial routine about being trans in the first place and then that dysphoria wasn't really that bad, and then that I could still live as man, until I finally realized I just couldn't anymore. So, I decided to leave that job (where I was certain that such a move would be unacceptable) and began my transition almost 2 years ago. (My transiversary will be July 31.)

In my spare time, I love to read all kinds of books, though my favorite genres are sci-fi and fantasy but, I love to jump around, fiction or nonfiction, serious or silly, it's all great. Like I said, I love to read. I also play a fair number of PC games, though I'm mostly a single player gal, as I've always been fairly shy in my personal life, as I mentioned.

Additionally, I thought it might not be a bad idea to include some pictures (as a couple of the subreddits that inspired me before and when I began transitioning were transtimelines and TransLater), just to show folks, at whatever age/stage of life they're transitioning, what's possible. So, here's a couple before shots from almost 4 years ago (note that denial beard):

And here's last weekend after getting back from my first ever Pride (I bought the necklace there.):

And one more bonus pic from 6ish months ago, just because I feel like I accidentally nailed a semi-sexy eyebrow raise:

So, I guess I'll wrap up by telling you all how much I appreciate you and this community for making me feel brave enough to post for the first time. And, to tell anyone and everyone that no matter where you are in your transition or even if you haven't yet decided whether transition is right for you that you are enough, you are loved, and you are perfect. <3