A whole bunch of proofreading (#113)

* intro proofreeding pass

* what is gender proofreading pass

> (more about that in the Causes of Gender Dysphoria section)
Is it possible to make this link to the section?

* history of gender dysphoria proofreading pass

* disclaimer proofreading pass

* gender euphoria proofreading pass

Would it be worth linking to [the Wikipedia article for Plato's cave allegory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave)?

* physical dysphoria proofreading pass

* biochemical dysphoria proofreading pass

* social dysphoria proofreading pass

I'm assuming the forgotten adjective in "surprisingly phenomenon" was something like "common", so please correct it if it's wrong

* societal dysphoria proofreading pass

> [...] (beyond the discomfort that women experience, as this includes genuine attention, not just unwanted attention).
Recommend rewording this, as it seems to imply that the discomfort women experience is what includes genuine attention rather than the discomfort AFAB trans people experience

* sexual dysphoria proofreading pass

* presentational dysphoria proofreading pass

* existential dysphoria proofreading pass

> Sometimes existential dysphoria can manifest existentially
strongly recommend rewording for redundancy reasons

* managed dysphoria proofreading pass

* impostor syndrome proofreading pass

> ***[YES, YOU ARE TRANS ENOUGH](https://www.amazon.com/Yes-You-Are-Trans-Enough/dp/1785923153/)***
do we really have to support Jeff Bezos?

* Update am-i-trans.md

"it’s nearly impossible avoid listening to oneself over others." has been reworded as "it’s nearly impossible to avoid listening to others over oneself." as the former seems contradictory to the rest of the paragraph, but I may be missing something, so please correct me if it's wrong

I also suggest rewording "I thought being dysphoric all the time was normal human behavior" so as to not imply that dysphoria is a behavior and therefore a choice

Also could use confirmation that "If you want to be a girl and you’ve always thought of yourself as a guy, then you will probably be happier living as a girl." is worded correctly

* Clinical Diagnoses proofreading pass

Some of these changes are to bring the wording somewhat closer to the text of the DSM-5 without making it too binary-centric

* missed one

* Treating Gender Dysphoria proofreading pass

"A newly developing area of bottom surgery is in AMAB non-binary operations which attempt to perform vaginoplasty *without* the removal of the penis. This particular surgery is extremely experimental and has been performed less than a dozen times in the United States, but the outlook for the future is good."
Highly recommend a source on this (admittedly mostly because it interests me personally and I couldn't find anything about it when I looked it up)

* Causes of Gender Dysphoria proofreading pass

* Chromosomes proofreading pass

* forgot some

* Hormones proofreading pass

* Androgenic Second Puberty proofreading pass

* Estrogenic Second Puberty proofreading pass

Removed dead link to https://youtu.be/OROoZzoVwfk?t=12

* Conclusion proofreading pass

* Patch 8 (#1)

* Small fixes and updates for the Portuguese translation (#124)

* fix(es): syntax error that prevented compilation

* feat(pt): add main text translation

* feat(pt): add tweets translation

* feat(pt): add PDF generation to GitHub workflow

* fix(pt): add misisng translations and formatting fixes

* fix(css): link fragment overlap with page header

* fix(css): add font Inter before Gothic A1

The Gothic A1 font lacks a few characters necessary for writing Portuguese, namely: á, í, ó, ú, ã, õ, and their upper case versions.

* fix(pt): remove 'Glossário' entry from _menu.hbs

* fix(build): slugify.js

* fix(pt): various typos and a few missing translations.

* chore: add .vscode to .gitignore

* pt: update index.md to match the current English version

* pt: minor fixes for que-e-genero.md

* pt: small fixes for historia.md

* pt: replace "gendrar" with "generizar"

* pt: more small fixes

* Hirschfield -> Hirschfeld

---------

Co-authored-by: G Queiroz <gabrieljvnq@gmail.com>

* Patch 5 (#2)

* Small fixes and updates for the Portuguese translation (#124)

* fix(es): syntax error that prevented compilation

* feat(pt): add main text translation

* feat(pt): add tweets translation

* feat(pt): add PDF generation to GitHub workflow

* fix(pt): add misisng translations and formatting fixes

* fix(css): link fragment overlap with page header

* fix(css): add font Inter before Gothic A1

The Gothic A1 font lacks a few characters necessary for writing Portuguese, namely: á, í, ó, ú, ã, õ, and their upper case versions.

* fix(pt): remove 'Glossário' entry from _menu.hbs

* fix(build): slugify.js

* fix(pt): various typos and a few missing translations.

* chore: add .vscode to .gitignore

* pt: update index.md to match the current English version

* pt: minor fixes for que-e-genero.md

* pt: small fixes for historia.md

* pt: replace "gendrar" with "generizar"

* pt: more small fixes

* Hirschfield -> Hirschfeld

---------

Co-authored-by: G Queiroz <gabrieljvnq@gmail.com>

* Patch 4 (#3)

* Small fixes and updates for the Portuguese translation (#124)

* fix(es): syntax error that prevented compilation

* feat(pt): add main text translation

* feat(pt): add tweets translation

* feat(pt): add PDF generation to GitHub workflow

* fix(pt): add misisng translations and formatting fixes

* fix(css): link fragment overlap with page header

* fix(css): add font Inter before Gothic A1

The Gothic A1 font lacks a few characters necessary for writing Portuguese, namely: á, í, ó, ú, ã, õ, and their upper case versions.

* fix(pt): remove 'Glossário' entry from _menu.hbs

* fix(build): slugify.js

* fix(pt): various typos and a few missing translations.

* chore: add .vscode to .gitignore

* pt: update index.md to match the current English version

* pt: minor fixes for que-e-genero.md

* pt: small fixes for historia.md

* pt: replace "gendrar" with "generizar"

* pt: more small fixes

* Hirschfield -> Hirschfeld

---------

Co-authored-by: G Queiroz <gabrieljvnq@gmail.com>

* Patch 3 (#4)

* Small fixes and updates for the Portuguese translation (#124)

* fix(es): syntax error that prevented compilation

* feat(pt): add main text translation

* feat(pt): add tweets translation

* feat(pt): add PDF generation to GitHub workflow

* fix(pt): add misisng translations and formatting fixes

* fix(css): link fragment overlap with page header

* fix(css): add font Inter before Gothic A1

The Gothic A1 font lacks a few characters necessary for writing Portuguese, namely: á, í, ó, ú, ã, õ, and their upper case versions.

* fix(pt): remove 'Glossário' entry from _menu.hbs

* fix(build): slugify.js

* fix(pt): various typos and a few missing translations.

* chore: add .vscode to .gitignore

* pt: update index.md to match the current English version

* pt: minor fixes for que-e-genero.md

* pt: small fixes for historia.md

* pt: replace "gendrar" with "generizar"

* pt: more small fixes

* Hirschfield -> Hirschfeld

---------

Co-authored-by: G Queiroz <gabrieljvnq@gmail.com>

* Patch 6 (#5)

* Small fixes and updates for the Portuguese translation (#124)

* fix(es): syntax error that prevented compilation

* feat(pt): add main text translation

* feat(pt): add tweets translation

* feat(pt): add PDF generation to GitHub workflow

* fix(pt): add misisng translations and formatting fixes

* fix(css): link fragment overlap with page header

* fix(css): add font Inter before Gothic A1

The Gothic A1 font lacks a few characters necessary for writing Portuguese, namely: á, í, ó, ú, ã, õ, and their upper case versions.

* fix(pt): remove 'Glossário' entry from _menu.hbs

* fix(build): slugify.js

* fix(pt): various typos and a few missing translations.

* chore: add .vscode to .gitignore

* pt: update index.md to match the current English version

* pt: minor fixes for que-e-genero.md

* pt: small fixes for historia.md

* pt: replace "gendrar" with "generizar"

* pt: more small fixes

* Hirschfield -> Hirschfeld

---------

Co-authored-by: G Queiroz <gabrieljvnq@gmail.com>

* Patch 7 (#6)

* Small fixes and updates for the Portuguese translation (#124)

* fix(es): syntax error that prevented compilation

* feat(pt): add main text translation

* feat(pt): add tweets translation

* feat(pt): add PDF generation to GitHub workflow

* fix(pt): add misisng translations and formatting fixes

* fix(css): link fragment overlap with page header

* fix(css): add font Inter before Gothic A1

The Gothic A1 font lacks a few characters necessary for writing Portuguese, namely: á, í, ó, ú, ã, õ, and their upper case versions.

* fix(pt): remove 'Glossário' entry from _menu.hbs

* fix(build): slugify.js

* fix(pt): various typos and a few missing translations.

* chore: add .vscode to .gitignore

* pt: update index.md to match the current English version

* pt: minor fixes for que-e-genero.md

* pt: small fixes for historia.md

* pt: replace "gendrar" with "generizar"

* pt: more small fixes

* Hirschfield -> Hirschfeld

---------

Co-authored-by: G Queiroz <gabrieljvnq@gmail.com>

* Link directly to book publisher's page instead of Amazon

---------

Co-authored-by: G Queiroz <gabrieljvnq@gmail.com>

public/en/am-i-trans.md

@@ -17,11 +17,11 @@ preBody: '_disclaimer'
 
 # Am I Trans?
 
-Long before I started questioning my gender, I had this idle fantasy where one of my best lady friends would walk up to me and say, “give it up, you’re not fooling anyone.”
+Long before I started questioning my gender, I had this idle fantasy where one of my best lady friends would walk up to me and say, “Give it up. You’re not fooling anyone.”
 
 If you’d confronted me about this fantasy at the time, I couldn’t have told you what, exactly, I meant by “you’re not fooling anyone.” Deep down I knew that it was probably related to gender, but my lips wouldn’t have been able to form those words. All I knew was that I was pretending to be someone I was not, in some vague, passive, and ephemeral way.
 
-Once I self-accepted as a trans woman and started the long process of coming out , all I wanted was for someone to tell me that they already knew. “I’m so happy you figured it out,” I wanted them to gush. “I’ve known the truth for years. It was so obvious. I don’t know anyone could have ever thought that you were a boy. I’m so happy that you’ll finally get to live as your true self now.”
+Once I self-accepted as a trans woman and started the long process of coming out, all I wanted was for someone to tell me that they already knew. “I’m so happy you figured it out,” I wanted them to gush. “I’ve known the truth for years. It was so obvious. I don’t know how anyone could have ever thought that you were a boy. I’m so happy that you’ll finally get to live as your true self now.”
 
 Nobody ever said this to me, though. My coming-out process was successful, and most of my friends were supportive, but I never got the external validation that I craved. My friends and family accepted me as trans because I told them I was trans. They hadn’t noticed that I’d spent the past two decades wearing the ill-fitting costume of a man who barely existed.
 
@@ -29,13 +29,13 @@ Nobody ever said this to me, though. My coming-out process was successful, and m
 
 My good friend Lily coined the phrase **“Egg Prime Directive”** to describe the fact that trans people have an unspoken agreement not to tell people who are questioning their gender whether or not they are trans.
 
-When someone is just told they are trans, then that opens ground for denial, it activates defense mechanisms built by internalized transphobia, and has a high probability of pushing them further into the closet, if not make them outright transphobic. Even when it doesn’t, it leaves ground for their own subconscious to reject their dysphoria, claiming that they were just manipulated or deceived.
-The much more affective strategy is to talk about your own experiences with dysphoria so that they see the common grounds and come to their own conclusion about their gender. The code doesn’t forbid helping them to explore their gender, it forbids assigning a gender to them.
-Or to put it more succinctly, you cannot be told what the matrix is, you can only be shown.
+When someone is just told they are trans, that opens ground for denial; it activates defense mechanisms built by internalized transphobia, and it has a high probability of pushing them further into the closet, if not making them outright transphobic. Even when it doesn’t, it leaves ground for their own subconscious to reject their dysphoria, claiming that they were just manipulated or deceived.
+The much more effective strategy is to talk about your own experiences with dysphoria so that they see the common grounds and come to their own conclusion about their gender. The code doesn’t forbid helping them to explore their gender; it forbids assigning a gender to them.
+Or, to put it more succinctly, you cannot be told what the Matrix is; you can only be shown.
 
 I’m sure there are some trans people out there who don’t follow the Egg Prime Directive, but I haven’t met them. It’s one of the only things that seems to unify the whole trans community, myself included. Even though I wanted my own external validation more than anything, I now see that true acceptance could have only come from within. The only person who can tell you that you are trans is yourself.
 
-The paradox is that most closeted trans people are absolutely terrible at trusting their inner voice. When you spend your whole life with a nagging disconnect between how the world sees you and how you see yourself, it becomes easier to rely on other people to tell you “who you really are.” Even if you know deep down that all the people in your life are missing some fundamental fact about your identity, it’s nearly impossible avoid listening to oneself over others.
+The paradox is that most closeted trans people are absolutely terrible at trusting their inner voice. When you spend your whole life with a nagging disconnect between how the world sees you and how you see yourself, it becomes easier to rely on other people to tell you “who you really are.” Even if you know deep down that all the people in your life are missing some fundamental fact about your identity, it’s nearly impossible to avoid listening to others over oneself.
 
 My goal today, then, is to give you some of the information and mental framing that helped me self-accept. I can’t tell you whether or not you are transgender, but I can point you down a path that you might be able to travel down yourself. I can’t provide the answers, but I can try to give you the right questions.
 
@@ -46,19 +46,19 @@ My goal today, then, is to give you some of the information and mental framing t
     <div class="card-body">
 æææ
 
-It is never safe to simply tell someone that they are transgender when they haven't asked themselves, even when you are 100% certain that they are. You can educate them on Gender Dysphoria, you can show them parallels between their feelings and your feelings, but you *cannot* simply say to a person "You are transgender".
+It is never safe to simply tell someone that they are transgender when they haven't asked themselves, even when you are 100% certain that they are. You can educate them on gender dysphoria and you can show them parallels between their feelings and your feelings, but you *cannot* simply say to a person, "You are transgender".
 
 Why? Because most of the time they won't believe you.
 
-Internalized transphobia has indoctrinated us all to believe that its impossible that we are trans, or that being trans is something negative and reviled. Pressures from within a persons family or from their upbringing can make it extremely hard to accept themselves.
+Internalized transphobia has indoctrinated us all to believe that it's impossible that we are trans, or that being trans is something negative and reviled. Pressures from within a person's family or from their upbringing can make it extremely hard to accept themselves.
 
-Trying to tell someone who isn't already questioning that you think they're transgender triggers a self defense mechanism, their subconscious actively tries to reject the statement, and there is a high probability that the suggestion will not only push them further into the closet, it can make them hostile towards you for making it. Many transphobes show clear evidence of fighting their own struggles with gender, and there is no shortage of trans people who [have a history of being transphobic](https://curvyandtrans.tumblr.com/post/661595258598113280/interview-with-an-ex-radfem) out of self preservation.
+Trying to tell someone who isn't already questioning that you think they're transgender triggers a self-defense mechanism; their subconscious actively tries to reject the statement, and there is a high probability that the suggestion will not only push them further into the closet, but can even make them hostile towards you for making it. Many transphobes show clear evidence of fighting their own struggles with gender, and there is no shortage of trans people who [have a history of being transphobic](https://curvyandtrans.tumblr.com/post/661595258598113280/interview-with-an-ex-radfem) out of self-preservation.
 
 Even when the person accepts your declaration, the fact that you told them instead of letting them discover it themselves leaves an opening for their own self-conscious to instill doubt about their dysphoria and believe that the idea was suggestive, or that they were manipulated into believing they were trans. The only safe pathway forward for someone to learn they are trans is to realize it on their own.
 
-Finally, the entire purpose of being trans is self assignment and self actualization. Telling a person that they are trans is surely as coercive an assignment as what was done when they were born.  If you want to help them figure themselves out, tell them about your life, tell them how dysphoria works, send them to this site, give them ways to see how what they experience isn't something that cis people live with.
+Finally, the entire purpose of being trans is self-assignment and self-actualization. Telling a person that they are trans is surely as coercive an assignment as what was done when they were born. If you want to help them figure themselves out, tell them about your life, tell them how dysphoria works, send them to this site, and give them ways to see how what they experience isn't something that cis people live with.
 
-Unless of course they ask you if you think they're trans... then the prime directive no longer applies.
+Unless, of course, they ask you if you think they're trans... then the prime directive no longer applies.
 
 æææ
     </div>
@@ -66,11 +66,11 @@ Unless of course they ask you if you think they're trans... then the prime direc
 </div>
 æææ
 
-As always, please understand that I have no professional training in gender therapy . I am simply writing this from my own amateur research and personal experiences —mostly my own journey and conversations I’ve had with other trans women and gender questioners. Keep in mind that I am coming at this from the perspective of a fairly binary trans lady who transitioned in her early thirties, which means that I am still blind to a lot of the trans experience. Things are are different for trans masculine and non-binary people, as well as for many other trans women. This is not meant to be a universal expert guide — it’s just the best I can give you right now.
+As always, please understand that I have no professional training in gender therapy. I am simply writing this from my own amateur research and personal experiences — mostly my own journey and conversations I’ve had with other trans women and gender questioners. Keep in mind that I am coming at this from the perspective of a fairly binary trans lady who transitioned in her early thirties, which means that I am still blind to a lot of the trans experience. Things are are different for trans-masculine and non-binary people, as well as for many other trans women. This is not meant to be a universal expert guide — it’s just the best I can give you right now.
 
 ### Consider That Most Cis People Don’t Think About Their Gender Very Much
 
-If you’re already at the stage where you are questioning your gender — even if that just means Googling “Am I Trans?” and then slamming your laptop shut before you get a search result —congratulations, you’ve already thought about your gender more than most cis people will in their entire lifetimes.
+If you’re already at the stage where you are questioning your gender — even if that just means looking up “Am I Trans?” and then slamming your laptop shut before you get a search result — congratulations, you’ve already thought about your gender more than most cis people will in their entire lifetimes.
 
 I’ve asked many of my cis friends if they’ve ever seriously thought about their gender identity, and nine times out of ten they have not. Cis people don’t constantly wonder what it would be like to be a girl. They haven’t had daydreams about how nice it would be if they woke up in a different body. Their hearts don’t race when they think about body-swap movies. Some of them may have imagined what it would be like to be in a body with a gender other than their assigned gender at birth, but those thought experiments have been brief and purely intellectual.
 
@@ -80,13 +80,13 @@ There’s no *energy* there. Not for them. If you feel a weird kind of *energy*
 
 This was hard for me to believe at first, but cis people actually enjoy their gender! Cis men like being men, and cis women like being women. They don’t secretly wish they had been born a member of the “opposite” gender or a genderless being or anything else, really. As we’ve already established, they don’t think about their gender much at all.
 
-There are complications here, of course. Plenty of cis men find toxic masculinity stifling and awful, choosing to actively reject the problematic social aspects of their gender. Plenty of women are deeply frustrated by misogyny, the patriarchy, and the tyranny of classical gender roles. “Enjoying being man” does not necessarily mean loving having to bottle up your emotions in all non-NFL situations, and “enjoying being a woman” rarely means that you love getting belittled by your male co-workers or being constantly asked, “so, when are you getting married?”
+There are complications here, of course. Plenty of cis men find toxic masculinity stifling and awful, choosing to actively reject the problematic social aspects of their gender. Plenty of women are deeply frustrated by misogyny, the patriarchy, and the tyranny of classical gender roles. “Enjoying being a man” does not necessarily mean loving having to bottle up your emotions in all non-NFL situations, and “enjoying being a woman” rarely means that you love getting belittled by your male co-workers or being constantly asked, “So, when are you getting married?”
 
 Once you cut through all of that, though? Cis people still enjoy their genders. They might wish that certain aspects of how their gender is performed in society were different, but they would still choose to keep their assigned genders if swapping were on the table. Unfortunately, a lot of closeted trans people hear cis people complaining about the frustrating and problematic aspects of their gender and assume that everybody has the same low-grade dislike for their gender that they do.
 
 Closeted trans people also assume that “I don’t hate being a man” is the same thing as “I enjoy being a man.” I can’t tell you how many of these questioning ladies tell me some variation of “I can’t be trans because I don’t hate being a man,” and then go on to describe countless little things they dislike about being seen as male, as if their gender were a pair of wet socks that they could never quite find a way to take off.
 
-You might be surprised to hear that I didn’t actively hate being seen as a man before I came out to myself, either . Being seen as a guy wasn’t a constant source of misery for me. It just…was who I was, apparently, so I learned to just kind of live with it. A lot of people believe that you can only be trans if you feel actively hurt by being seen as a man, but that particular feeling won’t usually arrive until after you’ve started to transition and you finally know who you truly are. Before self-acceptance, your relationship with your assigned gender at birth is likely to feel a lot more like disconnection than distress.
+You might be surprised to hear that I didn’t actively hate being seen as a man before I came out to myself, either. Being seen as a guy wasn’t a constant source of misery for me. It just… was who I was, apparently, so I learned to just kind of live with it. A lot of people believe that you can only be trans if you feel actively hurt by being seen as a man, but that particular feeling won’t usually arrive until after you’ve started to transition and you finally know who you truly are. Before self-acceptance, your relationship with your assigned gender at birth is likely to feel a lot more like disconnection than distress.
 
 I also can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard closeted trans women say something like, “well, I don’t hate being a man, and men have lots of institutional privilege. I don’t think I’d choose to be a woman, even if I could, because I wouldn’t want to give up my male privilege.” Male privilege is a real thing, of course, but it isn’t a reward that men get for having to endure the eternal discomfort of being men. Men enjoy being men, and they would still enjoy being men without their social privileges. If the only thing you like about masculinity is male privilege, that probably means something.
 
@@ -96,7 +96,7 @@ For years, I thought that I couldn’t be trans because I didn’t experience ge
 
 One thing that kept me from realizing that I was experiencing dysphoria was the same reason that fish don’t know they’re swimming in water — it’s just what my life had always been like, so I thought being dysphoric all the time was normal human behavior. I knew that I was kind of sad and more than a little odd, and I knew that my experiences with masculinity were at least slightly gender non-conforming, but I was dealing with the pain of dysphoria every single day without having any idea what was actually going on. No matter how bad I felt, I could always come up with a good enough explanation that had nothing to do with gender.
 
-The other problem is that gender dysphoria manifests differently in pre-acceptance trans women than it does in post-acceptance trans women. I always thought that gender dysphoria was the distress that you get from looking in the mirror and seeing a boy starting back at you instead of a girl, but that wasn’t a feeling I actually had until I started transitioning. You can’t get distressed about not seeing a girl in the mirror until after you’ve realize you’re a girl!
+The other problem is that gender dysphoria manifests differently in pre-acceptance trans women than it does in post-acceptance trans women. I always thought that gender dysphoria was the distress that you get from looking in the mirror and seeing a boy starting back at you instead of a girl, but that wasn’t a feeling I actually had until I started transitioning. You can’t get distressed about not seeing a girl in the mirror until after you’ve realized you’re a girl!
 
 Before that, dysphoria manifests in dozens of other, much subtler ways. [I wrote about my experience with pre-acceptance dysphoria here, in what has become my most popular essay ever.](https://cassielabelle.medium.com/gender-dysphoria-isnt-what-you-think-6fdc7ae3ac85) I highly recommend reading it in full if you are questioning your gender.
 
@@ -114,7 +114,7 @@ The Null HypotheCis poses a simple and effective question: once you take your fi
 
 It really is that simple. Men want to be men, and women want to be women. If you want to be a man, then you‘re a man. If you want to be a woman, then you’re a woman. If you don’t want to be either, or you want to be both, or you want to be a woman sometimes and a man other times, then you’re probably some flavor of genderfluid or non-binary.
 
-“But you can’t just…do that!” I hear you say. But you absolutely can just do that. In fact, this is basically the one and only question you really have to answer for yourself. If you want to be a girl and you’ve always thought of yourself as a guy, then you will probably be happier living as a girl. It’s at least worth taking some steps to see if transitioning will bring you happiness, right?
+“But you can’t just… do that!” I hear you say. But you absolutely can just do that. In fact, this is basically the one and only question you really have to answer for yourself. If you want to be a girl and you’ve always thought of yourself as a guy, then you will probably be happier living as a girl. It’s at least worth taking some steps to see if transitioning will bring you happiness, right?
 
 ### Consider That Doubting Yourself Does Not Invalidate Your Possible Trans-ness
 
@@ -130,7 +130,7 @@ If you feel all of this stuff, you’re in good company. My therapist even jokes
 
 ### Consider That Your Trans Journey Might Not Fit The Accepted, Popular Narrative
 
-Popular culture has basically decided that there’s only one transfeminine story worth telling. It’s the story of a young trans girl who figures out her identity at a very young age. Even in childhood, she gravitates toward dolls and tea parties. She tries on her older sister’s dresses and begs her mom to buy her make-up and jewelry. She basically always looks like a girl, too — feminine facial features, short stature, thin and androgynous. If she doesn’t transition in childhood or adolescence, then she’ll still somehow makes it to adulthood still looking more or less like a woman. She cross-dresses all the time, and might even be a drag queen. She is also probably attracted to men, and might have worked a spell as a sex worker.
+Popular culture has basically decided that there’s only one transfeminine story worth telling. It’s the story of a young trans girl who figures out her identity at a very young age. Even in childhood, she gravitates toward dolls and tea parties. She tries on her older sister’s dresses and begs her mom to buy her make-up and jewelry. She basically always looks like a girl, too — feminine facial features, short stature, thin and androgynous. If she doesn’t transition in childhood or adolescence, then she’ll still somehow make it to adulthood still looking more or less like a woman. She crossdresses all the time, and might even be a drag queen. She is also probably attracted to men, and might have worked a spell as a sex worker.
 
 This is a valid and common trans narrative. I know many girls who have experienced some or all of these tropes. There’s a reason why this story is told over and over again, after all.
 
@@ -142,19 +142,19 @@ But girls like us are incredibly common. [This scientific study from 2003](https
 
 I also believe that more trans women like us are coming out now because there’s so much more representation and so many more resources. In 1991, 2001, even 2011, the path to transition was much more difficult, and most people didn’t know any openly trans people. In this world, the only people who chose to transition were those for whom not doing so was just about impossible.
 
-It isn’t just easier to question your gender here in 2021, it’s easier to gain access to trans communities, hormones, and other crucial resources. If I’d been born thirty years earlier, I might not have transitioned at all. If I’d been born thirty years later, I’d probably have transitioned as a teenager. Don’t worry about whether or not you’ve “always known” if this is the first time you’ve ever had the freedom and resources to truly ask yourself this question.
+It isn’t just easier to question your gender here in 2021; it’s easier to gain access to trans communities, hormones, and other crucial resources. If I’d been born thirty years earlier, I might not have transitioned at all. If I’d been born thirty years later, I’d probably have transitioned as a teenager. Don’t worry about whether or not you’ve “always known” if this is the first time you’ve ever had the freedom and resources to truly ask yourself this question.
 
 ### Consider That The Things Keeping You From Self-Acceptance Might Have Nothing To Do With Your Identity
 
-Whenever I’m talking to a questioning trans women, the conversation eventually turns to the obstacles that she might face if she chooses to transition. “I worry that I’m too tall/large/hairy/ugly to transition” is a pretty common fear. “I worry that my family will disown me/my partner will leave me” is another worry I hear a lot. Other girls are really worried about their career, education, or college situation. Many fear that they simply can’t handle the medical bills for HRT or trans surgeries.
+Whenever I’m talking to a questioning trans woman, the conversation eventually turns to the obstacles that she might face if she chooses to transition. “I worry that I’m too tall/large/hairy/ugly to transition” is a pretty common fear. “I worry that my family will disown me/my partner will leave me” is another worry I hear a lot. Other girls are really worried about their career, education, or college situation. Many fear that they simply can’t handle the medical bills for HRT or trans surgeries.
 
-Everyone — everyone — doubts that they have the fortitude to deal with socially transitioning. Coming out to friends, wearing women’s clothing, dealing with transphobia…it’s a terrifying mess, especially for closeted trans women, who usually fell pretty short on resilience as it is. The whole thing can seem chronically overwhelming.
+Everyone — everyone — doubts that they have the fortitude to deal with socially transitioning. Coming out to friends, wearing women’s clothing, dealing with transphobia… it’s a terrifying mess, especially for closeted trans women, who usually feel pretty short on resilience as it is. The whole thing can seem chronically overwhelming.
 
 These fears often manifest in the form of self-gatekeeping. “I’m afraid that I will never be a pretty girl” turns into “I can’t be trans, because what if I’m not pretty enough after I transition?” This seems somewhat silly in a vacuum, but pre-acceptance trans girls will sometimes do anything to convince themselves that they aren’t actually trans. I definitely thought that I wasn’t trans because I simply couldn’t imagine actually taking HRT and dressing like a woman every day. That was something that brave people did, not people like me, so I couldn’t be trans!
 
 Why do we do this to ourselves? I think it’s all about self-protection. We know that transition is incredibly difficult, and so we will try literally everything else in the world before we’re even willing to start facing the “am I trans?” question. We develop really strong self-protective voices that push back hard against the truth because then we don’t have to worry about the terror of what comes next.
 
-Here’s the thing, though: even if you are trans, you don’t actually have to do anything about it. While I highly recommend transitioning, it’s definitely possible to self-accept and then just…do nothing. Keep your name, your pronouns, your life as it is. Or you can just change a few things, and enjoy those little pings of gender euphoria where you can.
+Here’s the thing, though: even if you are trans, you don’t actually have to do anything about it. While I highly recommend transitioning, it’s definitely possible to self-accept and then just… do nothing. Keep your name, your pronouns, your life as it is. Or you can just change a few things, and enjoy those little pings of gender euphoria where you can.
 
 The important thing to remember is that the truth of your identity is separate from all of the hopes and fears you have about transitioning. If you’re a girl on the inside, it doesn’t matter what you look like. It doesn’t matter what your family thinks of you. It doesn’t matter whether or not you have the means or even the desire to medically transition. Identity is a mental and spiritual thing, separate from all of this. If you’re a girl, you’re a girl.
 
@@ -176,7 +176,7 @@ This makes a lot of sense when you think about it. Sex is one of the few realms
 
 Unfortunately, exploring gender this way can actually make self-acceptance harder for many trans women. While I found this sort of sexual exploration absolutely necessary in my pre-self-acceptance days, it also meant that I was able to write off my intrusive gender thoughts or daydreams as “just a fetish.” I treated them as something hidden and shameful instead of something to investigate further.
 
-This issue is further complicated by the term “autogynephilia,” a bogus transphobic “theory” posited by a crank psychologist named Ray Blanchard. Autogynephilia posits that many people who self-identify as trans women aren’t actually women at all, but are instead creepy men who are turned on by the idea of being a woman or having a vagina. According to Blanchard, their entire transition is just an elaborate fetish game that they’re forcing the the world to participate in.
+This issue is further complicated by the term “autogynephilia,” a bogus transphobic “theory” posited by a crank psychologist named Ray Blanchard. Autogynephilia posits that many people who self-identify as trans women aren’t actually women at all, but are instead creepy men who are turned on by the idea of being a woman or having a vagina. According to Blanchard, their entire transition is just an elaborate fetish game that they’re forcing the world to participate in.
 
 I want to be clear, here: autogynephilia is bullshit. [It has been discredited by actual scientists and researchers many, many times.](https://juliaserano.medium.com/making-sense-of-autogynephilia-debates-73d9051e88d3) The entire point of this theory, as far as I can tell, was to try and get cis people to start viewing trans women as male sex predators. Thankfully, most cis people don’t feel this way, and most of them haven’t heard of Blanchard or autogynephilia at all.
 
@@ -212,7 +212,7 @@ Unfortunately, this is pretty much impossible to do, especially before you’ve
 
 To that end, it’s worth keeping in mind that you are not a puzzle to be solved. You do not have to perform an exact taxonomic classification of your own gender. You’re just a human with your own complex set of needs, desires, dreams, goals, fears, triggers, and a whole mess of everything else. You are a contradictory, complex, illogical being who contains vast multitudes.
 
-This is kind of scary, but hopefully it’s also somewhat freeing. There’s no “proper” timeline to your transition. No list of things that you absolutely have to do. You can keep your name, or change it. You can get gender conformation surgery, or you can keep what you’ve got. You can wear dresses every day, or you can leave them all for me. Some trans ladies have been dressing like women since they were old enough to buy clothes, but I didn’t once wear a full femme outfit until I was already three months into HRT. There are no rules. They were all made up by people who have been dead for hundreds of years.
+This is kind of scary, but hopefully it’s also somewhat freeing. There’s no “proper” timeline to your transition. No list of things that you absolutely have to do. You can keep your name, or change it. You can get gender confirmation surgery, or you can keep what you’ve got. You can wear dresses every day, or you can leave them all for me. Some trans ladies have been dressing like women since they were old enough to buy clothes, but I didn’t once wear a full femme outfit until I was already three months into HRT. There are no rules. They were all made up by people who have been dead for hundreds of years.
 
 You also don’t have to commit to anything right away. Transition isn’t one giant leap into the abyss — it’s a series of small, willing steps. All of the early steps are easily reversible, and you never have to do anything that you don’t think will help make your life better. If you keep your eyes on your feet, you’ll cross the chasm before you know it.