Yesterday, I started hormones. I’ve come further than I ever thought I would.

The physical and medical aspects of transition always scared me. There are so many hurdles that you face as a transgender person, trying to gain access to gender affirming medication and health care.

I began my journey back in January, prepared for it to be long, hard and draining. Along the way, there were a few surprises that I was certainly not expecting. I was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder called Factor V.

The disorder threw so much of the medical transition into doubt. Factor V is a genetic disorder that leads to a higher risk of blood clotting, and when combined with a course of blockers and oestrogen (what we call HRT - Hormone Replacement Therapy) it was potentially quite dangerous.

For the past few months, I’ve been a loop of blood tests, haematologists, specialists, endocrinologists and - let’s be real - a series of bars and a series of happy hours that were often the only thing keeping my nerves at bay.

But yesterday, I cleared the final hurdle, and seated at my desk at our startup, I took my first blockers and oestrogen tablets. It was a momentous occasion that felt somehow smaller than I ever expected it to. Smaller because in the big scheme of things, it was one small moment with no immediate effects, no immediate impact, beyond one.

I felt that I had made it. To have reached a point where my gender identity was not just recognised by confirmed by psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors and specialists was life changing in that moment. I think for so many years, I thought that I wasn’t trans enough, wasn’t ever going to be accepted as a transgender woman. But taking those pills, it all faded away.

And then I went back to work, and went back to a Trello board, and went back to my life.

I wonder, often, what it would have been like to do this sooner. To do it when I was younger, when I had more energy, when I had more of a fire to tell the world to go fuck itself. I’ll never know, but I don’t have any regrets. Doing it now, with a different life behind me and a new life ahead, I feel privileged to have been who I was, and see what I saw, and do what I did.

I didn’t live a half life before my transition. I lived a full and textured life. I did so many things I am still proud of. I fell in love. I climbed the Himalayas. I recorded production credits on a multi platinum album. I had my own record deal. I sold a company. I went broke, and pulled myself back up twice. I lost jobs I loved and kept jobs I hated and it’s all a part of me now.

The life I have today is no more full because of my transition. But it’s more honest. It’s more authentic. It’s more about me and who I actually am, than about other people and who they want me to be, and I love that.

I haven’t decided how much further I will go with a physical transition. My social transition is complete, and the hormones were the major goals. Surgeries are still on the cards, and I’ll be considering them in detail and weighing up my intense fears surrounding them with the affirmation they’d bring. I don’t have an answer. I’m not scared to say that. I’m not unhappy to say that. I’m excited by the unknown ahead.

I’m happy. I’m relieved, and I’m safe, and it didn’t get me. It never stopped me. That means the world.

It’s cold in Sydney today. A cold that I find bracing, crunching through the Autumn leaves, listening to some demos on my AirPods and planning my day ahead. There’s a lot to do at our startup right now, an almost endless task list that seems to grow the instant I look away. Long days. Long Nights.

I’ll be catching up with a dear friend tonight for one or two cocktails. Between then, I hope my day is peaceful.

Hugs and kisses.

Joany 🍕