Early on in my transition, I wanted to try and appear as feminine as possible, in order to protect myself against people questioning if I were a "man or a woman". However, more recently, I've become more comfortable with going out without makeup, but when I want to appear feminine, I enjoy being really feminine in my appearance, although there is still that feeling that my clothing and my presentation protect me from being seen as male.

In the backgrounds of the panels we have, from left to right, the transgender flag, the pansexual flag and the aromantic flag. All of these flags apply to me. I'm trying a more cartoony style inspired by one of my favourite artists: https://twitter.com/15bitrgb

Notorious trans-terrorist on the loose from cisnormative prison. Armed and extremely dangerous to gender norms.

As someone who transitioned at 24 years old, I have a more than a few regrets about my body and a great envy of those people who could recognise that they were trans and get treatment much earlier. Dealing with the fact that I had started out as a 'boy' and had no choice but to grow into a 'man' is rather difficult. I sometimes wish that I had a time machine so that I could go back and tell that boy that he could grow into a woman instead, because he would love to hear that, because he didn't know that he 'qualified'.

I have no trouble referring to my younger self as a boy, because that was how I identified, but I feel some discontinuity with that identity, for many reasons, but I don't feel like I was 'pretending' to be a boy.
Our memories are how we establish continuity with our younger selves, be they a couple of seconds, to a couple of years in the past. Eventually my memory of my early life will decay and be distorted by how I am now. Our brains don't store events like a video camera; when we remember things, their forms are reconstructed by our brains. Older memories are eventually distorted by new memories and current information. We use prediction to see the past and future. Even now, I only really have a good near-term grasp of my life over the past decade, and the preceeding decade fades into blackness.

I will try my best to keep hold on the things that help me remember. Many of the skills I know will always remind me of my former self's dedication to science and engineering. I might eventually forget what I used to look like, because I don't keep many photos, although my mum will probably remember it till the day she dies.

Joshua, my dear younger brother, I hope that you will eventually be satisfied with the older sister that you'll become. This longest goodbye will be difficult for both of us.

Here in South Australia, there are many issues for people transitioning medically, as well as legally. First off, we have only one (widely known) psychiatrist (approaching retirement) that is comfortable with referring people to endocrinologists. My mum wanted to be sure that I was 'actually trans', so she referred me to a psychologist that probably didn't have any experience dealing with trans people, so it took even longer.
There is no informed consent in our state, so you must be living 100% as woman for at least a few months, not to mention the huge waiting lists that now approach a year in length. It sucks even more if you're really dependent on your immediate family for emotional and material support, since you can't move interstate.

It's even more crappy if you're not comfortable seeing the psychiatrist or the endocrinologist, like many of my friends.
I feel relatively safe in that regard, as I fit into the gender binary and femme-presenting.

I decided to draw in this abstract style because, at the time, I did not know how to draw people, but I was already skilled with the composition of abstract textures.

In the first page, I've represented my mother, sister, brother and myself. The landscapes on which we roll are representative of the gender roles expected by society. I show how I was able to 'pass' as male by using my masculine features and interests, but I still don't mesh with my role.

With the second page, I represent how my role has become ever more constricting. I represent this as a spiral that 'fixes' me in place. My 'escape' by crossdressing also shows how I felt that it was only limited to the times that I masturbated, and how I would 'lose myself' in my fantasy, by the extreme distortions of my encapsulated figure in the winding path until I am suddenly released, almost complete as my 'male' form, but I've left parts of myself behind.

Under the winding path shows how there is always a place for my female self in my fantasies, but she remains hidden by a barrier of my distorted male form and its own prison, which protects her from the perception of others, shown by long, slender pillars keeping up the whole structure.

The third shows my conflicting feminine male and fantastic female forms, now equal in their size and power. The smooth and rigid aspects of each are bleeding into each other and leading to their fusion and from their conflict, concentric images of myself compete to be perceived by others and to be the central core of myself.