It’s different for everyone. Some of us figure it out when we’re in elementary school, others realize only very late into our lives. Me though? I’ve always known. Some of us interpret it as a very literal transformation; “I used to be a girl, now I’m a boy”. Others feel like we were always our “chosen” gender, simply forced by fate into a body we never asked for. I fall, very strongly, into the latter category. As long as I can remember, I dreamed of being a man, and I mean that very literally.
When I fell asleep, my dream self was quite different from my physical body, with broader shoulders, a square jaw, larger hands and feet, and a deep voice that fills any room I am in like an upright bass. It wasn’t always such a pronounced change of course. When I was very young, the differences were subtler, the unwanted waking nightmare of sexual dimorphism not yet wholly foisted upon me, but changes were still there. I always felt like something was wrong when I woke up to find myself with the long hair my mother insisted I couldn’t cut to the short length I desired. I remember once, after a birthday party, looking at myself in the mirror, wearing a nice, expensive dress I’d received as a gift, and thinking to myself how much happier I’d be wearing the suit I had on in my dreams the night before.
I didn’t have a word for it until high school though. My family was somewhat strict about my access to the internet and what sorts of films I was allowed to watch, so the first time I heard the word “transgender” was when I met someone else like me.
His name was Timothy, and in all truth we weren’t friends. Nobody was friends with Timothy, nobody wanted to hang out with the freak. There were many comments like “So if you’re a man, am I allowed to hit you?”, whispered slurs, and exaggerated caricatures drawn on scrap paper and surreptitiously passed around to a chorus of barely contained snickers. I’d like to say I never joined in, but peer pressure is a powerful force, especially when it comes to those of us who desperately want to fit in. I think part of me resented him too, for so flagrantly living the life I wanted to have. He wore a binder to flatten his chest, his hair was short and slicked back with gel, and he always dressed like someone out of a prior age, a holdover from an era of leather jackets, fast cars, and switchblades. I was jealous.
Eventually the bullying got bad enough that one of his bolder tormentors broke his arm. Nobody confessed to the act, and the school’s administration was less than cooperative in trying to find out who did it. Timothy’s parents wound up pulling him from school, and I never saw him again. My own parents saw it as a relief, saying that he was “a dangerous influence” and that his family should have sent him off to a psychologist rather than “indulging her delusions”. It was the first time I had ever heard them talk about someone like me, and the memory of my own mother and father describing with such vitriol how much they hated Timothy was permanently burned into my developing mind, a scar which I don’t think will ever heal.
I knew there was never any chance of being accepted by my family. At best, they’d see me as a victim of some perverted campaign to corrupt innocent young women into hating their bodies, at worst they’d treat me like a delusional freak. Either way, they would still see me as their daughter, and I very much doubt there is anything I could do to change that.
After so many years of being forced to hide who I am, I finally have the good fortune of living alone, far away from my parents and their bigotry. It was almost unbearable during the final few months of my living with them, when people like me became a political wedge and the hate spewing talking heads on the idiot box began telling horror stories of “groomers” and “radical gender ideology”. But I managed to get out and find a job. I was finally free to be myself. Well, more or less. I was out publicly to friends and coworkers, I bound my breasts, people called me Victor rather than the stupid name on my driver’s license, but in terms of actual medical treatment I was still stuck at square one.
The thing that they don’t tell you is it’s actually rather difficult to get on hormones, at least if you’re a transgender man. Estradiol and the like aren’t controlled substances, if worst comes to worst an uninsured trans woman can get her hands on some hormones via the gray market, and the process of getting a prescription is far quicker. Testosterone, however, is a Schedule III controlled substance, the same tier as anabolic steroids or ketamine. Getting a prescription is a bit more of an involved process, and going through unofficial channels could result in a felony if you get caught.
So, finally liberated from my family, I now had to deal with the frustration of the medical system. My crummy job working at a movie theater didn’t exactly have the best insurance plan, and by the time I did manage to get in touch with a doctor about getting an appointment set up, I was informed the soonest I could see someone would be several months at least. Without going into too much detail, certain conservative politicians in my state had made it rather difficult to get gender affirming care via telehealth, out of a fear that it would be too easy for “impressionable adolescents to permanently alter their bodies”. So I simply had to sit around and twiddle my thumbs, waiting for my turn at one of the rapidly dwindling number of clinics that offered consultations for getting on hormone replacement therapy.
Of course, I knew that hormones aren’t mandatory for being a “real man”, and I knew that even if I did manage to get on testosterone it wouldn’t make the bigots any more convinced of my masculinity, but I still couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sadness whenever I looked in the mirror. The reflection that stared back at me didn’t feel right, it didn’t feel like me. Do you have any idea how terrible it is to feel trapped in a body which is utterly wrong? To have your own flesh and blood betray you every second of every day?
I coped as best as I could, and spending time with supportive friends helped. But really, the most comforting thing throughout this ordeal was my dreams. Even if I couldn’t pass as male in the waking world, even if I had to deal with the “thank you miss”s and “howdy ma’am”s from the customers at work, when I slept it was as though my mind and body were in perfect alignment. It sometimes felt like my own mind was comforting me, covering me with a blanket of fantasy to soothe the pain. Even in my darkest nightmares, I always had a body that felt like it belonged to me.
Though my dreams are especially vivid while they last, I do find they tend to fade quite quickly upon awakening, something which has only seemed to get worse as I get older. To cope with this, I began to write down records of my nocturnal visions, first in a notebook, then later on a blog under the pseudonym of “DysphoricDreamer98”. I found it easier to reach for my phone to jot down a quick post while the memory was freshest than having to fiddle about with pen and paper. Besides, while my little blog wasn’t especially popular or anything, seeing people comment on my posts, especially other trans men, made me happy. It brought me a little joy to know I’m not alone.
Now, obviously I didn’t put out any sort of personal information on my blog. No photos, no mention of where I work, not my real name, Hell, not even which state I live in. This is why it was so odd when I found the package on my doorstep one morning, all wrapped up in brown paper and twine, addressed to DysphoricDreamer98. There was no return address, so I had no idea who could have sent it.
In a panic, I simply shut the door and left the package outside, running over to my computer to search the web to see if I’d been doxxed or something like that. I didn’t think I’d ever said anything particularly controversial, and it wasn’t as though I had any sort of wide audience. I wrote a digital dream journal with a follower count in the double digits for goodness sake, it’s not like I was a celebrity.
Once I was satisfied that I hadn’t had my personal information posted publicly or stolen in a leak of some sort, I opened my front door again and peaked out at the package, feeling oddly nervous, as if worried it was going to sprout teeth and bite me. After I was satisfied that it wasn’t going blow up or catch fire or anything like that, I brought it inside and set it down on my desk, cutting off the twine with my pocket knife and unwrapping it. I was greeted with an old wooden box, of the sort that would be used to hold expensive jewelry. It was covered all over with elaborate ornamentation, a combination of floral and geometric designs. There was something oddly hypnotic about the patterns formed by the embossed flowers and curving lines, and I spent about a minute simply admiring the craftsmanship of the thing before I actually set about opening it.
The contents of the box were a small glass vial filled with liquid, a metal syringe that looked as though it were fashioned in the Victorian era, and a note, written on very old parchment in elegant looking cursive. This is what it said:
Dear Sir,
You’ve spent every night dreaming of who you truly are. It is time to make those dreams into reality. Inject intramuscularly once per week, one milliliter. Expect results in 3-4 weeks.
Sincerely,
A friend
Now, I’m not stupid. Obviously I didn’t immediately start injecting myself with mysterious fluid I found in a box left on my front door by an anonymous stranger. As a matter of fact, my first thought was that someone was trying to poison me. I didn’t know who would want me dead, but given the circumstances I thought a little bit of paranoia was the healthiest approach to take. Part of me wondered if my family had somehow been informed of my blog, and were trying to discreetly assassinate me in order to ensure I’d never be able to medically or legally transition. I didn’t have any evidence of this, but it seemed far more logical than there being some hormone gifting Good Samaritan wandering about leaving vials of testosterone on the doors of disadvantaged trans men. Besides, whatever was contained within the vial didn’t look like testosterone, at least not in any form I was familiar with. It was tinged slightly purple, and seemed to sparkle when I held it up to the light.
I did consider calling the police, but I decided against it. Realistically all they’d do is confiscate the box, and I was worried that I could get in trouble if the contents of the vial did end up being some kind of poison or illicit substance. Besides, I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away.
And so, I tried to do my best to forget about the box and its contents. I didn’t tell anyone about it, not even my friends, though I’m not entirely sure why that is. I suppose I may have rationalized it as trying to keep myself safe from being reported to the police, but that’s not really true. Something about it just felt private to me, inherently it was a subject that necessitated secrecy. Its presence kept nagging at me, however, and it never felt like I’d ever be fully able to erase it from my mind. Sometimes, I’d open up the box and just stare at the vial for a while, considering it silently, before shutting the lid and pushing it back under the bed.
Regardless, I managed to more or less successfully ignore the box for around a month. It was a combination of many discrete factors that led to me giving in, and even after what I’ve experienced and even though I know it was a stupid decision, I’m unable to bring myself to feel any sort of regret for it.
The day I gave in started off terribly, with my period having decided to start a day earlier than usual. I don’t feel very positively about my reproductive system at the best of times, and my distaste only grows deeper when it decides to punish me for not getting pregnant with a torrent of blood. After dealing with that unfortunate surprise, I was then faced with my biweekly phone call with my mother, during which I had to play the unfortunate role of dutiful daughter, gritting my teeth whenever she referred to me by the name she gave me instead of my real one, and clenching my hand into a fist as I expressed in the politest tones that I could muster that no, I did not have a boyfriend yet. When she started to go on a rant about the latest news story she’d seen about “woke indoctrination” in schools, I made up some excuse about poor connection and ended the call. Then it was time for work.
The gendered politeness of the South is truly a tailor made Hell for people like me, and that day saw a constant stream of “ma’am”s and “miss”s that culminated in an elderly gentleman remarking “If you don’t mind me sayin’ miss, you are quite the beautiful young woman” while I tried very hard not to strangle him. But really, truly, I think that the deciding factor that made me open up that box and try my luck with my anonymous benefactor’s vial of mystery fluid was the text message I received as I walked through my front door, informing me that my consultation had been postponed again.
I’ll be honest, when I readied that first injection, part of me hoped it was poison. It wasn’t a large part of me, but that urge to just give up, embrace the call of the void and descend into a peaceful oblivion, it was there. “To sleep, perchance to dream”, as Shakespeare put it. When nonexistence no longer frightens you, it is far easier to take risks.
I didn’t use the syringe that came with the box. While it seemed to be in pristine condition, I didn’t trust something that looked that old, and I certainly had no desire to contract tetanus or something. I walked down to the farm supply store across from my apartment building and purchased some sterile syringes and needles there instead. When I got back to the apartment I spent a few minutes looking up where was best to inject, how to make sure I avoided pricking any veins and arteries, etc., until I finally felt fairly confident that I could actually do it successfully. There was no stalling after that, I didn’t want to give myself a chance to change my mind. I popped the cork on the vial, got a milliliter of that strange purple fluid into the syringe, and plunged the needle into my thigh.
It hurt far less than I thought it would, if I’m being honest. If you’d asked me before that day if I would have been able to perform injections myself, I’d have told you no. I’ve always felt slightly uncomfortable whenever I had to get a vaccine or have a blood test done, something about needles just made me deeply nervous. But this felt right, and outside of a slight pinch and some pressure as I pushed down the plunger, it was largely painless.
I pulled out the needle and applied a small bandage to the tiny puncture mark, though the needle was so thin no blood actually welled up at all. Then I went to bed early, hoping that tomorrow would be a better day.
I woke up the next morning, writing down my latest dream on my blog in the haze of half-consciousness, and then got out of bed, pleasantly noting that I was not, in fact, dead. Whatever the liquid in the vial was, it at the very least wasn’t toxic. There wasn’t even so much as a raised bump at the injection site. Thus began my routine of injecting the purplish mystery fluid into my thigh every Friday before bed.
Just as the note said, it was around the 4 week mark when I started to actually see results. I was washing my face as part of my morning routine when I noticed something faint on my upper lip. I looked closer to see it was a few dark hairs, sprouting out from the previously smooth skin of my face. Excitedly, I looked closer, seeing with delight that all over my jaw, here and there, little hairs were poking up from my flesh. I was beginning to grow facial hair. As a matter of fact, on closer inspection of the rest of my me, I was beginning to grow more hair all over my body. It wasn’t as though I’d awoken looking like Bigfoot, but it was a noticeable change from my appearance the night before. I was ecstatic.
Now, I have to be honest here, I didn’t actually know exactly how quickly testosterone was supposed to work, nor what the exact effects were. It may seem lazy but I never really had sat down to read out how long it would take, what specific results I could expect to see, etc. I think a part of me always saw it as a borderline unachievable fantasy, so there was no reason for me to ever look up the details. However, even I should have known better than to think what happened was normal.
For one thing, the injections worked fast. Once the four week mark was hit and the changes began, it was like a dam had broken. By 5 weeks my voice was already starting to deepen. 6 weeks in and I was able to grow a faint mustache. 7 weeks and I had chest hair. Looking back on it now, it should have been obvious to me that this was too fast. These sorts of things take months and years to accomplish, not weeks. There was a faint tinge of nervousness during the 12th week as I looked at myself in the mirror and realized I was taller than I was before. It was the first hint that something was wrong. Testosterone can do a lot of things, but it can’t change your bone structure.
That wasn’t the only sign that something was off. I began to get these feelings of deja vu on occasion, about once a week, and I could never place exactly what it was. I didn’t keep track of every time it happened, obviously, but I do remember a few of the most noteworthy examples.
The first time was when I was doing a bit of shopping downtown and saw a street performer, a clown riding atop a penny farthing bicycle. He wasn’t frightening at all, I’ve never been afraid of clowns, but there was something unsettling about him. He didn’t seem to fit in with his surroundings as he glided through the crowd, occasionally honking his horn and taking his hands off the handlebars to juggle some balls. Nobody else seemed to pay him any mind though, they just kept on walking past him. He seemed so familiar, and I struggled to try and remember if I’d seen him in some viral video or something.
Another incident I remember was at work. I was selling tickets, when a pair of customers walked up to the booth in lockstep. They were identical twins, each the spitting image of the other, and wore the exact same style of formal black suit.
“We’re here-” started the one on the left.
“-to purchase some tickets-” continued the twin on the right.
“-for the 2 o’ clock show” finished the first twin.
The pair of them frankly freaked me out, but I didn’t want to be rude, so I did as they asked and got them their tickets. They paid in cash, using only 2 dollar bills. They bowed in unison after I handed them their tickets, and then marched in time to the theater I had indicated. I actually checked the purchase logs later to make sure I hadn’t imagined it all, as well as looking in the register to see if their 2 dollar bills were still there, and everything was still there. Like with the clown, the oddest part was that they seemed so familiar, as if their names were right on the tip of my tongue.
I had another encounter at a thrift store. I was shopping for some new clothes (my increased height was making some of my older outfits not fit particularly well) when I was approached by a short gentleman with white hair, who asked me “Can I help you to find anything sir?”
I turned to respond that I was fine, when I noticed that his eyes were two different colors, one blue, one brown. Something about this made my mind scream at me to remember, that this was someone who I had met before, but I just couldn’t place my finger on why. I stuttered out some noncommittal grunt and he nodded before walking away. I stumbled out of the thrift store without buying anything and went straight home.
The most recent incident is what made me put all the pieces together. I was taking a nighttime walk, something I felt more comfortable doing now due to my increased bulk and deeper voice. I felt safer knowing that any creeps would be less likely to see me as a potential target, plus I’d been hitting the gym so I felt confident in my ability to fight off anyone who’d try. I was thinking about how much my life had improved since I’d gotten the package, and wondering about what I’d do once the vial had run out. There were only a couple doses left, but my HRT consultation was only a few days away. Should I try and get more of what I was already taking, or should I switch over to a more legitimate source? It wasn’t as though I had any method through which to contact my anonymous benefactor. As I pondered this, I heard a faint hissing noise from a nearby alley, a “pssst” like someone was trying to beckon me inside.
I peered down the alleyway cautiously, trying to get a good look at whoever was trying to attract my attention. I could see the faint outline of a figure hidden partially by the shadows, but I couldn’t make out any details. I gently touched my pocket knife, just to remind myself it was still there, and then stepped into the alley.
I know it sounds like a stupid decision, and it was, but at that moment I thought that they may have been the mysterious “friend” who’d given me the vial in the first place. I figured they may have wanted to deliver the next supply in person, and frankly I wanted to thank them for changing my life. I was still nervous, of course I was, but after all that had happened I didn’t want to seem ungrateful.
I stepped into the alley, cautiously, and made my way over to the figure. They hissed at me again, beckoning for me to come closer with a gloved hand. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw that they were a thin man in a long overcoat, wearing a wide brimmed hat and, despite the night, a pair of dark sunglasses. They looked like some sort of secret agent stock character. His mouth was stretched wide in a toothy grin. When I was about 10 feet from him, I stopped, and asked “Hello? Are you the person who gave me the package? With the vial?”
Without moving a muscle on his face, he hissed at me again, and then held up his hand in front of his face. Using his other hand, he began to slowly pull off the glove. It was hard to tell at first, in the darkness of the alley, what exactly I was seeing, besides the simple fact that the human brain has difficulty recognizing that which ought not to be. His fingers shone slightly as they moved sinuously in the pale reflected light of the far away streetlamps, glittering like stars. Then he began to walk towards me with shaky steps, and I realized with a sudden shock what I was looking at.
The man’s fingers were snakes.
I tried to back away, but he lunged for me, hissing erupting from his writhing fingers as they latched onto my shoulder, extending out several feet from his arm. I didn’t feel them break skin, however, fortunately my denim jacket seemed to take the brunt of it. I slashed at the wriggling serpents with my pocket knife and ran when they retreated from the flashing blade. I kept running all the way home, and didn’t stop running until I was safely in my apartment with the door firmly locked and bolted.
Despite the completely surreal and impossible nature of what had just happened, it all felt so familiar, and finally the gears in my brain started to move, and I realized what it was that linked all of the strange interactions I had. I turned on my computer, and went to check my blog, searching up keywords and reading through my recorded dreams with a sense of dawning horror.
September 12th, 2023
Dreamed I was a lion tamer in some sort of circus. The lions were full of stuffing, one accidentally got caught on some fencing and was ripped open, the audience loved it. They were still heavy though, I lifted one up and everyone cheered. I guess I was a strongman as well as a lion tamer. Dream ended with a clown on an old fashioned bicycle riding across a tightrope over a big pool of water. The ringmaster said the pool was full of piranhas, but all I saw were what looked like eels or big worms. I woke up when the clown fell off his bike.
October 24th, 2023
I was a knight, going to save a princess who was trapped in a big floating tower. Accompanied by a sloth for some reason. On the way there, encountered a very polite two headed ogre. Each head would finish the other’s sentences, and it would bow at me frequently. Eventually reached the tower, but the princess was happy there, and told me to go away. Woke up soon after.
November 17th, 2023
In an old library, trying to do some research for something, can’t remember what. Went to go get help from a librarian, but he was a husky with two different colored eyes, one blue, one brown. Got distracted by this and we got to talking for the rest of the dream, my research forgotten. It was very philosophical, but I can’t actually really remember what we talked about much. He did call me a “handsome young man” though.
January 2nd, 2023
Nightmare. Man made of snakes. Don’t want to think about it.
I sat back in my chair, one hand over my mouth. I felt sick. This wasn’t possible, this wasn’t something that could be real. I told myself that I must be hallucinating, that it couldn’t possibly be real life, but then I looked over at the shoulder of my jacket and noticed the bite marks in the rough fabric. There was even a broken off fang sticking out. I thought about the strange twins and their 2 dollar bills in the register. Besides, it wasn’t as though I was the only person who had noticed the changes to my body. My friends and coworkers had commented on it, customers addressed me as “sir”, I had to buy new clothes to fit my changed physique. This was real. Whatever it was I had been taking, it was making my dreams into reality.
There was a knock on my front door. I got up and checked the peephole, but nobody was there. Opening the door, I saw a new package, wrapped up in brown paper and tied up with string. It was addressed to DysphoricDreamer98.
I don’t know what to do from here. I’ve spent the past day just going through all the posts on my blog tagged “nightmare”, weighing the pros and cons of continuing my treatment. The package lies unopened on my kitchen table, for now. You’ve got to understand, this substance, whatever it is, has made me happier than I’ve ever been before, but I’m worried for my safety. I got lucky this time, I managed to get away, but what about the next time? And the time after that? Do I risk acting out my nightmares in the waking world to live the life that makes me happy?
To make matters worse, I got a text message. My consultation has once again been pushed back another 3 weeks. I don’t even have the luxury of a third option. I have to choose between going cold turkey or sticking with whatever my “friend” has sent me.
I hope I make the right decision.