Evan Urquhart

This isn't really a hard question to answer - the answer is yes- but it gets complicated in the context of theories of self.https://twitter.com/AnthropObscene/status/1290416248254337024 …

When we think about our past self, especially thinking back after a significant change, our natural impulse is to reinterpret things then in the context of what we know now. I'm not immune to that by any means.

I now believe I had gender dysphoria starting at the onset of puberty, and I can go back and find evidence for that in my past. I can tell a story about a true trans self which was hidden by a lack of words or knowledge about what HRT could do.

But, it's hard to say how true this story is. It deals in counterfactuals (if I had known this, I would have done that). It deals in unknowns (HRT would have relieved these symptoms, if anyone had known they were symptoms, and if I'd had access to HRT).

So, while I believe this story, I have enough distance to also feel skeptical about this story. I transitioned in my 30s, which means I told different stories for a long, long time, which makes it easier to feel doubt about the story I'm telling now.

Mind you, some of the old stories were proven false, because they made predictions about the future. I'm not suffering from incurable lifelong mental illness, which was a story I told and which was told to me, but didn't turn out to be the case.