My Journey of Gender Identity

I was born in July 1995, and for most of my early life I didn’t have the language to understand what I was feeling inside. But looking back, there was always a quiet tension between how I was expected to be and how I actually experienced myself.

Growing up sensitive in a rigid world

From a very early age, I was a highly sensitive child.

I didn’t just experience things on the surface level; I felt them deeply, often more intensely than those around me seemed to. Emotions, moods, environments, and even subtle shifts in energy had a strong impact on me. Where other kids might brush things off, I tended to absorb them.

This sensitivity showed up in many ways. I was easily affected by criticism or laughter, even when it wasn’t directly aimed at me. I picked up on social dynamics quickly, often sensing tension or disapproval before anything was openly said. At the same time, I also had a strong emotional awareness. An ability to feel beauty, connection, and meaning in very small things.

But growing up, this sensitivity wasn’t always understood or supported. In many environments, especially as a boy, sensitivity was often seen as something to suppress rather than something to develop. There was an unspoken expectation to be tougher, less emotional, more controlled.

Because of that, I gradually learned to hide it. Instead of expressing how deeply I felt things, I began to contain it. I learned to adapt, to appear more detached or “stronger” than I actually felt inside. Over time, this created an internal split: on the outside, I was trying to fit into a more hardened version of masculinity, while on the inside, I remained the same sensitive child I had always been.

That sensitivity never disappeared, it just went underground. And in many ways, it became the core of the internal tension I carried for years, because a fundamental part of my nature was never fully allowed to exist openly.  I was acting in ways that didn’t reflect what I felt internally. That kind of disconnection doesn’t stay neutral, it accumulates. It showed up as emotional numbness, confusion, and a persistent feeling of not fully belonging in my own life.

Looking back, that sensitivity wasn’t a weakness. It was an early expression of how deeply I experience life and it’s something that has always been there, shaping how I feel, relate, and understand myself and the world.

Early discomfort and the body-mind disconnect

When puberty started, something in me shifted in a way that didn’t feel right. The masculine changes that were happening to my body didn’t bring a sense of grounding or pride; they brought discomfort, sadness, and a deep sense of disconnect. I remember feeling increasingly unhappy in my own skin, almost as if my body and mind were moving in opposite directions.

That disconnect wasn’t just emotional. It showed up physically too: tension, restlessness, and a constant sense of being “out of alignment” with myself. I didn’t know how to name it, but I felt it every day.

One of the clearest early anchors I had was my connection to long hair. It was more than aesthetics; it felt like a part of me that was intact, expressive, and honest. So when I was forced to cut my hair short because of my parents, it didn’t feel like a small change. It felt traumatic. It hurt in a way I couldn’t explain at the time, as if something essential had been taken away from me.

A turning point through altered consciousness

A significant shift happened during a psychedelic experience with psilocybin mushrooms. In that state, something long buried began to surface.

It wasn’t a decision or a thought process. It was a direct experience of energy moving through my body differently. There was softness, openness, and a kind of elegance in my movements and posture that I hadn’t allowed myself to express consciously before. It felt like my body was remembering something my mind had been suppressing.

That experience brought forward something I had always sensed on a deeper level, but was also afraid to fully acknowledge: I carried a strong feminine presence within me.

The fear wasn’t just about identity, it was about visibility. I was afraid of what that would mean in the real world. I had internalized a very narrow image of what transgender women were “supposed” to look like in society’s perception, and I feared being reduced to something simplistic or misunderstood. That fear carried weight for a long time.

Exploration and transition

After that period of realization, I began exploring gender identity more consciously. I started learning, reading, and reflecting more deeply on what I was experiencing internally.

Around January 2020, I changed my name to Isabelle and began taking steps toward a medical transition, including considering gender-affirming surgery. I also started experimenting with expressing myself through clothing, makeup, and more feminine presentation.

At the same time, I am someone who has always been highly sensitive to social perception. The fear of being judged, laughed at, or misunderstood was very real for me. In a strange way, the global COVID period made parts of this transition easier. Wearing a face mask created a sense of anonymity that reduced some of the social pressure I had always felt.

During this time, I also began hormone replacement therapy, using estrogen and testosterone blockers. The intention was to shift my physical characteristics toward a more feminine expression. I was also aware that such medical pathways often involve long-term considerations for bodily health and hormonal balance.

At the same time, I struggled internally with dependence on medication and what that meant for my values around health and autonomy. I wanted to feel aligned not just in identity, but in overall well-being and integrity.

Love, spirituality, and re-framing identity

During this period, I met the most beautiful, wonderful and loving Persian woman, who I am lucky to call my lover. She played an important role in my emotional and spiritual life. She saw me beyond labels and helped me reconnect with a sense of self-worth that wasn’t dependent on external validation. She taught me to love myself for who I am, and saw the beauty in me even in my darkest times.

Later, I encountered a spiritual practitioner who worked with what is described as the Akashic Records; a spiritual concept referring to an energetic “library” of experiences, thoughts, and patterns across lifetimes. In that reading, I was told that I had repeatedly struggled with rejecting aspects of my embodied identity in past experiences, and that this lifetime carried a different lesson: integration.

Whether taken literally or symbolically, something in that interpretation resonated deeply. It shifted my focus away from the idea that I needed to “fix” my body in order to be whole, and toward the idea that I might instead need to integrate parts of myself that had been in conflict.

Understanding masculine & feminine energy

Over time, I began to understand something that helped reframe my entire experience: most people carry both masculine and feminine qualities within them.

Masculine energy is often associated with structure, direction, logic, protection, and outward action. Feminine energy is more connected to intuition, sensitivity, creativity, emotional depth, and receptivity.

Neither is tied strictly to gender. They are inner dynamics; different ways of experiencing and interacting with life. Most people embody a unique blend of both, but society often pressures individuals to emphasize one and suppress the other.

In my case, I had strongly suppressed my feminine side in order to fit into expectations of masculinity. And in doing so, I also lost access to parts of myself that were essential for feeling whole.

Integration and becoming whole

From that point onward, something changed. I began to see my experience less as a problem to solve and more as a polarity to reconcile.

I stopped feeling that I had to choose between masculine or feminine expressions as exclusive identities. Instead, I began working toward holding both within myself.

Over time, I stopped pursuing an increasingly feminine presentation and moved toward a more androgynous expression; something softer, more balanced, and less extreme in either direction. This wasn’t a rejection of my earlier exploration, but rather a refinement of it.

It became less about transformation and more about integration.

Where I am now

Since 2025, I changed my name from Isabelle to Isa, a more neutral and unisex name that reflects this more open and integrated identity.

Today, if my experience needs a label at all, I would describe myself as non-binary. But even that feels more like a practical way of describing something that is ultimately more fluid and lived than defined. I don’t feel the need to place myself strictly in either the male or female category.

I experience myself as something in between; an embodiment of both masculine and feminine qualities coexisting within the same person. Not as a contradiction, but as an integration. Both aspects are simply part of how I naturally think, feel, and express myself.

In daily life, I’ve also reached a point where gendered language doesn’t carry much weight for me anymore. I don’t mind being called “sir” or “madam.” I don’t strongly identify with either, and I don’t feel the need for others to get it perfectly right. At the same time, I do slightly prefer when people try to avoid gendering altogether. But if they do, I’m completely fine with it. It doesn’t define my experience of myself anymore.

At the same time, I’m also mindful of the world I live in. I am fully aware and acknowledge that, through society’s eyes, my body is male. I don’t deny that this is how I am typically categorized externally. In that context, I choose to use men’s facilities and participate in men’s sports spaces. For me, this comes from a place of respect and awareness of others, while still holding my own internal experience as valid and real.

Internally, my sense of identity is not limited by that external classification. My experience of self exists alongside it. Not as a rejection of it, but as something more nuanced and personal than how I am perceived from the outside.

What I’ve come to understand is that my journey was never only about changing appearance or finding the right label. It has been about self-discovery, acceptance, and slowly bringing together parts of myself that were once split apart. Parts I used to feel I had to choose between.

And in that integration, I’ve found something I was missing for a long time: a quiet sense of inner peace. A stability that doesn’t come from becoming someone else, but from finally allowing myself to be fully who I already am.

A message to anyone who feels “off”

If there’s one thing I hope my story can offer, it’s a sense of recognition for anyone who has ever felt “off” in themselves.

That feeling of not fully fitting in your body, your role, or the expectations placed on you can be confusing and isolating. It can make you question yourself, doubt yourself, or even try to reshape yourself into something that feels more acceptable to others.

I’ve been there.

What I’ve learned over time is that feeling “off” is not necessarily something that needs to be fixed. Sometimes, it’s an invitation. An invitation to look deeper, to question what you’ve been taught about who you should be, and to slowly discover who you actually are beneath all of that.

That process isn’t always easy. It can involve fear, uncertainty, and moments of going to extremes just to understand where you stand. But every step, whether it feels right or wrong at the time, can be part of finding your way back to yourself.

You don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t have to fit perfectly into a label. And you don’t have to rush toward a final destination.

What matters is that you stay honest with yourself.

For me, peace didn’t come from becoming someone completely different. It came from allowing different parts of myself to exist together, without forcing a choice between them.

If you feel “off,” maybe it doesn’t mean you’re lost. Maybe it means you’re in the process of discovering something deeper about yourself.

And that, in itself, is a meaningful place to be.