When you’re transgender, it’s kind of like being pregnant for the first time, sitting in a room full of mothers – people will constantly give you unsolicited advice about the PROPER way to live. Recently I’ve taken some flak from my friends who think my transition has “changed” me too much. I never used to post pictures of myself all over social media, so this deviation is being used as evidence by some of my well-intentioned-but-misguided friends to convince me that I’m “like, totally a different person now.”

First of all I’m amused by the fact that it’s my social media presence or behavior that people notice above all the very real physical and emotional changes that I’m going through. “You take so many selfies now!” Yeah, no shit? And yet no one notices the occasional grimace that crosses my face when the pain in my growing breasts suddenly pangs. No one notices the nervous posture I can’t help but fall into now, when too many men are in a room with me alone. No one notices my new dance moves! No one notices how my smile is genuine and not faked anymore. All that they see changing is my avatar, my online facsimile.

I can’t repeat this often enough, so let me just use a bolded font: My transition hasn’t made me a different person; it has merely allowed the real “me” to emerge.

Before I was strong enough to be myself I would rarely want to be photographed, let alone take the picture myself. The proof is in my family scrapbooks. Oh sure, there’s plenty of pictures of me in there, as a baby, an infant, a young boy. But somewhere in my pre-teens, as that terrible monster called puberty began to ruin my life, they stop. In photos from that time you’ll often see me in the edge of the frame with a forced smile, or trying somehow to cover my face. But mostly you’ll just not see me.

I didn’t want to look at myself. Photographs were a token of my un-femininity, my un-prettiness, my un-beauty. Not that I ever aspired to be beautiful (even though I fucking am), but photographs were an obnoxious, impossible-to-ignore reminder that I was so far away from who I truly am. Sometimes I look at those rare photos of me from this time, and I know what that little boy is thinking, and it’s still painful to recall today: Just hold this pose for 5 seconds, mom will be happy if I do, god I hate myself. Now of course I realize I didn’t hate myself, really – I just hated my reflection.

No wonder I was so late to adopt social media, where selfies are content, where your picture, your avatar, is your currency. When I set up my first social media account on Facebook I was about 15 years old and reluctant. I was only doing this to keep up with my friends, who were all already “sharing posts” and “liking” them – mostly pictures of themselves. That was my actual introduction to the selfie – pictures of you, taken by yourself and shared with the world. Meanwhile, my first Facebook profile photo was a picture of my dog.

At first I couldn’t really wrap my head around the selfie concept. Why would you want pictures of yourself? There’s always a mirror somewhere if you really need to see what you look like, right? Obviously I was missing the point, and selfie culture was just starting. Now it’s everywhere, owing to the saturation of technology. People eat their dinner utensil in one hand, phone in the other and a meal isn’t complete anymore without a picture of you enjoying it. Selfies taken by celebrities literally make headlines. That’s insane, surely! I eyed the rising omnipresence of the selfie with cynicism and some vague envy (that other people were comfortable enough in their skin to take pictures of themselves). I silently accused everyone in my head of being narcissists - beautiful, yet morally inferior.

I was projecting. I was coping. I was wrong. I was upset at a world that made me ashamed of my own body and feelings, and then bombarded me with images of other people looking happy. It was something I thought I’d never have… until hormones changed everything. With budding nipples came budding confidence (best sentence fragment I’ve ever written, by the way), and selfies became less and less intimidating to me. Before now, I had always viewed the selfie as the lowest common denominator of photography. Like still-lives in painting, any novice can execute them and most of them are devoid of any real aesthetic, artistic value. But again, that’s me missing the whole point.

Selfies are a way to document and share experiences. It’s not about narcissism, despite the little bump of dopamine that hits my brain whenever I see a “like” on my profile. Thanks to hormones, that image of me is finally coming close to matching the concept of myself that I’ve always had in my head. Tagged with a couple of choice hashtags, I join a growing tapestry of other transgender faces. Somewhere, a teen who is exactly where I was 10 years ago sees it and just maybe has a little bit of inspiration. Or maybe it just helps her get through one more day, because she sees that other people have walked the same path. My experience is transferred to her in some form, all thanks to the convenient camera on the front of my phone. That’s what I’m all about now.

When I came out as transgender, I knew I wanted to be an advocate. I wanted to have a voice that could help other people like me. In the communication era, selfies are a vehicle for that purpose. Pictures are, after all, worth one thousand words. If a picture of me finds its way to a transgender person out there and it affects them somehow, it fulfills me. It makes me feel like a part of the growing trans movement, my new home. The hormones didn’t make me desire that inclusion, I have always wanted it. Before hormones, though, it just seemed too far to reach.

Selfies are my therapy, and for now, the best contribution I can make to the trans movement. I’m proud of who I am (finally) and I know I can inspire others to be themselves too. If you read all this, I love you. And if you’re still one of those people who think selfies are narcissistic trash, I urge you to look inside yourself and see if maybe you’re not just projecting a deep-seated insecurity. I know I was for far too long.