Becoming a black man in America

Self-portrait of the author on the fourth anniversary of their first testosterone shot, January 3, 2018.

The year was 2013. My discomfort with my assigned sex had reached a peak, and I began posting on my personal blog and Facebook page that I was considering transitioning to male. Through a lot of reading, conversations, and contemplation, I came to understand that my gender was non-binary, but my subconscious sex was male. So I pondered adopting a more (conventionally) masculine gender expression, in the hopes that I would eventually…