Writing While Trans: How My Transition Transformed My Creative Voice
Because we’re more than one thing.
And so are our stories.
Writing has always been about voice—but when your voice changes, so does your writing.
For me, transitioning wasn’t just a physical or social process. It was spiritual. Emotional. Creative. And as my voice deepened, so did my writing. The work I create now is bolder, stranger, more honest. Because I’m not writing from behind a mask anymore. I’m writing as myself.
This post is about that shift: how embracing my trans identity changed the way I tell stories, and how you can honor your own evolution—on and off the page.
1. Writing Past the Mask
Before I transitioned, I wrote characters who were “neutral,” digestible, and often coded to match what the world expected of me. I avoided anything too queer or too strange. I didn’t want to make people uncomfortable—even if it meant silencing myself.
When you're closeted (in any way), your writing can become performance. You learn to code your feelings in metaphors and subtext. You self-censor. You shape your stories to fit a mold.
But coming out—and coming home to myself—changed all that. I started writing through discomfort instead of around it. That’s when my work became real.
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2. Voice Is More Than Sound
As a transmasc writer, I watched my literal voice change with testosterone—deeper, more resonant. But there was another voice changing too: my creative one. The way I approached scenes, described bodies, and imagined gender all shifted.
I stopped writing characters as puzzles for cis readers to solve. Instead, I wrote from inside those lives—messy, fluid, full of contradiction. My characters had dysphoria. Or euphoria. Or none of it. They weren’t symbols—they were people.
Your narrative voice is shaped by the way you move through the world. When that movement changes, so does the rhythm of your language. That’s not a limitation. That’s a superpower.
🎥 Video: “Trans Poets & the Power of Voice” – Button Poetry
3. Letting Go of Writing “For” Them
When I first started writing seriously, I wrote to prove something: that I was smart enough, talented enough, normal enough. I was still seeking approval—from publishing, from family, from the idea of who I was supposed to be.
Transitioning helped me let go of that.
Now, I write for people like me. For the quiet kid questioning their gender. For the adult figuring it out at 35. For the ones who need stories where they exist without explanation.
This isn’t about ignoring craft or audience. It’s about reframing the audience: asking, “Who am I trying to reach—and who am I trying to free?” Sometimes, the answer is yourself.
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4. Creativity as Transition
I used to think my transition would interrupt my writing. But in reality, it was the writing. Rebuilding a relationship with my body gave me a deeper understanding of character. Coming out gave me language I didn’t have before. Choosing truth gave me courage to take narrative risks.
We talk about transition as change—but it’s also creation. And if you let it, that creativity can bleed into your work in beautiful, unpredictable ways.
Your gender, your neurotype, your healing—none of that makes your voice less “literary.” It makes it yours.
Final Thoughts
We write from who we are. And when who we are changes, so does our craft. That’s not failure—that’s freedom.
If you're a trans writer, know this: your voice matters. Not just the one you use to speak, but the one on the page. The one shaped by lived experience, survival, hope, and transformation.
Our stories don’t just challenge norms—they expand what stories can be.
Tags for this post:
Trans Writers • Gender Identity in Fiction • Writing Through Transition • Voice and Identity • Queer Storytelling • Narrative Voice • Creative Process • Writing While Healing
Read more from trans authors: https://bookshop.org/lists/trans-and-nonbinary-voices
Video to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qgxi6k2F3s – "How Trans Authors Are Reshaping Storytelling" (Panel)
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