The Unknowing is Scary

I've been on HRT for about a year now. I've done my homework. Read countless testimonials and a ton of literature from other TS people. I've been to several therapists and counselors. You know the ones that take your money for the service of letting you come to your own conclusions. More on the gatekeepers of the transgendered world another time. Harry Benjamin can kiss my ass! Back on topic, but none of this really informs a person of just what taking the first few steps of transition are really like. So I sit here at my computer scared about the future and all awkward and terrifying moments that are to come.

I feel I've been lucky so far. I've come out to my wife, my family, my wife's family, and all of our close friends. So far, everyone has been very supportive, or at least accepting, I wonder if that will last as the man they knew for so long fades and a new woman replaces him. I fear for the transphobia I might face, I fear for the violence I could encounter, and I ask myself: why the fuck am I doing this?

When I'm absolutely honest with myself, an awful lot of the crap looses its meaning when looked at too closely. The genetic definitions we use for the binary sexes have many counter examples. Stereotypical gender expressions have all kinds of outliers. Things like race and ethnicity become vague to the point of meaningless when closely examined. The structures and labels we give to ourselves and to others are just a kind of social pointillism, sure it looks like a comprehensive image from far away, but is just so many dots up close.

So now I have reflected, and I am unsatisfied with being a man; I gravitate towards womanhood, but what does that even mean? Like so many other people I would actually really like to conform, just not to the box that I was assigned. Now, I'm boxless, kinda grouping forward uncertain of exactly what I'm looking for, because the concepts are just so hard to pin down. seriously, anyone tell me: what does it mean to be a woman? What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of womanhood?

I'm very confused, and kinds scared, but hell it is my life, I'm going to live it.
Alex