From 5 to 40: My Life In Photos
Annotated with all of my memoir shorts to date
Hi! I’m Stephenie Magister ✨(follow me).
First I Was A Girl is not yet a real book…but one day it will be!
In the meantime, please enjoy this collection of photos and memoir shorts showing me from a few years after birth to a few days before I wrote this.
Note: if you need an F&F link for any of the memoirs, head to the Substack version of this article
Part 1
It’s hard to accept just how much I’ve forgotten. How much I CHOSE to forget. How much I had to forget if I wanted to survive.
But memories, like emotions, don’t exist independently. They’re as interwoven as the different parts of our bodies are to our consciousness and sense of self.
And you know what I remember? Once, I was a little girl named Stephenie.
I came from an offshoot of a cult where a man’s reputation always meant more than any harm he inflicted to a woman.
To hide the harm those men had done, my family hid me as far from the public as they could. It doesn’t get much further than a mental institution in the deepest parts of Mississippi.
In the Fall of 1996, my dad drove me, his thirteen-year-old transgender daughter, to the mental institution I’d call home for the next two years.
No way out. But then again, no desire to leave.
Chapter 1: I Am Trash
In a mental health institution for boys, a young trans girl isn’t trash. She’s a prize.
Chapter 2: KITE (a memoir short)
When I’m flat on my back, I hope to feel like I did
Chapter 3: A Trans Girl Mends A Grown Man’s Broken Heart
My superpower only worked with shopping malls and video games
Chapter 4: I Was Today Years Old When I Understood My Family Sent Me to Trans Conversion Therapy
Chapter 5: The Weird Disordered Eating Habits That Got Me Institutionalized
And the strange habits that kept me there
Chapter 6: Could You Survive Being Punished In A Mental Institution?
Chapter 7: Three (Failed) Escape Attempts From A Mental Health Facility: Attempt #1
The harder you try, the harder you fall (from the window)
Chapter 8: Three (Failed) Escape Attempts From A Mental Health Facility: Attempt #2
Pay no attention to the person behind the smoke curtain
Chapter 9: Three (Failed) Escape Attempts From A Mental Health Facility: Attempt #3
We should have known when to give up
Chapter 10: My Life In The Suicide Ranks
I promised I’d check on him when I got back
Chapter 11: What Do I Do Now That The World Didn’t End? (…yet)
I always wondered what would come next
Chapter 12: My Daily Routine In Trans Conversion Therapy Saved My Life
This one neat trick taught me how to survive
Part 2
Chapter 13: #MyFirstTime
There’s fooling around, and then there’s trying the real thing
Chapter 14: #MyFirstTime Not Getting To See The Matrix
Gonna get denied entry like it’s 1999
Chapter 15: #MyFirstTime Doing Stuff I’ll Never Do Again
My first time was definitely my last time
Chapter 16: About Me — Stephenie Magister
15 years ago, an unexpected Xmas gift set me free
Chapter 17: Memoir short: the book I risked my job to publish
From the days when I was an acquiring editor in book publishing
Part 3
Chapter 18: That One Time my Beard Saved my Life
It’s just that the one part that made it all so impressive was a lie
Chapter 19: My Brain Injury Unlocked My Super Powers — And My Kryptonite
The little-known science behind Acquired Savant Syndrome (good lord that acronym)
Chapter 20: All of My Articles On Being Raised By Narcissists (and put through trans conversion therapy)
Part 4
Chapter 21: The Same Person Without Hormones Vs With Testosterone Vs With Estrogen
It’s never too late to start the right HRT
Chapter 22: For My New Followers (and everyone else already here)
A guided meditation from a queer trans mom
Chapter 23: This Guided Meditation Helped Me Break My Trauma Bonds
I don’t normally do this but…I said goodbye to my father
Chapter 24: My Sponsor Told Me To Forgive Graciously
For the hour is certain to come
Part 5
Chapter 25: Is It Weird That I’m In Love With My Dog?
A collection of pics with a puppy smile that’ll make you fall in love with her too
Chapter 26: A message from a queer trans mom
As a trans queer mom with a desire to behave as the mom that me and all of my queer family deserved…
Part 6
Chapter 27: The Embodied Transition: Sex After Surgery
Desire, sex, and orgasm for trans women after surgery
Chapter 28: A Sex Cult Pushed Me To Break Free From My Brother
I was the sweet trans girl. If I trusted him, so could they, right?
Chapter 29: Eat, Pray, Estrogen
Chapter 30: The Twelve Steps Of Transition
Transition, like recovery, depends on the little things
Afterword
A Message For Trans Youth: Gender Dysphoria, Coping Strategies …
Until next time…
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