A good friend recently shared an important moment of her past with me. She had spent a Tuesday night with a bunch of lesbians ready to cheer on the election of Hillary Clinton and instead watched the electoral college anoint the other guy. The group then proceeded to cram the remainder of their drinking for the year into one evening.
The next day she woke up in a home that wasn't her own, with a good friend looking over her, cooking her hangover breakfast, and making sure she was taken care of. Then she looked my friend straight in her eyes and said
hey, [deadname], I have a gift for you. I was going to give you this for christmas but the world is ending, so I'm going to give it to you now. Cisgendered men don't spend this much time hanging out with lesbians.
Then, my friend, knowing what was actually being said, and knowing it was true, cried. Then she did what she needed, and wanted, to do.
Back in the present -- I started crying.
After a few years (or decades) of all this I find myself less and less interested in the minutia of my own past. Early in transition I felt a deep urge to share everything -- all those old memories and experiences. Moments where I almost knew. I wrote to understand what it was I had missed and why. I wrote to help myself understand what I really wanted. I wrote to find a way to forgive myself.
You don't get to decide what sort of trans your friends are. You don't get to decide what they do about it or when. But it's OK -- and vital actually -- to tell trans people they're trans. Even if they're not ready to hear it.
There are so many things I would change about the past, and so many things I would give that lost girl. Some of us need a gentle push to find our place in the sun.