As a transgender woman who did everything that she could to medically and surgically transition, I also was not fond of the term transition. I used to think of myself as not changing into something different but as becoming a more complete and mature version of the person I had always been. I preferred the term “evolve” to describe the process. My therapist liked it as well.

it is an old cliché, but I often had the vision of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. Both are complete representations of the creature, but one is the final, most complete version. That is the way I like to think about myself today.