Art Academy Intro!

Hey guys, I just had the intro for Art Academy. Actual classes and such will start monday the 1st, so after the weekend. But for me, THIS was the 'big thing', as I'd see my new classmates for the first time... as a guy!
I still dress the same way as I used to and always will, the big difference is that NORMALLY I don't actually say I'm a guy, either because people who know me from "before" are there, or because I am simply too scared they won't believe me.
I stepped over this fear this time, however, because I simply CAN NOT live this lie anymore and happily tell new friends I'm a girl and just ignore the way it makes me feel. I cannot live my life like it's a theatre show anymore.

Day 1
The first day, also the scariest day. I arrived at 13:00 at the main area and sat down with the rest to listen to some speech. All people whom I didn't know and who seemed to already be buddy-buddy together. During the speech I felt some stinging pains in my low belly area, and a slight feeling of wet dampness which I'd associate with wetting my pants IF I weren't an adult, and IF I weren't physically configured in such a way that I was shipped with a womb. In other words: I recognised this as the oh so dreaded Shark Week. While I sat there, a woman was rambling about something, it must have been important but it all flew past me. I didn't record a single word of it, and I was completely enveloped in my own world, which was crumbling down on me as she spoke. All I could think of was "Why now? Damn not now! Not now! Not now! Body STOP THIS NONSENSE! Aaaah!" or at least something in that nature.
As soon as the talking stopped, which felt like an eternity, I slipped into the men's toilet as quickly as I could, and because I had no pads or other shark week emergency stuff with me, I fixed something up with toilet paper. I felt sick and had quite bad cramps, add to that the dysphoria and you understand I just wanted to be alone, away from all these people whom I had never met.
My heart beat like crazy each time my name was called and even more if someone asked me what it was. I could just feel their stares, and I'd expect a "What? But you aint a guy!" any moment. But no one said anything. Not when I said my name, not when I went to the toilet in plain sight. Though the fear and the tenseness remained.
That day we gladly didn't walk around much, and we just got some easy but boring factual information about the study, the academy, and so forth.

Day 2
This day I prepared myself for the nightmare called shark week, but still I can never FULLY prepare.
We went on a trip through town, and visited various art exhibitions, I will spare you the details but they were really interesting.
We also had to walk INSANELY much though, and due to bad logistic planning we had to wait a lot. It was hot outside, and I was pretty much dying in my binder. I couldn't change my shark week stuff much, which nearly caused leakage and would have been my greatest nightmare ever. (leakage is BAD for a girl, but VERY VERY BAD for a guy) Also, changing pads in the men's toilet is HELL. For the people who are lucky enough to never have used or opened one, I tell you this: their packaging is everything BUT discrete. It is impossible to open and then replace them without making insanely loud tearing noises. SHRRRT SHRR SHRRRRRRRRT. Which is embarrassing enough in the women's toilets, but simply nerve wrecking in the men's. I mean, in the woman's, such sounds are normal, in the men's... god knows what they think you're doing. And if you already look and sound ambiguously male, well, they might add 1 and 1 up and start asking questions.
Aside from the heat, shark week, and some nerve wrecking moments, it was not a wholly bad day. My classmates are great, and the reason I feel uncomfortable comes from within me, not from them. I also felt a bit better and more open to interacting and talking that day, though at the end my energy reserves were completely wasted.

Day 3
This day we started a two-day surprise film project. We all had to bring unspecified "useful" things to use in the films we'd be making. There were several subjects, all pretty awesome in my opinion, and I picked the stop-motion (also because it was the only one where I wouldn't have to be on screen myself). Even though we were with a big group, discussing and idea-making went smooth, and we were overflowing with good ideas and enthusiasm. Also, the first two days of my shark week are always VERY intense and pretty dreadful, but the later days then quickly diminish in strength and intensity. So the cramps weren't as bad, and I only needed to change once. Still uncomfortable, but much better than the two previous days.
People also started calling me Erik when they saw me or wanted to ask me something, which was just great, and we worked together rather productively on our stop motion film. (it was really fun!)
I had a bit of a crisis moment at home when the pasta I had to make for the picnic (we were having a picnic and everybody had to bring something) seemed really screwed up, but when we mixed it with the rest it tasted pretty great.

Day 4
Today, and the last day of the intro. I went there much more at ease and with an enthusiastic mood this time, I really wanted to finish our stop motion film. Due to our great efficiency (I have never seen a group of 20 people (yes, that many picked stop motion!) be that efficient together! Wow!) we finished the filming far ahead of schedule. Some tech-savy people would do the editing, and we (the rest) had to wait till it was done, which was pretty boring and took ages, but also was a nice opportunity to talk with people a bit more.
However, then something happened which shook my world. I was showing my magic cards to a very nice Chinese girl (she also likes fantasy, gaming, the same kind of music, and MTG and I just had a good connection with her), we talked a bit about them and deck building, after which she said: 'Yeah, I was thinking about taking mine too, but I thought: 'SHE probably won't take HER decks anyway.'" She all said this rather quickly, followed by a smile, completely unaware of what her words had done. They hit me like two arrows, and I had to retreat to the toilet for a short while to get grips of myself again. I didn't understand why she called me "she" even though she knew my name was Erik, and I concluded I must simply NOT PASS AT ALL. Just not at all. I felt terrible. I wanted to go home. And I almost did, until at some moment when I was lazily drawing and talking a bit with some people, another girl clearly referred to me multiple times as "he" and "him" and "his work", as she did this it had the opposite effect to me. I started grinning widely, became more relaxed and open and chatted with her and some others quite a while. (about drawing, techniques, styles, art... kinda the stereotypical stuff you'd expect from art academy students, haha)
After that I felt so much better I decided to stay for dinner too (as they changed from pizza to risotto, making it gluten free!), and the Chinese girl now asked me how I got the name Erik, clearly noting that I am physically female and that she was confused by a female with a male name. While I was surrounded by some new friends, people I at least started to like and trust to a certain extend, I just decided to play open cards with her and tell it. I said "Yeah, yknow, you are probably confused about whether I am a boy or a girl, and you see... I am born a girl but I identify as a..." at that point the girl who called me he and him earlier interrupted and blurted out: "Just say you're transgender, that's clear enough!" everybody nodded and agreed, and she said she thought I looked very much male except for my voice. The Chinese girl, however, then said "I immediately saw you were a girl. You just are a girl." or something like that. Because I had started to like her in the past few days, I explained to her that I understood her opinion, but that it was extremely hurtful to me. She didn't say anything about it after that, and I still see her as a friend (unless she won't stop it), but it still really hit me hard. Yknow, I don't SHOW much when you call me female, I just twitch a bit, that's all, but what other people DON'T see is what goes on under the surface. A storm of dysphoria, doubt, fear, sadness... much more... is unleashed, and the moment it happened will keep cycling through my mind over and over and over and over again.
However I don't think that Chinese girl was really trying to hurt me, and everybody really responded positively and started calling me he and him more as well.

It wasn't all fun n games, but it was mainly good, and I think I'll just do a coming out to the rest of my classmates soon too, because then I can finally breathe again and stop worrying they might "see it", question me or misgender me. Then it's just clear for everyone why I have such a feminine voice and total lack of facial hair, and they (hopefully) won't doubt my gender anymore.