In ancient Mesopotamia, the hero Gilgamesh climbed mountains, fought giants, and betrayed goddesses. In modern-day Melbourne, Gilgamesh has an even bigger challenge: a job in corporate finance.

For Gil, the challenge has never been succeeding within the system, but deciding how much of himself the system gets to define.

His gender journey hasn’t been an epic story of conquest, but rather a heroic refusal to participate in other people’s outdated myths.

“It's understanding that I don't have to fit into a specific box or a narrative or a type or a look … I don't have to make myself easy to understand,” says Gil.

“It's just about trying to get rid of all those default expectations that I didn't sign up to.”

The first act

“My parents were Vietnamese refugees, and I was the eldest,” says Gil.

“‘Eldest immigrant daughter’ means a certain package of expectations placed on you as being really mature for your age, like being the role model for both your parents and your siblings. It was, I guess, the expectations around what it meant to be a girl.”

Fulfilling this role meant that Gil often felt more like a utility, like a human Siri, than an individual. Alongside this work came confusing rules about what Gil could do when he wasn’t attending his household duties.

“I had to stop doing judo at the time because my mum said girls can't have too big of muscles … It's a contact sport, so it's a lot of physical touch, and she also said it's really inappropriate for girls to do that. … Actually, they sent me to an all girls school in the first place because they thought boys would be a distraction. Like there’s this theoretical man somewhere just having such a bad influence on me if I were to meet him.”

Gil came to realise that his parents would never be able to see him for who he truly was, but only in the terms of the function they’d assigned him.

“Once I became old enough, what I realised was the relationship that I had with my parents and my siblings was quite unbalanced, as in what was asked of me was a lot of emotional labour, a lot of being the bigger person, a lot of doing things for them … and realising that I'm not able to get reciprocity in return,” he says.

“My parents didn't really know how to be there for me emotionally. Like, if I opened up about, for example, being bullied by girls at school … they only knew how to sort of shut that down and say, ‘You're only there to study. You don't need friends.’”

“I think they cared in their own way. But it just never quite landed in the way that I needed.”

Revising the story

Lacking support at home, Gil looked for community among friends, but connections always came with gendered strings attached.

“I’d have [girl] friends that would sit me down and say ‘Look Gil, you don't text like a girl, you're not using enough emojis. You're not softening your language enough.’”

“I was in a lot of environments where I was the only girl there. … It was really hard to build friendships with boys because, I think, the way boys are raised there's a lack of emotional intimacy … so if you are someone who's a good listener and is vulnerable, all of a sudden, there's romantic tones.”

These experiences made Gil feel like he didn’t fit in anywhere, and when he looked for representation in stories he couldn’t find anyone like him there either.

“What's tricky about figuring out your gender growing up is the lack of representation of gender diversity in media,” he observes.

“I read a lot of manga growing up – specifically shōjo manga. And all of the series that I ended up resonating with the most were always the ones where the women, in certain circumstances, had to pretend to be guys.”

Following this thread helped Gil unravel the expectations that had been imposed on him since childhood.

He realised that it wasn’t just that other people’s ideas chafed like hand-me-down clothes, but that nothing about them, not even the gender, fit him at all. Being forced to grow up too fast meant he’d outgrown the identity he wore to keep other people comfortable.

Gil had always worked hard to live up to the kind of person others had wanted him to be. But without any role models for the type of man he wanted to become, he didn’t know where to look to find a new self.

“Part of my gender journey is I am looking for a specific expression of masculinity that is very hard to come by,” Gil says.

“I'm also trying to become myself [at the same time]. And constantly tweaking that without really having a blueprint is... interesting.”

Once again Gil realised that if he wanted to have a nice identity, he couldn’t rely on others to make one for him. He was just going to have to do it all himself.

Ripping up the script

Gil’s transition is just one step in a larger journey towards figuring out who he is.

“Gender's one part of it, but it's about deconstructing all the roles that have been assigned to me,” he states.

“Transitioning sort of just became a natural step after figuring out all the other identity stuff that I had. If anything, it almost feels easy for me in the sense that it wasn't such a big hurdle to try and overcome or feel vulnerable about.”

Learning he was neurodivergent also helped explain why social rules seemed arbitrary and relationships felt difficult. Putting himself in different situations revealed that his social standing was often more about perception rather than anything he was doing well or wrong.

“When I started working with my first team [at his corporate job], my work was great. But the feedback I got was around my personality, being someone who was too outspoken, inviting myself to things, or putting my hand up for [too many] different things. And then in my second team, all of a sudden those same traits became strengths.”

Insights like this, and the physical changes that came from testosterone and top surgery, gave Gil the physical comfort and self-assurance to stop caring about other people’s opinions. This means he could put his energy towards cultivating inner strength rather than a socially acceptable persona.

“Gender expression, to me, is less about how to appear outwards,” explains Gil.

“It's not about having certain hair, like dressing a certain way. It's more about thinking about what sort of characteristic traits I want to embody more of. So, for example, focusing more on calmness, peace, stability, and compassion is sort of where I've landed on at the moment. And then sitting with that and seeing where else I can go.”

Now Gil’s more comfortable with himself, he’s able to enjoy life rather than being pulled into other people’s epic tales.

“I think for me it’s less about finding grand stories, or becoming something grand or something worth celebrating,” he reflects.

“It’s about … becoming more okay with just existing. … Just being happy with being here, being alive, being confusing. Not necessarily understanding it either. Just being as I am and then just letting everything sort of work itself out around me.”