Trans Who?

Growing up trans is like any other childhood experience. You wake up in the morning, go to school, and come home. Easy, right? For the most part it was, but being in the wrong body and disguising yourself to look somewhat “normal” was painful. Every breath I took seemed harder and harder. Every day seemed to get longer, and the very essence of life was drained from me. I was in the wrong body, and I knew it.

Society treats us with the sort of respect you’d imagine being directed towards an animal. Not a domesticated one either.. the kind of wild animal you’d find in the woods.. unnatural and scary. They treat us as though we’re part of a pack of rabid dogs. They treat us as though we’re foaming at the mouth and contagious.

Having said that, let’s get a few things straight, I’m not gay. I never was to begin with. I am transgender. I’m basically a transformer with a vagina. I’m the type of guy who doesn’t have to adjust himself every five minutes. I’m the type of guy who has a chest and who has a more feminine voice. I’m especially the type of guy who has to take a shot every two weeks to continue feeling like I’m making steps forward and not taking steps backwards.

I’m the type of friend who loves to eat burritos. I’m the type of friend who doesn’t like bright lights and who hates the dark. I’m the type of brother who will make fun of himself and then laugh along with you. I’m the type of brother who will never judge you for what choices you make. I’m the type of brother who will stand up for you when you need a friend. I’m the type of son who needs his parents. I’m the type of lover who will love you to the ends of the Earth and never let go.

I’m a human being. Just like everyone around me. I’m a human being with feelings, a heart, a brain, and a body in which I feel trapped in. I can’t really tell you what it’s like to be trans, because for some it’s a hard concept to grasp. But in the end we’re all the same, not different. We all breathe the same air, we all need to drink and eat food to survive, we all go to the bathroom, and let me say this once, IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT IS IN YOUR PANTS AS LONG AS YOU WASH YOUR HANDS.

Anyways, to get to the point of all this, growing up transgender for me was terribly difficult because I didn’t have a word for how I was feeling. I was too scared to ask my parents also because I thought to myself, “Am I weird for feeling more like a boy?” So I never actually talked to my family about how I felt about my sexuality or even my gender identity. Elementary School was easy because I had so many friends, but we eventually moved and that was a hard transition for me. I went from being friends with everybody, to being the weirdo new kid that no one would talk to. I went 5th grade year with one friend.

I then graduated from the 5th grade, and moved onto middle school. Bullying was just getting started. I didn’t have many friends to start with so when people started to pick on me. No one would be around to stand up for me, and even when people were around they would just sit and watch kids pick on me, call me names, push me around etc.

The funny part is, I was the quietest kid at that school in my grade. It didn’t matter how much I tried to blend into the walls, they still picked on me. I guess because I was the easiest person to mess with. I’d mainly ignore them, but most of the time it was hard to because they’d bother me until I’d respond, and then after that they’d push me around some more just for kicks.

I didn’t come out as transgender until after I left high school, because I didn’t feel safe to do something of that caliber, so publicly when I was still enrolled in the district because of how closed minded and mean everyone was. I didn’t come out until I was 19, and I didn’t even have the balls to tell my parents this face to face, I emailed them both separate emails, one to my mom and one to my dad, both explained what I identified as, and what it meant etc and what kind of support I’d need from them.

My mom’s response was fine, but what my dad told me kind of upset me but not because he didn’t accept me. He said, “Well, I can’t really help you much there, all I have to say is it WILL end up making your life harder NOT easier, and there WILL be people who won’t agree with you as well.” I get he was just trying to help me out by saying that not everyone’s like us, but I guess I took that as him saying he wasn’t going to support my decision and that if people don’t agree and he’s present, that he would just let it happen. It was a very confusing time for me.

Most of the people who were there for me when I first came out as trans were my trans bros. My trans guy friends who I know from Instagram, since it’s really hard to make friends in person who are also trans, I tend to resort to using instagram and other social media platforms in order to build a group of friends. Most of the people who helped me, weren’t a part of my family at all.

I started testosterone about almost 9 months ago in August, and I actually started and wasn’t going to tell my family, mainly because I already had mood issues, and was already struggling with anger etc so I guess their concern was that it would just inhibit me and make my mood worse and less manageable. So far, it was negatively impacting my mood, but recently I talked to my psychiatrist about my anger and she prescribed me Lamotrigine, which is a mood stabilizer which is supposed to calm me down when I get angry. It’s been helping immensely and my anger and mood have been significantly better, so much better that I was hoping soon I would have a chance to speak with my primary so I can up my dose of Testosterone back up a little maybe to 150 mg, because currently I’m taking 100 mg of hrt and my changes are happening slower than others, and it’s causing my dysphoria to spike because I’m not the hairiest guy first of all so I have yet to grow a ton of facial hair.

Instagram has both helped and inhibited my transition, helped me because I can look at other trans guys and see that I can get fit etc even if I start at 117 lbs, but inhibited mainly due to seeing guys who have already gone through their surgeries and are far enough along in their transition to grow facial hair normally, after a while those kinds of posts start to make me feel like I’m not progressing as fast as other guys and that I’m not getting anywhere period. Which in my opinion, I should focus more on my own transition and not how someone else’s transition is going for them.
So in the end, really the only person I should focus on sometimes is myself, because in the end, sometimes you only have yourself to keep your head up and motivation as strong as it was when you first started.

Story submitted by Preston