In case it wasn’t made brutally obvious by my picture, social media, and newsletter description, I’m what right-wing weirdos refer to as a transgender.
I wasn’t always like this, in fact, I spent most of my life as a regular old American boy. I played video games, I pined after girls, and I tried my best to appreciate the body I was given.
But something kept calling to me.
The best way I can describe transness to a cis person is to think of living as the wrong gender like treading water. Most days it isn’t hard to float on your back, but sometimes you have to kick your feet to stay afloat, and while that’s easy in stints it gets tiring after a while, and if you ever slip up for even a moment you’ll start to sink. Some days are easy, some are hard, but no matter what, every day is work.
There’s something existential about sinking into dysphoria, especially if you haven’t had exposure to transness or lack an accepting support system, something in your brain might just feel off without any concrete reason for why. You know that something’s wrong, your body knows something’s wrong, like a pain burrowing into your skin.
I remember I used to look at women and feel a yearning that I didn’t understand. I was attracted to women so I assumed it was that but deep down I knew it was different, that there was always a twinge of sadness connected to those feelings. Women always seemed so light, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would ever want to be a man.
It’s so funny looking back now, reflecting on the thoughts I used to have, it all seems so obvious. I might not be living every day as happy as I possibly could but a year and a half into my transition, and it was the best choice I ever made.
The first time I remember wanting to be a woman was when I was 7 years old. Like any other little girl, I wanted to wear my mom’s shoes and stuff my shirt to look like I had boobs, but since the skin I was wearing gave the appearance of ‘boy’ it came across as provocative, wrong, and instead of asking me if I wanted to be a girl, my parents asked me if I liked boys, if I was gay. Well they were half right, I’m definitely gay now.
I like to imagine how… happy younger me would be with the person I’m becoming. I always cry when I think about that, in fact, I’m wiping tears off my keyboard right now. That all the years I spent praying to some god to wake up as a woman, in whatever form, would pay off. I wish I could reach back and hug them, wipe their tears, and protect them from the brainwashing my toxic father tried to instill in me.
More than anything else I wish I could reach out to the little girl I was and tell them that they were right, that boyhood wasn’t right for me. I try to live without regret but it’s not wrong to say that would have saved me a lot of sorrow and heartache and a lot of lost years.
I wrote an article for Business Insider a few months back and the first line of that article explains it best I think.
“From the moment I was born, I had hypertoxic masculinity imposed on my lanky childhood frame like an ill-fitting costume.”
I don’t love my body all the time but I couldn’t imagine ever feeling like that again. I may struggle but my body feels like a place I belong.
To the little girl struggling to feel like herself, I love you with all my heart and I spend every day trying to make you proud.