This is a hard essay for me to write. It’s not because I’m not proud of where I’ve come from and it’s not because I don’t mind sharing.
In the recent weeks with a major celebrity once again using a very large platform to speak out against transgender people again and with where I am in my journey, I felt it was time to share.
I was 15 when I first internally referred to myself as a girl. I remember seeing an episode of Jerry Springer where he had a trans woman on who had given herself an at home orchiectomy. For those unfamiliar, an orchiectomy is a procedure where testicles are removed from the body. As the audience reacted with shock and dismay I can remember thinking that this woman, who was beautiful to me, was the only person I’d ever heard make sense. This terrified the shit out of me.
Before then, I didn’t really know what being transgender was. I mean I knew that I would play with my female cousins a lot because their mother would babysit us. I knew that since I was 12 I had been “cross dressing” in secret. I knew I had been caught by a classmate who had seen me through a window to our living room. I knew this because we were playing basketball, me and some of the boys from town, when he called me a cross dresser. From then on I was worried about having the shit kicked out of me by him until he was arrested for trying to rob a gas station years later.
In my tiny town of 400 people there was freedom to do some things. There were no police and so people did a lot of drugs or you could drink and drive. You could even burn leaf piles and shoot guns in the backyard. But what I was doing I knew there was no freedom for, not there. From that day forward, I knew I had to shut down as much about me that may have read feminine or else I may not have survived. But how? How did I know this?
It’s funny how I was taught to hate myself before I even knew who I was. It wasn’t hard to find jokes about gay or trans people in media. Even though conservatives like to pretend that Obama basically invented trans people, watch media from the 90’s. People knew we were there because we existed as the punch line at best and the villain at worst.
And yet despite being villainized in media before I even had the words, it didn’t stop me from having the same recurring dream that I had had since I was 13 years old, that one of the girls from my school (a different one each time) taught me how to be like them.
Besides Jerry Springer, the only other place that had actual trans representation at that time was porn. Let me repeat that, I basically learned who I was through watching Jerry Springer and porn because those were the only places that trans women were even shown. Not exactly the recipe for convincing anyone to want to do anything.
It did not matter the political party. If you go and look back on the media from the time, yes, you’ll see more conservative shows make fun of gay and trans people but you’ll also see clips of Jon Stewart on the Daily Show making jokes about us too.
There was no place to go as far as religion goes and I knew that. I grew up wanting to wear girl clothes but couldn’t for reasons of God and society, etc. I knew this because when I would copy my sister my mom would remind me of this. There was no place there either.
My family is fairly conservative. My dad doesn’t vote or really care about politics that much. I know he liked Obama near the end of his term but also was fine with Trump because he didn’t think he’d screw up the economy.
My mom is very much a social conservative. I can remember voting for the first time in 2004 and at the time there was a movement to amend state constitutions to define marriage as being between a man and a woman. I voted against it because even though I knew things I wasn’t ready to admit I just didn’t even see that amendment being around by 2020. Thankfully all of that stuff was overturned in 2015.
But as I came home, we didn’t really talk about presidential choices, the question became about the amendment and when I didn’t lie and say I voted for it, the lecture after was long.
When you don’t have seemingly any place that wants you, it’s an incredibly lonely feeling. Carrying something that has been made the butt of jokes makes that lonely like a weight. There were many times I decided I couldn’t carry that weight anymore. There were nights where I would just lay there and think that if I could somehow die in my sleep, it would be peaceful and people wouldn’t be hurt. When I would think about that it never crossed my mind that a seemingly healthy teen dying is going to hurt a lot of people.
At that point I made the choice to consciously just accept defeat. My dreams were impossible. I still wanted to have a love life, I still wanted to have a family. So I dated and tried. I believed that with just finding the right person, maybe I could overcome these things that had been plaguing me.
For every time I would briefly let myself walk my normal walk, the one with the hip sway, until people made fun of me and I walked like professional wrestlers for 4 years of high school. For every time that I worried that because I ran with a limp wrist that people would figure things out. For the brief few weeks of my teenage years that I stole a hormone patch from my mom and could fully concentrate in classes for the first time in years.
Maybe everyone else was right?
I was far too scared to go to therapists. I was too scared to do most things. At that time I spent most of my time in my bedroom, online, where what I looked like didn’t really matter. It was an escape that probably saved my life.
From then on I had one goal, to get to a place where I could dress however I wanted.
I didn’t really want to go to college. But I looked at it as maybe my best chance to achieve the dream. I was smart but I didn’t apply myself because I didn’t want the attention. This was a direct result of being emotionally neglected by a narcissistic parent and a result of dealing with gender dysphoria.
But I went and I made friends and I had a girlfriend and I changed my major a few times. The goal however always remained the same. Just get to a place where I have some room to be myself.
The economy crashed, Obama was elected, the internet grew communities of like minded people, things started to change. I bought herbal hormones online. They didn’t really work but they made me feel better from a mental standpoint. Because I felt better I was able to do things like take comedy classes like I had always wanted. I met someone I liked and who would take me on the craziest adventures.
It got to the point where we were moving in together and I knew I had to say something. I knew I wanted to say something because I didn’t want there to be that moment where I had a wife, kids, and was 50 and was like “I let my life go this way because I was afraid to actually live.”
I remember the conversation. It was a late night talk like so many of our discussions had been. She had this thing where she would keep me awake for as long as she could, even if I would have to work at 6 am. I later learned this was a tactic abusers use.
Anyways, laying in bed I told her that I may be transgender. I didn’t know for sure or at least I wasn’t confident enough to say I actually was. I wouldn’t get that confidence to just do it for another 5 years. She turned to me and thanked me for sharing and that we would get through it.
Little did I know that getting through it meant abuse. It meant she was going to try to break me of it.
To make things more complicated, we were getting married. When I first met my now ex, she had said nice things to me, which was not normal. I had grown up in a house that wasn’t big on compliments so just being told I wasn’t terrible was a relief that kept me in place.
We would have days where I would get to experiment and it all felt so dizzying. For the first time I was really there. Some days when I was feeling bold I would leave the house, existing ever so briefly in the world before quickly getting the mail and hustling indoors to catch my breath.
It was very exhilarating but I was also convinced that the moment anyone saw me, I would get attacked so I made sure to not linger outside too much.
For every experimental day I had though, there was constant shaming. There were almost daily arguments. There were weird experiments she would do where she would call me mr and sir during sex. I was also diagnosed through her expertise in communications with having every mental health issue under the sun but gender dysphoria. Then came daily clothing checks and violence.
A year and a half after we were married we were divorced. After filing we went out for lunch together. I can remember it vividly. We were at a mall near where the Jefferson County government building is. She bought me a shampoo from bath and body works and welcomed me to womanhood. When I asked her if she was serious she told me no and that she hoped I would die on the streets. By then I was already living out of my car.
I rented a hotel room the first day I took hormones. Because I wanted to feel special. As much I appreciated any place to stay at that point, having a nice room just felt right for an occasion like this one. So there I was, in the hotel with the dinosaur fossils in them, one of Denver’s quirkiest hotels, on the first day of the rest of my life.
I took hormones for six months before telling anyone. It was a sort of heaven that I got to exist in. For the first time my mind was finally getting the right hormones. I look back on that time as a great awakening but it was also really fucking hard. For all the new found energy I had I still lived in my car and when I wasn’t living in my car I shared a room with someone that was illegally squatting and never told me. One day I came home to a note from the police, then came the apartments rightful owner, and then I had to move within 24 hours for the second time in a few months.
After that I spent my time in a motel room with roaches. The owners were nice but it was what it was, a place where people who are really struggling go to when nowhere else in society wants them and they can afford the weekly fee. My new found freedom was constantly being challenged by the scars of what it took to get there. I dealt with drinking when I shouldn’t have and would mix alcohol with these opioids that I was given for having a herniated disc in my back. When I did this I would not only not feel anything, but I would also be unable to leave my bed. I called this stepping into the winner’s circle but goddamn am I lucky it didn’t kill me.
On a visit home to see family, I finally told them I was on the good stuff and they responded the way I thought they would, which is poorly.
My family struggled with emotional support before any of this but really struggled then. I always remember this time for being blamed for my dad relapsing into drinking again (but not by him), my mom taking up smoking again, my sister asking me if I was really sure I wanted to mutilate my body, and my grandma being unable to look me in my eye, and the only time a human being ever told me explicitly that they don’t respect me. Such a nice homecoming that I left again as soon as I could and have rarely visited. The last time I was home to see family was Christmas of 2017.
Living in Chicago, I was at least close to my doctor, as the area I lived in in Michigan before had no one nearby that would even accept an appointment from me because I was trans and didn’t have insurance.
I had to try and balance being as out as I could be at work with trying to keep my job. Eventually my back went but not before I had said something to some people I thought I could trust. I even received a promotion, the first one in my entire life. But when that happened one of those people told me they respected me but were going to keep doing whatever they wanted. Some respect.
As I moved slowly out, I had coworkers strongly try to convince me to grow a beard, I was called a man with tits at the work Christmas party. If this was what freedom felt like, then what was the fucking point?
I finally moved away into a more accepting space and started to explore more. I changed my name socially to some people. Eventually changing it all together. I lost weight. I started letting myself be seen more femininely. Every step of the way I would get a phone call from my mom. Or I would get instagram messages from my step dad telling me no one cared. Or I would get people at the train station telling me my painted nails were fucked up.
When you come out like that, even slowly, what I’ve learned is there is no acceptable level of gender bending to many people. These categories are very rigid. That’s a lesson I take with me every time I enter a public bathroom. Every time I worry about people making eye contact with me or even worse, talking to me. That’s the deal. I can do these things if I stay invisible or face social consequences for being seen.
All I ever wanted was to dress like a girl and then later on to be a woman. Once I finally stepped out, my life and my confidence improved dramatically.
With each passing day there’s a healing taking place. I don’t even think I could’ve written this 5 years ago. Not without this chapter of my life where I’m accepted on some level for who I am. I finally feel like people have my back in a way that I never expected when I had the weight on my shoulders.
When people come out and invalidate me and people like me they forget one essential fact: my gender was won, not given.
I respect that there are people out there that have genuine concerns because they aren’t as knowledgeable about dealing with trans people. I will let pronouns slip when I know people are trying hard. I still make sure to try and give as much space to cis women as I can because I love them. I don’t want anyone to feel threatened by my presence in any space. But I am a woman too and there’s not 280 characters or a long essay no matter who it’s from that can take that away from me.