My Transition Diary

I just posted a comment over at Questioning Transphobia (which I highly recommend, by the way) about my own story, which I rarely tell outside of Trans 101 speaking gigs, and it was such a relief to put it out there that I thought it should be posted to my own journal as well. (Do I have to call this a blog now? I'm old school and it's a journal as far as I'm concerned.)

As always, I feel obligated to put a disclaimer on the front of this. This is my story, not "the Trans story". Many Trans people don't have inklings until puberty or later, and many don't come out until they're well into adulthood; many Trans people don't feel "trapped in the wrong body" (nor did I, actually - specific parts of my body needed adjusting, but I didn't want someone else's body!) and many don't have any major problem with their anatomy at all; there is no one way to be Trans. There are as many ways to be Trans as there are Trans people. If you are questioning your gender in any way and you don't relate to my story at all, that does not mean you're not Trans. Check out the LiveJournal communities transgender, genderqueer, and newtrans - between the three of them, you'll likely find some folks who feel similarly to how you do, no matter what that is. Okay? Okay.

I'm not going to write my whole sordid tale here - it's more a list of facts than anything else. So I shall put it in list form!

• I've been completely convinced that I was a boy since I was two (yes, I remember being two).
• I have never known a moment's doubt or denial about being a boy.
• I thought that the idea of my being a lesbian was absurd because lesbians are girls, and have never felt the slightest connection to a lesbian identity or the lesbian community.
• I denied my attraction to boys because I thought I had to be straight (and straight meant being attracted only to girls, my anatomy be damned) - not because I thought that I wouldn't be allowed to transition if anyone knew I liked boys, but because I was homophobic and thought that it just wasn't okay for a boy to like other boys.
• I knew I was Transgender the instant I found out it was a word. The definition I came across said that FTM people "were born female but see themselves as partly to fully masculine". (I am not interested in debating the pros and cons of defining FTMs that way; that's not what this post is for. Go debate it somewhere else, but be aware that this was over ten years ago, and the leaflet in question has likely been majorly updated or else discontinued altogether - I'm not sure which. It was written by Nancy Nangeroni, a local Trans activist, and she's still active in the community, but I don't know if she's still writing leaflets. You can find her over at http://gendervision.org/.) The point is that I read it and immediately said "Oh my god, that's me", and - again - had no doubt whatsoever.
• I was afraid of starting T, and for three years after I came out, I didn't want to go on T. This was because I don't do change well at all, and a couple of other reasons that I don't feel comfortable putting in a public post, unfortunately. I started T because the misery accompanied with bleeding every month - I was sinking into serious depression for one week out of every five - finally outweighed my fear of any other changes, and I became perfectly willing to put up with anything if it meant I'd never bleed again. As it turned out, I quite liked the other changes as well, which came slowly because I deliberately stayed on a low dose so I had plenty of time to adjust. I've been on T for over 8 years now and still shave every two days rather than daily, although I have a decent shadow by the time 48 hours is up. I could shave every day, but there's little enough hair after just 24 hours that I worry about irritating my skin, so I let it go a little longer.
• I identify as queer, of course, and not straight at all. Additionally, I like being Trans and wouldn't trade it; if I weren't Trans, I wouldn't be the same person. I have no desire to magically go back in time and be born male, nor to wake up tomorrow in a factory-standard male body even if I retained my past and my current sense of self. I would, however, like to have a magic hysto so I could be rid of those organs without having to go through surgery, but you can't have everything in life. This is just to throw a bit of a monkey wrench in my "perfect" traditional narrative.

All this really is my experience. I have not modified it to appease any gatekeepers or the Trans community or anyone else, and I can't help it if it's pretty textbook in a lot of ways. My story is valid too, and it needs some air. I'm tempted to repeat my disclaimer here, but you can scroll up and reread it if need be. Your narrative is valid, and so is mine, and so is everyone else's.

My response to this comment on a LiveJournal post, not quoted directly because the post is locked:

Thanks for saying that every Trans person has doubts - EVERY SINGLE ONE, no exceptions - and that those who say they've never had doubts are lying or deluded. I'm not going to post a comment letting you know that my experience doesn't fit with your opinion, because your comment is what the OP needs to hear at the moment, and my refuting what you say is self-serving and counterproductive - all the more so because you probably won't believe me. And I don't need a pile of comments telling me that yes, I am lying or deluded, and I should shut up until I'm willing to admit the truth, because I have a feeling that's what I'd get.

But you know what?

I have never doubted my gender identity.*

Never once.

I'm not lying or deluded; I never saw a therapist who demanded that kind of narrative from me, or tried to push me in that direction. And lying about my identity has never been something I was interested in doing. I never pretended to feel like a girl or to like things that I didn't like, not for one second. And I won't lie now and say that I had doubts, or times of denial, or that I went through a try-desperately-to-be-"normal" phase, because I didn't.

I have been unsure about whether I wanted to take hormones. I have believed that I was mentally ill because of my conviction that I was a boy, and that I would eventually be institutionalized for it. I have been afraid that I would never be able to be seen for who I really was. I have felt completely, utterly, inescapably alone.

But I have never doubted that I knew who I was. I have never thought of myself as a girl, even while thinking that I must be crazy. (The "I must be crazy" realization came at about age 3; the conviction that I was a boy came at age 2, and yes, I remember being 2. Please stop asking me that.) When nothing else made sense and I knew nothing else about myself or anyone else, I knew that I was a boy inside.

I know I'm very much in the minority - actually I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone else say that they never had any doubts, which is all the more reason for me to not hijack the thread demanding to be seen and recognized and validated. But that is still my truth, and in light of a recent post I made, I am airing it. It's just as valid as everyone else's, and I really don't appreciate being told I don't exist just because my narrative is quite unusual.

 
*Now my sexual orientation - that's another matter. But that's not what this post is about.