“I went home and slipped off my dress, praying I’d wake up a normal boy. What was I going to tell my mom? Would my family still love me? Am I going to be safe? I hoped to fake my death and live as a boy, nobody knowing my past.”
‘I know you’re a boy,’ she whispered, tucking me in and kissing my forehead. My eyes widened. I hid who I was and planned to never tell a soul.’
‘He asked, ‘What parts do you have?’ I said, ‘EXCUSE ME?’ I was uncomfortable being interrogated. He pressured me. I refused. He decided putting his hands on me was the ‘right’ thing to do.’
“I met a doctor I hadn’t seen before. I lifted my shirt to show him. Accidentally, I lifted it a bit too far, revealing my scars. He stared. I knew he was staring. Instead of doing the right thing, he decided to ‘find out for himself.’”
‘I remember one day looking at her and secretly wishing I was born a girl. When I saw myself in the mirror with a wig and nails painted I wanted to cry, it felt so ‘right’.’
“I became closer to accepting myself. That was until the night I found out I would be having a child. That moment I realized my life was no longer my own.”
‘During high school, I decided it was time to tell my family. The thought of losing them was scary. I would return to school after break, for the first time, as myself.’
“To others, I was in need of fixing. In an attempt to make me more masculine and ‘grow out of it,’ I was placed in sports. I feared what I would face.”
‘I want you to know about the intrusive, vivid nightmares I have about my child being laughed at. Ridiculed. Assaulted. Murdered.’
“I want you to know about the nights I lay awake, helpless and shaking. I want to tell my story of our family, who fiercely love someone being attacked and can do very little about it.”
‘I’ve never been with anyone with this lifestyle nor have I have been with a girl, but now that I’ve gotten to know him, I don’t want it any other way. He is the love of my life.’
“I didn’t think someone like her would be willing to love someone like me. But I was wrong.”
‘When She Was Born My Son.’
“‘You are a boy, hunny,’ I would say to him gently. By the age of 4, he was flat out denying this could be true.”
My 86-year-old grandmother, learning I’m trans: ‘You’re a beautiful woman and, no matter who you become, I love you.’
“You’ve always been so kind and sensitive. Now I see femininity in those memories. I’m proud of you for recognizing who you are and living as your true self.”
