“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.’
‘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.”
