I've tried to start this article several times, each time with a new beginning and a new hook and realized that is not the way to start this. I am not going to lie and say I'm writing this to change someone's mind or to affect a community. In order to do this without becoming too detached and unemotional about a topic very important to me, I am going to write this for myself and, hopefully, someone else can read this and understand what I went through and am still going through. If it helps someone else I guess I've accomplished something. If not, at least I can say I did it.
Being trans isn't fun. Or glamorous, or anything like that. It's hard work and bitter and exhausting. Sure, there are people whose parents are supportive and there are people who have known their whole lives that they were born in the wrong body but for everyone else, there is a lot of fighting involved. And it usually stems from a limited understanding. I believed from a young age that I could be anyone I wanted regardless of gender. I did not understand that there was a difference between boys and girls and that I had to be one or the other, and that choice had been made for me at birth. In my small, easily excitable mind, I saw "Peter Pan" and thought "I'm going to be Peter Pan one day" when all of the other little girls dreamed of being Wendy. It's not that I wanted to be a boy, it's that I didn't see that I couldn't be one whenever I wanted. That I couldn't just change my body at the drop of a hat.
My body did not matter to me until I got into high school and got a girlfriend. Half the time I was gender-confused. With my parents' ideology I still had a somewhat negative view of same-sex relationships so when I felt female, I was conflicted, but when I felt male, it didn't matter so much to me that I was dating a girl. For a long time, I didn't understand this jumping between the two. At no single moment did I want to be male or female. I was attracted to the idea of the perfectly androgynous being and, only once I reached college and realized that I am agender, did I strive for that. I started buying binders and guy clothes and tried to make a balance between the feminine and masculine. However, a lot of my gender expression was impeded. I would visit my mother's house and find my binders missing or my button up shirts gone. My mother started taking them, even going so far as to search through my clothes while I was in the shower. She never addressed this but would get into long talks about how I was her "baby girl" and that she was so happy when I was born because it meant she could have a girl around to chat and shop and do girly things with. I never really cared for those things but not because I'm trans. She never understood that this was a personality issue, not a gender one.
Because of this rejection of the idea of me being trans, I have mostly walked through my confusion and transition on my own. Aside from friends dressing me in gender neutral clothes or the occasional "I don't care what gender you are" I keep my gender to myself. Since it was always easier than getting "what is 'agender?'" Trying to navigate a world of surgeries and hormones alone is not something I recommend. It's never ending questions of "Who do I talk to?" "Should I even try hormones?" and "How the hell am I supposed to afford all of this?" which are hard to answer when you're eighteen and alone. I realize now of course that I could have reached out to the trans community and gotten advice from people who have been through the same things I have but because I never felt trans, I felt like an impostor in the community. Since it was normal for me to feel different on the inside I thought I didn't belong because I didn't struggle. But I did struggle. And I still am struggling. I had just convinced myself that what I had been through didn't matter, as someone else had it worse than me. So who was I to show up and start talking about my childhood when the person next to me might have been braver than I and come out earlier than me and been treated worse than I had. I know it's a silly reason but when you're alone and confused you can convince yourself of anything.
None of this has yet been resolved. We still dance around each other, never really saying anything. When I'm around my mother, I wear her idea of the ideal feminine clothing. I've stopped bringing it up to my dad, who just can't wrap his head around being transgender at all (though at least he's trying). A part of me fears that my parents will never understand that I was born in the wrong body and how uncomfortable I feel trapped in my own skin. Though it would be easy to burn bridges and just say I'll never talk to them again, it's still hard. They are the only people I must be accepted by and they're the only people I've told so far who haven't. It would be easier, I think, if I were just a transgender man, but being a minority within a minority is a difficult concept for people of their generation to grasp. That isn't to say I have no one. I have a best friend who's trying not to call me by my birth name and apologizes every time she accidentally does. I have a brother who is the greatest brother in the entire world and who loves me for who I am and would defend me till the day we die. If you read this and see yourself in these words, I hope you have people like my friend and my brother in your life. And I hope you can be yourself and that maybe someday I can too.
