I’m a transgender teen from Texas — politicians and anti-trans bigots can’t erase me

As I write this, it’s been about a week since my 17th birthday. It feels strange to me. Six years ago, I came out as transgender, and four years ago I thought my life was over. At the time, I never imagined I would get this far and achieve my dream of accessing hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and finally feeling excited about my future and the person I would become. Now I’m almost an adult and have been on testosterone for about 5 months. I still feel like I’m 13 years old.

I feel like my gender story is less typical than what I’ve heard from other trans men. The story goes that they always felt like they were born in the wrong body, always preferred “men’s” toys, and always played with other boys. As a child, I never felt like I was a boy. I also never felt like a girl. I didn’t know who I was, but I didn’t care. I had the privilege of being raised by leftist parents who didn’t push anything gender-based on me. It wasn’t until school started that I started to feel different from my other friends.

Until I realized that, I thought this discomfort meant I was gay. I came out and tried to like girls, but it wasn’t me. I thought the reason I didn’t want to date men was because I was a lesbian, but I think the real reason was because I didn’t want to be his girlfriend.

Adolescence was the final straw, and after connecting the dots, I made a social transition in sixth grade. I changed my name and pronouns and it felt great. I had never felt that way about myself before. I was sure of who I was and proud of who I was. But that was in 2019. Shortly after, the coronavirus pandemic took hold and we all skipped school and were on computers all day. The years leading up to the new transition were strange.

I didn’t experience much discomfort while doing school online, but going back to in-person learning in 8th grade was difficult. People at my school have known me for years, ever since I was a girl. I was a weird lesbian artist freak. I just wanted to be seen as a boy. But no matter how hard I tried, it didn’t work. I became depressed. I didn’t like going out, going to the local pool, making new friends, or talking loudly.

When I was 14 years old, I told my parents about testosterone for the first time. That’s what I wanted from the beginning of my career change. I spent hours online looking at “transition timelines,” snapshots of someone’s life from coming out to starting T to having surgery. I have seen the happiness that transition brings to people. It felt like a very distant future, but it was close enough to be worth waiting for. These transgender adults gave me hope that one day I could be comfortable in my own skin.

But when I returned from quarantine, the atmosphere was different. Yes, I had felt for years that people didn’t understand me, but I had already come to terms with it. It wasn’t scary. But after COVID-19, I felt new hostility from people who knew, discovered, or suspected that I was transgender. Even people I didn’t know said, “I liked the old name better,” which made me feel at ease. They had no problem making gross, dirty jokes about me (or my transgender sisters, brothers, etc.) to my face. However, despite this increased hostility, access to HRT seemed to be progressing fairly quickly. It was a question I was too scared to ask, but neither of my parents were mad at me. We went to the pediatrician and got more information about it. I was very hopeful about my future.

My mother then began to express concerns about my father’s views on HRT. He became stuck, seeking more information and seeking more and more meetings with doctors and therapists. This was acceptable. We knew about his medical anxiety, but this didn’t seem any different than when he had a fear of surgery and took a notepad to the doctor’s office to take notes. . But unlike back then, his anxiety and need for control continued to grow. He never stopped asking questions, pressing, and deliberating. He started arguing with my mom about HRT and detransition rates. He emailed videos and research from anti-transgender websites run by “concerned parents” who want to keep their “daughters” healthy. I didn’t know this would last this long. Once he was caught up in an anti-trans conspiracy, he never got better.

As our relationship became strained, I began to lose hope. It felt like the world was fed up with me and decided to take away the family support I was lucky enough to have. At first, my father correctly determined my gender, but he started claiming that he misgendered me and gave me the wrong name. I felt so disgusted every time he tried to “discuss” testosterone with me. Every time he insists I’m a woman instead of a man, he brings up topics like fertility and vaginal atrophy. I learned to be silent about my feelings and accepted the reality of my situation. So I wasn’t planning on taking testosterone.

Not only did my father’s thinking affect our relationship, but it also began to affect my previously relatively peaceful relationship with my mother. I’ve always told my friends that my biological parents are “like best friends,” but the deeper he dug into the conspiracy, the more I saw the gulf between them growing wider. . My mother tried so hard for me, fending off pointed questions about my identity and mental health, reading the shitty articles he regularly emailed me, trying so hard to understand with him. but nothing worked. In his mind, he was trying to save me from my “crazy” mother, keep me healthy and away from doctors and therapists and even “big pharma.” It was a very stressful time, but in the end I was able to access what I needed to care for myself: therapy, medication, HRT, and things I had only dreamed of. After everything that happened, I started choosing to spend less time with my dad. It made me excited and sad. I miss the way my father was before I came along. Within the past year, I went from spending half the time with him to seeing him once a week. And importantly, it didn’t have to be that way.

Then, based on the same propaganda that caused so much harm to my family, state lawmakers also began restricting health care. My father kept me informed about these things. He came to me and told me about a new law he was enacting against me. If I didn’t, I’d be hearing about it all the time on my car radio. There was always something new happening to us. There were always new deaths.

I still hear this shocking news all the time. It never stops. Republicans are currently working to ban Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, from using the women’s restroom at the Capitol. Would they prefer to put her in the men’s room? Obviously not. It’s not about the toilet. They don’t want us anywhere.

But I’m more angry than scared when elected officials and anti-trans activists use trumped-up reasons to attack us, claiming they’re protecting women-only spaces. From that angle, they not only degrade and exclude trans women, but also completely erase trans men. Like many transgender people, I have experienced the situation McBride is currently facing in my own way.

The toilet issue is a small problem that can be easily fixed, and gender-neutral toilets are not the only issue. Even in schools, people notice when you use teacher’s bathrooms or gender-neutral bathrooms. Just like people noticed at my middle school. The kids keep harassing me and the teachers use it as an excuse to make fun of me. Gender-neutral bathrooms are not sufficient accommodations. They’re white flags, saying, “OK, whatever, take this.” The real solution is to actually address bullying in settings such as schools and parliaments.

The day after the election, I was dissociated all day. I felt defeated and completely baffled that so much hope for this country was lost overnight. Meanwhile, I met a friend and asked him, “How are you feeling?” And they’ll say, “About what?”

I now realize that a completely different side of this country hasn’t even changed from before to after the election. I feel safe and I’m so jealous.

Due to recent changes in my family’s circumstances, I was able to start T. My dad knows that, but thankfully he can’t do anything about it. You can’t get back the years lost to depression, dysphoria, and anxiety. You can never get back the brain cells or scars you lose from being in the hospital and perhaps from drinking or smoking. I can’t get rid of my anger either. I can’t do that until this world is safe for me and other transgender children, teens, and adults. It’s okay to be angry, to show it, and to take advantage of it.

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) and may be freely shared and republished under the terms of the license.

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