CHILDHOOOD
My childhood was a confusing time, at age seven I remember having clear thoughts that “I was not a normal boy” “that I didn’t like the things other boys like” “I enjoyed doing the girl games at school”. These specific thoughts are clear to me now, I am a transsexual woman. But at that age it was confusion. I don’t think it’s possible for a seven your old to challenge reality in that way, at least it didn’t seem possible to me. I use the age seven because it’s a clear landmark in my life. I remember being baptized in the church when I turned eight and thinking as I went under the water “when I come up I will be a normal boy”. It’s hard for me to place exactly what age I started not feeling like a boy. I think it was a slow process of learning about the world and not fitting a mold. I would guess I started having these thoughts that I wasn’t normal as early as age five. I can’t see waking up one morning and suddenly feeling it, it had to have progressed from a very early age.
I never heard the word transgender until my teens. The possibility of others like me was never a consideration. Saying there was a certain relief realizing I actually was a woman trapped in a man’s body would be an understatement. I feel like I wasn’t part of this world in a way till my teens. For years I knew something was wrong but could never have put it all together. So all I have for those ages is memories of confusion. During this time I remember talking to my parents and expressing that I didn’t feel normal, that I didn’t feel like the other boys. I wish my parents would have been more educated and realized there was an issue there and got me counseling where I could have been diagnosed and started my life. I can’t help but feeling that I lost many years of life due to my issues being brushed to the side. I really needed that time to be a girl in order to grow into a better woman. It’s a hard thing coming out as a woman when you didn’t develop as a girl. I don’t blame my parents for not knowing or putting it together. I just have wished they did. In my teens I remember telling at least my mom specifically that “I felt like a girl”. Even now years and years later it’s hard for me to accept that my parents didn’t do anything about it. Perhaps it’s easy to brush off your child saying they didn’t feel normal, but I feel it’s more when I said I felt like a girl.
In my teens I begged my parents to put me ballet lessons, after what seemed to me endless begging. They agreed. For the first time in my life I felt free to express a part of my feminine side. The time I was in the classes I honestly feel it was the clearest and happiest part of my childhood. I loved going on my toes, even when the teacher said I didn’t have to because I was a boy. I remember always doing the girl steps and loving it. I did some performances each one being the only boy in a million girls. I remember the disappointment being put in a male role in the plays. After a few plays of being asked to play this role I lost interest in ballet, and quit. But it remains still one of my happiest childhood memory.
Feeling feminine was always with me, even when I felt guilt or ashamed of it. It never left me. I went thru phases denying myself the truth. Trying to be normal. Trying to fit in. In secret I started cross dressing, it seemed a natural thing to me. I would feel at peace, it would make me feel normal. I remember my parents finding my clothes stash under my bed, and being confronted. I was so scared. It was basically “are you masturbating?” weird I think that parents would be more concerned with masturbating then their son wearing girls clothes. It was never a sexual thing to me. When I couldn’t cross dress I found a new outlet, I stole one of my sisters Barbies and would make clothes for it. I remember spending hours designing and making clothes. I remember being in school and walking home thinking and sketching what I wanted to make that day. A perfect hobby for a girl. It makes me sad thinking back how it was a part of me but I had guilt, mostly from the church teachings. My parents have been very active Mormons. And going to church every week was like a lesson of everything that was wrong with me. It was a hard balance to process as a child. It was my life, cycles of finding feminine outlets. Cycles of denying to myself it was true. At times I considered suicide, I never attempted it. But there was times I thought about the ways to do it. It’s embarrassing to admit that weakness. If I had to relive my childhood the same way I don’t think I could go thru it again. If I went back with just a little of the knowledge I have now things would have been so different. I would have talked to my parents more about it. They are good people, I have to believe they would have helped me be the girl I needed to be.
