In light of this post recently starting to get notes again, thought I’d say something.
Its been a year and eight months since I made this post. Almost two years. I was thirteen, or barely fourteen. I wasn’t even in high school yet. Literal infant, I wasn’t even a freshman yet. The awkward in-between middle school and high school jump. I guess that’s a weird place for anyone, but it was a really weird place for a thirteen year old trans boy who had known who he was for a year before he actually came out. Who had just come out, in the eighth grade in the south with no backup from home. I’m literally shivering remembering.
As you can see from the above post, it was not a fun time. Sure, I knew I was a boy, but that was about all I knew. I was clinging to gender roles, desperate to pass and to be what society decided along the way a boy should be. Convinced that I wouldn’t count if I wasn’t head to toe masculine, if I stepped outside of any roles.
Honestly? With the constant criticism and being thirteen-or-barely-fourteen, I was kinda scared I was wrong. That maybe people were right about being trans, that maybe I was a delusional little girl.
Its sad to say that that was how I felt. Its sad to remember feeling like that. Hating every part of myself so thoroughly, being so obsessed with being the kind of trans boy that would count. Thinking my validity was based on how cis I looked or acted, thinking my value lied in how well I passed, how traditionally masculine I was.
But it’s almost two years later now, and I’m pretty fucking stoked to say that I’m more comfortable in my own skin than I have ever been.
I’m not a crazy masculine boy. I wear makeup sometimes. My hair falls into my face and yeah, I look soft. My eyes are big, and I’ve got long eyelashes. I think it’s cute.
Can’t say I feel any better about my chest, honestly, but my body as a whole? I’m as comfortable with it as I can be. I’ve come to terms. I think that’s important. I think everyone should be allowed to love themself as well as they can, and I think that trans people aren’t an exception.
I’m a boy. I have a vagina. That doesn’t make me less of a boy, and I don’t have to hate every feminine characteristic I possess in order to be a real boy. Everyone’s goal should be to become comfortable in their own skin.
I’m not a boy even though I have a vagina. My biology doesn’t contradict my gender. I’m just a boy with a vagina. And as soon as we stop treating that like it’s unusual, the sooner trans people can stop feeling unusual.
I have dysphoria still, of course. but honestly it’s a completely different kind of dysphoria. I love myself. I think I’m cute, even if I have my off days. I’m trans and I’m comfortable with that, I wouldn’t want to be any other way than how I am. And I’m still a boy.
The kind of dysphoria I get comes from everyone treating being transgender as some bizarre-o thing. When I can’t find any trans pride because trans kids all hate themselves, because they’re told they have to be a certain way to be valid, because they’re put to impossible standards that they can’t reach because they aren’t cis. And because they aren’t cis, naturally they aren’t normal.
I get dysphoria from people telling me that I’m just pretending, from people telling me I’m a “cross-dresser” or a “girl that wants to be a boy” or that I need to take a biology class. My dysphoria comes in the form of rage, of hot frustration that I can’t be myself for twenty-four hours, that I can’t just exist without being interrogated. Deadnames from all sides. Ignorant people trying to educate me.
Getting crushes on cute boys that never work because they’re transphobic, either openly or subconsciously, subtly.
I can do it, though. It sucks. But I can do it. I’ve grown strong in myself. I can handle it if need be. And I do have support.
But read the original post again. What really pisses me off, more than anything, is that even if I’m out of that mindset, not every trans kid is. There are thirteen-or-barely-fourteen year old trans kids going through exactly what I was going through, and they might not be able to take it.
Our trans kids hate themselves, and we think that’s fine. We don’t tell trans kids that its okay to love themselves. I hate that.
I’m a boy. Yeah, my voice is high. I’m a singer. I can hit notes the other guys can’t. Yeah, my eyes are big. They’re blue, they’re sometimes green, and I think they’re pretty. I’m small, but that’s okay. One day I’ll have a boyfriend and that’ll make it so much easier for him to hold me.
I’m trans, and that’s awesome. I’m trans, and I don’t hate myself for it. And I’m rooting for every trans kid that still does. I hope you all can get through it, can figure out who you are and how you want to be.
To the me that wrote that post two years ago, it gets better. You’ll be okay one day. And I have no doubt that we’ll keep getting better.
And to everyone who’s been reblogging this post, who can relate to the boy that wrote it: I’m proud of all of you. And I believe in you. It’s gonna get better. You don’t have to imitate being cis to be real. You can be however you are, with no pressure from either side whatsoever.
