I think I am going to try and use this platform to document my own experiences living as a transgender person. Hopefully this is an insight for those who may have no clue about what trans people deal with on a daily basis. I am not going to try and change anyone's personal views or morals, but maybe some people can become more tolerant with a bit of education and information.
Let me preface this by saying that I am not a medical professional and anything I write is my own personal opinion.
How did you know?
This is probably one of the first questions I get asked when people find out I am transgender. I have always found this question to be hard to put into words, even though I know my answer is easy. If you don't want to read the whole story, here's the short version: I always knew! (Probably the answer almost every trans person gives!).
The long version:
As far back as I can remember, I have always drifted more towards the feminine role. My earliest memory was in a preschool that my mother worked at as a teacher. I attended the school as a student and I can always remember the feelings and thoughts I had that I was born in the wrong body. When I would be on the playground with the other kids, we would always pretend to play certain cartoon characters or superheros as we ran around and imagined we were fighting crime and saving the world. When it came time to pick, I always chose a female character and was usually never questioned by any of the kids. I don’t think that any of the adults ever picked up on this, and surely my mother didn’t. After I came out to my mother, I explained this story to her and she said she never had a clue that this had happened. As I grew older, I still always had the feeling that I should have been born in a female body and would become upset when I looked at myself in the mirror and not be happy with what I saw.
As I grew into my teenage years, I always had the feelings that I was in the wrong body and would often compare myself to other girls and women. I would become jealous of them because of the clothes they wore, their hairstyles, the makeup they applied, their friendships with other girls and how they were able to express themselves in a feminine way. I would often go home and before my parents came home from work, I would look at ads and magazines and picture myself being just as feminine. However, I was scared for anyone to find out my secret and hid behind trying to be masculine.
The same feelings grew all throughout college and into my adult life. The problem is that the feelings don’t stay at the same level of tolerance, and started to affect me physically and mentally. I began to have severe anxiety and panic attacks and become more and more withdrawn from social activities. I sought professional help and after a few sessions with a therapist, I told him of how I never felt I was born in the right body. I had to complete a few questionnaires and they determined that I did have gender dysphoria. I was referred to a medical doctor who specializes in transgender patients and the rest is history! However, this was just the very beginning of my journey. I’ll go further into my experiences as I post more in the blog. I hope that maybe this gives a little bit of insight for those who are curious.