I was once a trans kid, too.

Content Warning: This article contains depictions of abuse, transphobia, and suicidal ideation. Please do what you need to take care of yourself as you read. Take breaks. Go for a walk. Ground yourself. Breathe. Skip if you need to.

If you’ve only started following my journey, I came out as trans last year at the age of 32 and have started socially transitioning. My journey didn’t start at 32. I didn’t have the terms or the care I needed to realize I was trans until I was an adult, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t a trans kid. Part of coming out later in life has meant reflecting on the journey and learning to embrace my inner trans kid who wasn’t allowed to be.

Coming out at 32 doesn’t mark that moment as “the moment I became trans”, just as the moment I accepted myself. I spent most of my life denying who I was and fighting the moments when I felt male or “like a man”. I hated that part of me and rejected it rather than face the fact that I was afraid of what the people in my life and what strangers would do to me if they knew I was a boy. The world was telling me that I was a girl and then later a woman, and if I wanted to fit in this world, have friends, and be loved, then I needed to be that. So, I buried who I was under a sea of self-hatred and tried to conform to the world around me.

I don’t remember the first time I knew I was a boy. The earliest memories I have are looking around and not seeing anyone like me. Externally, yes, most everyone around me looked like me, but internally, something was off. I felt like there was a wall between me and the other kids. I struggled to piece together why I couldn’t relate to other kids around me as easily as I saw my friends and classmates relate to each other. I was feminine but not like the other girls, nor did I feel like a girl as the other girls did. I was feminine, but femininity didn't come easily to me. I was masculine but not in the same way my grandfather, my brother, or even the boys at school were. I was masculine, but in a feminine way.

Like the girls, I loved princesses, dressing up, wearing dresses, Barbies, Disney, and musicals. Yet, when I was around the girls, I never really felt like a girl. I felt like I didn’t really know how to ‘girl’. On the outside, I was a girl. I called myself a girl because that was what everyone told me I was, but on the inside, I was a boy trying to be a girl. Yet, I couldn’t relate to typical ‘boy’ things.

(At this point, if you are screaming, “YOU WERE GAY!”, you are probably right, although I still believe myself to be bi. Sexuality in transition is something I am still figuring out, and dating or expressing my sexuality feels like a long way out. But I might expand more on this in future posts.)

Once I started realizing that I might be a boy, the panic attacks came. And for good reasons. Danger for me existed both inside and outside the house.

Let’s start outside the house first, because that might be easier. I grew up in a predominantly white suburb in a Catholic family that was sort of religious, but definitely prejudiced, even though we considered ourselves liberals/moderates. I grew up with news stories villainizing trans folk, highlighting violence against anyone perceived to be trans, and making a spectacle out of “the pregnant man”. As I got older, I became increasingly aware that I was, at times, perceived to be a boy and later a man. While nothing bad happened to me because of it (thankfully), there was always this fear of this unspoken rule: If I were seen as a boy, presented too much like a boy, had the wrong person think I was a boy, or if I had been brave enough to declare myself a boy, then I was in danger of becoming the next news story or worse.

When I was outside my house or in public, and I felt in my body like I was a boy, I would start to feel myself panic about what ‘they’ would do to me. And I would have to hide the panic attacks because I couldn’t let anyone know what was wrong.

At home, the transphobia was blatant and rampant. Trans people were openly mocked and referred to as “she-he’s”, “he-she’s”, “shims”, and “its”. To make matters worse, I saw how my family treated my mother.

My mother was never really feminine at all. For most of my life, she kept her hair short and complained that she hated the way it felt on the back of her neck. She never wore dresses or skirts, and instead favored t-shirts, jeans, and hiking boots. She presents very masc and has my whole life. And my grandparents treated her like shit for it.

Growing up, my mom, my brother, and I lived with our grandparents (my mom’s parents). It was, well,…complicated, especially in this case. I remember the comments about my mom’s appearance and how she dressed. I remember the times Mom felt like a disappointment because she “wasn’t the daughter my grandmother wanted”. I remember all the times they treated my mom like the maid, the janitor, the handyman, the cook, and gave her tasks that could only be described as dehumanizing. I remember every single demeaning thing.

In my teenage years, I struggled with all this internalized transphobia (amongst many other traumatic things), and like most teenagers, I didn’t know what to do with it. It also wasn’t safe for me to outwardly express my fears or my pain about this (or really any big emotions apart from happiness). So, I turned all my pain inward.

I didn’t understand. I felt abandoned and alone. My dad was never a part of my life. Another father figure left when I was eight. I was raised in domestic violence and abuse. I didn’t understand why the key people in my life either left me or hurt me. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t be loved for who I was, or why I had to carefully curate a version of myself in order to be loved. I never truly understood why I couldn’t be myself, why being myself was so hated, or why my family could only care for people who existed in a binary. I grew up knowing that there was a part of me that was so vile that no one could love.

Back then, I didn’t have the terminology to know that I was trans. I was different in a way I couldn’t explain. So, I used the only framing I had.

I have gone through periods of my life where I have been very religious (Catholic, then Pentecostal, then Anglican, and now more like a prophet living in a cave). On top of that, from what my mom told me about my dad and his family, they were Satanists (which, at the time, was scary for me because I was raised Catholic, but now it isn’t such a big deal — I don’t even think about my biological dad much). Also, my grandfather would dabble in the occult and perform rituals (and I had no idea what he got up to). I started to think that the reason I was different and that no one could love me or stay in my life was because of my dad’s Stanism and my grandfather’s occult obsession. I believed that a part of me was evil and foul. That part of me was demonic by blood.

Instead of accepting my transness, I called myself a nephilim, a half-human, half-demon creature. I treated myself like that, too. I stopped taking care of myself, became depressed, and for the first time in my life, I became suicidal. I didn’t deserve a happy life or to be loved. I wasn’t human, and only humans got those things. I truly believed that this thing about me I couldn’t define, my transness, made me less than human.

I don’t think that way anymore. It took a long time, a lot of therapy, leaving that house, and meeting more trans people to help me see that. Now, I love my transness, and no one can take that away from me or make me hate myself for it. But that process was rough. I still resent and am angry that I grew up in a time and in a family that made me believe that being different, that being trans, made me subhuman. And I ache for those who are still going through that.

None of this part of my story is new to trans people. In fact, it’s more common than most cisgender (meaning not trans) people think.

I don’t share my story because I feel like I am saying something new. I don’t believe I am saying anything that other trans folks haven’t experienced or talked about since the beginning. I share because these experiences have not been heard by enough open ears listening with empathy and compassion. I share in the hope that more people will read, and one day we might be a little bit more seen.

I write for that kid. I post to show him how beautiful he is and that there was never anything wrong with him. I share my journey so he can look ahead and say, “Look! That’s me. We are making it, and we are loved.” I do this so that he can know that he is seen, he is heard, he is loved, and he is free to be authentically.

I continue to write because I know right now there is another kid out there internalizing his/her/their anger at the hate and abandonment they receive from those closest to him/her/them by demonizing themselves. Maybe that kid is an adult who continues to berate themselves. I post so that they know it’s okay to stop hating yourself for what other people have done or what they have made you feel about yourself. There is another side. There is healing for that inner trans child who never felt safe to be themselves. And it’s okay if your authentic self or your journey is not the same as everyone else’s.

I write from the hopeless desire that the world will stop hating us and will stop making us hate ourselves.