Being Me
Late in the October of my freshman year I had made a breakthrough in a search for myself. The breakthrough was driven by three incidents
Incident One- At the innocent and wide eyed age of four, my parents were balancing on the fringes of divorce. More accurately, my parents were trying to escape the inevitable harshness of being alone (to no avail). In a last ditch effort to bring the family closer together, they decided to take me Trick or Treating. The endless aisles of Wal-Mart were filled with multicolored fabrics and plastics, but only one costume caught my eye. It was a Belle costume from Beauty and the Beast, complete with sparkly yellow dress, sparkly shoes, and a tiara. She was my favorite Disney Princess, and I thought dressing …show more content…
During the next few days, I finally understood the plethora of differences between males and females. (A few days before I wasn’t even aware that only females could get pregnant. How’s that for sheltered?) I learned that we had different organs, different hormones, and different ways of developing, thinking, and emoting. After the unit had finished, I felt empty inside. As I showered the next morning, I felt intensely uncomfortable and began to cry uncontrollably. At this point, the last two incidents came to mind and I realized something: I had been trapped in a boy’s body. Questions raced in my mind. Did anyone else have this problem? Was my “plumbing” done wrong? Did my brain have some sort of imbalance? So I decided to do some research, and I quickly found out about the term transgender, which means “denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex”. I realized that this was an incredibly accurate description of me, and I immediately resolved to tell my mother. She didn’t believe a word of what I told her. No matter how sincere I was, she dismissed my words as confusion. I repressed it for a long time after that, until I knew I had to open up to someone or I would be consumed by stress. I told my girlfriend, and she told me to meet her at her house in a week. I was incredibly nervous going over, but was delighted
Late in the October of my freshman year I had made a breakthrough in a search for myself. The breakthrough was driven by three incidents
Incident One- At the innocent and wide eyed age of four, my parents were balancing on the fringes of divorce. More accurately, my parents were trying to escape the inevitable harshness of being alone (to no avail). In a last ditch effort to bring the family closer together, they decided to take me Trick or Treating. The endless aisles of Wal-Mart were filled with multicolored fabrics and plastics, but only one costume caught my eye. It was a Belle costume from Beauty and the Beast, complete with sparkly yellow dress, sparkly shoes, and a tiara. She was my favorite Disney Princess, and I thought dressing …show more content…
During the next few days, I finally understood the plethora of differences between males and females. (A few days before I wasn’t even aware that only females could get pregnant. How’s that for sheltered?) I learned that we had different organs, different hormones, and different ways of developing, thinking, and emoting. After the unit had finished, I felt empty inside. As I showered the next morning, I felt intensely uncomfortable and began to cry uncontrollably. At this point, the last two incidents came to mind and I realized something: I had been trapped in a boy’s body. Questions raced in my mind. Did anyone else have this problem? Was my “plumbing” done wrong? Did my brain have some sort of imbalance? So I decided to do some research, and I quickly found out about the term transgender, which means “denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex”. I realized that this was an incredibly accurate description of me, and I immediately resolved to tell my mother. She didn’t believe a word of what I told her. No matter how sincere I was, she dismissed my words as confusion. I repressed it for a long time after that, until I knew I had to open up to someone or I would be consumed by stress. I told my girlfriend, and she told me to meet her at her house in a week. I was incredibly nervous going over, but was delighted