Trans Day of Visibility

As a child, I wanted to “be a boy”. Part of it was that I genuinely felt my biological father would love me more if I had been assigned male at birth, but a larger part of my child self truly did not understand gender. I knew what I was told, I knew what I was taught, but I didn’t understand it or agree with it even from a young age.

I didn’t understand why my mom said “boys were different” when I could do everything they could do, and often better. I didn’t understand why some boys thought they were better than me just because they were a boy. I didn’t understand why my mom said boys had different parts, but I wasn’t allowed to see them. Purity culture and heteronormativity/cisnormativity did a real number on me that I’m still working to undo.

As I got older, I bought into the narratives I was fed and tried even harder to fit into the box they had checked “female” at birth. I often engaged in unethical, hypersexual, or attention-seeking behaviors because I felt a deep hole in my spirit. I never felt quite right or settled in myself or my identity. I still didn’t understand gender or why everyone made such a fuss about it, but I blindly regurgitated what I had been taught by my religious, conservative parents. I even went so far as to abuse my body with eating disorders and self-harming behaviors such as self-mutilation in an attempt to fit into what I thought it meant to be a woman.

Fast forward to a year ago when I tearfully told my partner “I think I might be non-binary”. It’s been an ongoing journey of discovery but what I want to share is that it’s possible to unlearn. It’s possible to unpack those toxic messages about gender, sex, and what they mean to you. It’s possible to be yourself and feel joy in who you are. It’s possible to change your mind, then change it again and again as you learn more about the world, its possibilities, and yourself. Being trans is as old as the world and somehow still a revolutionary act. The revolution begins with you.

Decolonize your thinking. Expand your horizons and get to know actual trans folks. Stand up to your homophobic/transphobic family members and friends. Explore your own relationship to sexuality and gender.