#at least when my girlfriend was here i was offline for very good gay reasons

[orcelito]

Like I'm trying to not be openly pathetic on main but what do you know that translates to me barely being online the past week

Who'd have thought

[adventures-in-transmania]

Story time #1, the beginning

So, unlike media tends to represent trans people, I didn't know as a kid. I had no problem being called a tomboy in middle school, from what little I can remember. I do remember getting along far easier with boys than girls, but I also had almost every girl I tried being friends with at that age pull some backstabbing, gossipy, clique-y bullshit and who has time for that?

That being said, I don't think I ever had that phase in which I tried to be overly feminine to fit in, which some trans people go through. I wore dresses and skirts in elementary school without any feeling that it wasn't right. I also grew up in a house with a mentally ill biological mother (BPD) who was also a lesbian. I grew up with my bio father out of the house (saw him occasionally, not all that important tbh) and my mother having girlfriends. It's just how life was. I didn't need it explained, I didn't even realize it was different. It wasn't a big deal.

Fast forward to what I CAN remember, my coming out story. Somewhere around 10th grade I stumbled upon the term transgender. I'd been supportive of LGBT+ for quite a few years by then. I thought about my sexuality occasionally. For the most part, I was into men, but I remember not caring if I ended up with a woman. I remember the whispers of my classmates, calling me a dyke when they thought I couldn't hear them, the rumors about my mother being gay, therefore I had to be gay. They really didn't bother me. The people I considered friends didn't mention it or even care from what I gathered. I didn't really discuss lgbt issues with people from school. My friends were teenaged boys and would squirm if you even mentioned anything queer.

Luckily for me, I had friends online. One was a very mature for her age girl who provided a very positive light in an otherwise dark time. I loved her as a best friend and wouldn't trade my time with her for anything. The other was a boy from the deep South living with a religious family. They both met me as a guy character on a website of which I spent a lot of time on during high school. At some point I told them I wasn't born a guy. They didn't care. Online I was a guy.

That's not to say I knew for certain. I was still figuring things out. I didn't have dysphoria at the time. I had no qualms with people using she/her pronouns.

Sometime in 10th grade, I came out to my parent (my bio mother), thinking someone who identified as a lesbian would at the very least understand, talk, maybe even support their child coming out as trans.

Here's a plot twist, they didn't. Here's an even bigger plot twist. They also came out as trans. So, you'd think a trans parent (haha, jokes to be made here) would support their trans child. You'd be wrong. This has caused me much pain, much grief, just 'much' over the years.

There was six years of silence on the issue. We just didn't talk about it.

It wasn't really an issue that bugged me until a couple years into college. Well, other than the issue with my cousin's wedding. I think It was during either my junior or senior year, my cousin got married. I was in the wedding as a reader of some poem. I grew up with her in my life, she lived with us for some time. My parent made me wear a dress. Maybe that was my phase of trying to be overtly feminine, because I went all out. I wore the dress, 6 inch 'coral' heels, painted my nails, and probably wore make-up (which I never really bothered with, even as a girl). I wasn't happy about wearing the dress at this point in my life, I would have much rather been in a suit. My parent, who at this point had come out to me as trans, was able to wear a suit. No one in our family questioned it. It was a sore spot for me for a while. Maybe that was my first experience with blatantly dysphoria, but I can't say for certain. What I saw at the time was my parent, a trans man to me, a cis lesbian to everyone else, was able to wear a suit, but I was made to be uncomfortable in a dress.

I've talked about this since then (8 years after the fact) with both my parent and my cousin and the reasons make sense, according to our society. I'm now willing to accept it was necessary and I'm pretty much over it.

The other instance that I'm not over and will probably always regret is prom. My senior year, I got into this thing with someone who had been a very, very good friend. It was hard, probably based on senior class nostalgia. I liked him, his intelligence. I don't know what he saw in me. He was traditional, conservative, as most people were where I grew up, with it being a small town with 3 churches in 2 square miles.

We spent a lot of time in the library after school. I stayed to spend time with him, mostly. Over Christmas break during our senior year, I confessed that I liked him, which turned out to be reciprocated for whatever reason, or at least he said. A few months after, we discussed prom. I don't recall either of us being entirely enthused about it, but seeing it as something one should experience in high school, as well as the idea that most of our friends were going.

I believe I mentioned once about my thought to wear a suit to prom. A friend of mine who identified as a cis woman at the time, a lesbian, had worn a suit. I wanted to, also. He said he wouldn't go with me, then. I gave in, as I did at that time. I didn't have many people who actually wanted to be with me in any capacity (there's a bit more to this story, but I'm trying to be concise), so to experience something so paramount to the high school experience, I wanted to be included.

At the time I still identified as a woman to anyone who knew me offline. I wasn't dysphoric, I was just a tomboy. I had started to go by Riley online but couldn't really do so in school or anywhere else. I didn't really discuss anything with anyone offline so the two friends I mentioned earlier online really helped. They may not have completely understood but they let me talk about it and accepted me no matter what.

Another major thing I remember from high school was this one instance with my friend and guidance counselor. I had been 'turned in,' for a lack of a better word for attempting to cut at school (yeah, fucked up thing to do, surprise surprise. I wasn't good at coping with emotions, so sue me). I tried talking to my guidance counselor about potentially being trans and having a bit of a rough time with it, which took a lot of courage to do. The only other person I even thought I could go to had been my parent, as misguided as that was. The guidance counselor hadn't even heard of the term and even after explaining it, didn't have any sort of advice (to be expected after first hearing about it). There was no follow up, no conversation, nothing. Any sort of research would have revealed that trans people (teenagers especially) are at a higher risk of committing suicide and higher risk of being bullied. But it's easy to fall through the cracks when you're not a face or name people remember.

Here's one of my favorite memories from high school. Sometime during my senior year I took a psychology class. It was offered as an elective and I had free time. I would have rather been in a class than having a study hall. The class was taught by someone who had only taken a psychology course in college about 15-20 years ago, which explains a lot. She was certainly not qualified in any capacity to be teaching this class. I had several run ins with this particular teacher, but I kept my head down and did my work for the most part. One of her classes led to a discussion on gun laws and ownership. I was naive at the time, but she made a comment about how she should be able to own a gun so if someone came onto her front lawn, she could defend her property. That was the mentality of a lot of people in this small, conservative town. Great stuff.

So, another class we were talking about biased and unbiased studies. I don't remember the specific topic, but it had to pertain to something hormonal. I brought up the idea that to have a completely unbiased study, you would need test subjects that were AFAB on testosterone and AMAB on estrogen. She couldn't even imagine the concept. That night, I wrote an entire paper on why AMAB people would take estrogen and vice versa. I didn't mention being trans as a reason until the very last line. My biggest regret in life, just before that prom fiasco, is never giving her the paper.