Here’s a timeline of my journey to become Zander:
Age 4 – I vividly remember sort of waking up and becoming conscious of myself as a person, a male person. I started choosing my own clothes and toys and I remember loving Spider-Man and other superheroes.
Age 8 – My parents bought me a pink bike and I despised it. I remember them being upset that I wasn’t grateful. All I wanted was a BMX bike for tricks. I proceeded to destroy my bike by scraping as much of the pink off as possible.
Age 10 – I was suddenly told that I had to wear shirts all the time to “prepare.” It was a huge fight and I remember a lot of tears because my brother would never have to “prepare” for whatever this mystical thing was. A doctor also told me to “stop running around like a little boy” when I hurt my shoulder throwing a wiffle ball bat into our tree to unstick another bat.
Age 11 – The last time my father forcibly put a dress on me for church.
Age 13 – When I started trying to fit in and be what everyone expected me to be.
Age 19 – In college I was taking abnormal psychology. The term transsexual is in our reading and I can’t stop reading the description over and over again, knowing that most of it applies to me and how I have felt since age 4, but wanted to forget. I told my girlfriend at the time and she flips out, unable to deal with not being a lesbian. At the same time, I refuse to use the term lesbian as it just didn’t feel right to me for reasons I don’t understand.
Age 23 – I throw myself into trying as hard as possible to be straight and girly. It works intermittently, but it takes so much energy that I eventually give up a few years later and just dress like a slob in hoodies and shorts/jeans.
Age 39 – Caitlyn Jenner goes public and I become obsessed. I admit for the first time in adulthood that I am probably trans. But I hate it. I don’t want to be. In online therapy, I try to work through it but end up shutting it all down because it’s just too much to deal with.
Age 45 – The thought comes back and will not be pushed away this last time. It consumes me and I cannot let it go. I talk about it in almost every therapy session and I finally admit out loud that I am a boy. I feel like a very young boy inside, who has been unacknowledged and not seen my entire life.
Now – I am fully onboard with who I am and have had top surgery and a hysterectomy. I also give myself testosterone injections once a week. I have never felt better mentally or physically. I have dealt with the grief over never having the life I wished I had and really love and accepet myself as the person I am. It’s been an amazing journey and I am so happy that I have arrived. As I’ve said before, my name change is the last step left in my plan, and then changing my birth certificate. I am so grateful I was born in NY because it’s not likely to be removed as an option for me. I will be able to align my core documents with who I am and i know that’s a privilege not everyone has.
I mentioned Child #2, instead of Boy #2 recently. The reason for that is Child #2 is not a boy, even though that’s the sex assigned at birth. What I find interesting is that I am more aware of parts of Child #2’s journey than she is.
Birth – Child almost kills me by refusing to be born and getting stuck. I feel that there’s something different about this one right from the first minute.
Age 3 – Child has become obsessed with a pink tutu at daycare and must put it on every day after nap for snack time. I shrug and let it go.
Age 5 – Child plays with boys and girls, doesn’t really care for dirty games or stereotypical boy things. Again I shrug and let it go. This stuff doesn’t matter to me. Child is also an exemplary older sibling and eagerly assists in caring for baby brother.
Age 7 – Child adores baby sister and begs for her to wear her dresses. Chooses more dresses to buy because the baby looks so cute in dresses.
Age 9 – Child becomes bizarrely fascinated with guns, tanks, ships, airplanes, and other stereotypical boy things that weren’t a big deal previously.
Age 12 – Child becomes strangely picky about clothing and cares what kind of clothes we buy.
Age 15 – Roofers working on our roof and we need to wake up Child. Child is wearing something glittery on her hear and acts bizarre, screaming at sibling to get out of the room. Sibling leaves and my Child comes out to me as a fem boy, wearing a skirt.
Age 16 – Child tells me she is considering whether or not she may be trans and needs some time and space to work through it. I told Child about me at 15, when she came out as a fem boy.
Age 17 – Child comes out as trans after over a year of processing it. I immediately decide we need to take that into consideration when choosing where she will go to college. Her safety is of the utmost importance, so we decide to send her to NY state, at a very trans friendly college. Luckily she agrees that’s the best college for her academically and socially as well, so she applies early decision and gets in.
Age 18 – (August), comes out to siblings, other parent, and begins her life in college as her true self. She is happy, healthy, and ready to take on the world.
At this point in time, I am going to continue calling her Child #2, to honor her journey and the difficulties she has faced, rather than calling her Girl #1 and then Girl must become Girl #2. So it will remain Child #2, Boy #3 behind her, and Girl at the end. I also don’t want to push Girl into a role that she has never been, which is the second daughter in our home. So much of her life has been through the lens of the only girl in a family of boys, rather than 2 girls and 2 boys. With her older sibling away at college, her experience continues as the only girl here, although the two of them often aligned in the big battles between siblings. Boy #3 is usually the outcast because Boy #1 is so much older and removed from the drama, even when they were all young. By the time Boy #3 was coherent, Boy #1 was a teenager, living a completely different life that Boy #3 is only just beginning.
What is the most striking difference between our journeys is the presence of a supportive parent. I sometimes try to imagine what could’ve been if I had just been given an opportunity to process what I was feeling inside. The words didn’t exist back when I was really young. Insisting that I was a boy wasn’t enough for them to do anything other than try to force me to be something I wasn’t meant to be. The only change I wish I could have is to get the energy back that I wasted on faking it. That is a tremendous loss. No one should be required to be something they’re not. No one should have to fake it to get by in this world. We are all better when we get to be who we are, with love, support, and acceptance.
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