Manchester
Trans Youth
Real life stories:
The following are a selection of stories taken from:
http://www.youthresource.com/living/trans.htmAdelle's Story
I'm not trans. But, my boyfriend is. We met in a dance club for queers of all ages. The second I saw him, I melted.
We talked, we danced, we kissed, and we've been together ever since. I consider myself a lesbian. I've been out for over a year (I'm 17) but I've only had one girlfriend.
Some people don't understand -- how I can be a lesbian without dating a woman? How can I love a man, or at least someone who identifies as one? I always thought that lesbians are people who love women, not the manly boy type. Yes, I had my own stereotypes.
It's been hard sometimes, people call us "dykes", they yell it from across the street. I don't care what anybody says, my partner is the most caring, loving, sweet individual that I have ever met. We hope to spend the rest of our lives together.
Yes, I'll always be the "woman" of the relationship, but I love him. Sometimes I feel like an outsider to the lesbian community. Here I am saying that I am attracted to women, but I'm in love with a man. I've been questioned, I've been scorned, but I've been loved and that's what counts.
Josie's Story
The looks I get from everyone I walk by. The looks I get from customers when they come up to my counter to place an order. The looks from total strangers. Can they tell? Why are they looking at me? I ask myself. I later think to myself that this is only a stage in my young life, and that in a year or more I will be looking much like the girl I already am.
This in the middle is a condition that is/was brought on by hormone replacement therapy. Right now I do not look like either gender. If I put on some make up I am seen as a girl. If I let any hair on my face grow out for electrolysis I am seen as a guy. Now compound that with having to work the two days before electrolysis, and the days after. I work with the public, so I can imagine what those people think if they see me after electrolysis, and before electrolysis in the same week. I am in the middle.
I hate being in the middle. Being in the middle is more painful then when I was awaiting hormone replacement therapy, at least at that point I had a sex people could see me as. Now it was the wrong sex, but I did not get the odd looks. I have to remind myself that this is just a part of the path to get to where I want to be in my life, the girl I always have been.
Now I can argue with my hatred for being in the middle because the hormone replacement therapy has lifted my life long depression. I am a happy little girl. Things are going good in my life right now, just this one thing, being in the middle is clouding it up. I would like to tell people who are considering hormone replacement therapy to be ready for the middle. The middle does creep up on you, and you do not know you are in the middle until something slaps you in the face.
The middle is both painful and joyful. The middle can be a time of turmoil and happiness. I seem to have both. I can say I will learn a lot from being in the middle. Just because I have a great dislike for the middle does not mean that someone could have a great liking of the middle.
I would provide a coming out story, but there really isn't anything dramatic or climactic- lots of crying and struggling. I was scared I would have to choose between transitioning and keeping my girlfriend (who is a big old dyke and I love her for it). Luckily, she is accepting of my need to be a boy. Isn't she great? So yeah, gaining her acceptance was the hardest part for me mentally. Telling my parents was rough- I didn't think my dad would take it as well as he did and I thought my mom would take it better than she did- but overall it was a pretty good turnout. After telling my parents, I told a few friends, who all accepted me. I am keeping a low profile here at school because my transitioning has nothing to do with my education, and I don't want to make a scene or draw unnecessary attention. As soon as I get that degree though- JOHN TAKES OVER!!!! I can't wait. I hope in the meantime, while I am waiting for my opportunity to blossom, I can help others reach their potential. Best of luck in the future, take care.
Tov's Story
A female-to-male (FtM) transgendered perspective on lesbian identity and community
There was a time when I was a poster-dyke. Being too butch or too femme were both considered politically incorrect, but I seemed to be neither. I was an activist and an organizer, but contrary to popular stereotypes I was not excessively domineering or abrasive. I never questioned feminist values and of course I was always politically correct. For all of these reasons and others, I was part of that elite club of acceptable, status quo lesbians. But things have changed rapidly since those days and I am seen by many queer women as politically incorrect, buying into the patriarchy and an embarrassment to the gay community.
It was not so long ago that I was eating French fries at the diner in my home town, pretending a few old friends' cigarette smoke wasn't giving me asthma, when it dawned on me that I'm not a lesbian any more. Woman-loving-woman. Womon-loving-womon. Womyn-loving-womyn. It doesn't matter how you spell it, I'm not one. Because what I haven't told you about why my location in the gay community has moved from highly acceptable to marginal, tangential and invisible, is that this has come with my discovery that I am transgendered. Transgender as in crossing gender; as in having a body that is not in accordance with my gender identity; as in having two X chromosomes but feeling like a boy; as in queerer than queer.
While I feel like a guy and am impatient to start transitioning (a term that refers to starting hormones and the other procedures that on a personal level will help my body finally be in alignment with my sense of myself and on a public level allow me to socially pass as male), my previously intense level of involvement in the lesbian community before I came out to myself and to others as a boy has had a tremendous impact on my identity, values, politics and community alliances. I do not call myself a lesbian, since I don't consider myself a woman. But my lover is a lesbian. When our relationship began I was still identifying as a woman. She has since decided that her love for me surpasses the difficulties presented by my change in identity. However, she has retained a strong identity as a dyke. I frequently pass as a boy on the streets but other queer people and even some straight people see us as a lesbian couple, assuming I am a butch dyke. We both deal with homophobic harasment and potential for violence because of this perception. And last, but not least, many of my friends are dykes, and that is the community to witch I came out and which taught me to respect and value myself and the history I share with other people who we used to jokingly call "sexual deviants." Together these things critically influence how important it is to me to not be exiled from the lesbian and gay/lesbian communities.
I hear lesbians talk about butch dykes and FtMs (female-to-male trans people) as women trying to be men, as women wanting to co-opt male privilege and the accompanying mysogyny, as homophobic homosexuals, as mentally ill people or as people to be tolerated but hidden from public sight for fear of heterosexuals seeing LGB people as perfectly mainstream and exactly like them. When I hear this sentiment, I wonder where I belong. My lover and I are queer just as lesbians, gays and bisexuals but what community can we be part of? As a femme dyke of color and a Jewish trans guy, we are rarely included in the agendas of gay organizations and our involvement is not always even welcomed. This has caused us to question where we belong, where we feel comfortable, and here our alliances are.
This year the New York City Dyke March made me want to cry. I wondered what was wrong with me that I felt so little connection to these happy lesbians screaming and singing about their pride in the selves and their community. I think this is the greatest event. We need more in-your-face out-and-proud dykes all year round. But how could I feel so disconnected when it was lesbian events like this that gave me so much strength way back when? Here I was standing on the sidewalk behind the barricade and in many ways that is where I belonged- Clapping, on the sidelines. If I had a daisy I'd play that Loves-Me, Loves-Me-Not game my mom taught me when I was a girl (yes, a girl.): I'm one of you, but I'm not one of you, but I'm one of you, but I'm not one of you, but I'm one of you, but... there are no wild daisies in the city.
I can't call myself an ex-lesbian. Sounds too much like it was a disease I recovered from (you know, like the "ex-gay" movement). But how did I go from carrying the banner at the front of the gay and lesbian pride march to half-heartedly applauding from the periphery? And everything is three times as complicated because my lover is lesbian-identified. What the hell am I, if not a dyke but still a female-bodied person who loves women? And what does that make my lover?
If you think I'm simply a heterosexual man or a butch lesbian, you don't know anything of my journey. These are just two of the many parts that together form my complex identity. The one thing that is always clear to me, and has been throughout the emotional and psychological chaos accompanying my questioning of my gender identity, is that I will always be queer as a three-dollar bill. I tell my lover, "there is no label for our love." This may sound like a politically-correct and corny clichè, but in the end it is entirely true. Sighing, she tells me, "Honey, we're just too queer for the queers."
How
do I learn to
like myself?
Famous
trans
Girl with no name
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