Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out (10 page)

I remember religion class — oh, I hated religion class — one kid raised his hand while we were talking about sexuality. He said, “I think it’s okay for somebody to be gay. But why can’t they just be gay and not turn into a woman? If you change your sex, that’s a whole other level.” Of course the kids knew I was in the classroom, and the boy next to me said, “You’re going to take that? You’re just going to let him say something like that?”

The teacher knew there was going to be a problem because by that point I was really standing up for myself. I wasn’t going to take anybody’s crap anymore.

So I raised my hand and said, “Well, for your information, being transgender is different from being gay. Being transgender is feeling like a woman. Gay men don’t want to become women. They’re men. They like being men, and they like other men. Transgender has nothing to do with sexuality at all. There are transgender girls that like girls. There are transgender girls who like boys. How do you explain that?” The kid had some snide remark, but I can’t remember what it was. The professor immediately changed the subject.

I wasn’t afraid to explain who I was. I like educating people. I don’t like people staying narrow-minded and ignorant and stupid.

There was another time when I was sitting with my friend Christopher, the gay one, in class. Christopher had a very feminine voice, high pitched, and he could be very flamboyant at times. This boy in front of me, his name was Andrew, called Christopher a faggot for no reason.

I stick up for my friends, especially if they can’t stick up for themselves. He was, like, taking it. I tapped Andrew’s shoulder and said, “Why don’t you just leave him the fuck alone?”

And he said, “Shut the fuck up! You’re a faggot too.”

“What did you say?”

“
You’re a faggot! You’re a faggot!
You’re fucking gay.”

“The reason you have a problem with this,” I explained slowly, “is that you’re gay and you’re insecure about your own sexuality.”

We started arguing back and forth while the teacher was trying to teach class. The teacher looked over and asked, “Hey, what’s going on over there?”

And Andrew said, “Get this faggot away from me!”

The teacher said, “Matthew, can you get up from your seat and move to the back?”

I got really upset. When I got up, I pushed my table, and the desk just flew over. I guess Andrew felt threatened about that. He got up and punched me in my face. Then he threw me between the desks and was stomping on my head and back. Andrew was a football player and very strong.

The teacher didn’t try to break us up. He ran into the hallway and called for help. I don’t know who he was calling help for because we didn’t have any security guards. At least the other boys didn’t join in.

I had to go into the nurse’s office because I was bleeding from my lip, always my lip. I had scratches on my face too. Even though I was angry about the fight, I was really angry that he had popped off my nail. I was mad. I didn’t get a chance to hit him back.

I told my mom. We got him expelled and arrested. I eventually dropped the charges ’cause I just wanted him out of the school. I never saw him again.

I never cried in school until I got into that fight. After that I’d cry when some boy called me ugly or said I was not a woman. My friend Hoay would be there for me, patting me on the back, like, “Don’t cry. It’s okay.” Getting teased every day was getting hard on me.

Deep into my senior year, I went home after school and I sat in the dark with music playing. I listened to an Alicia Keys song called “Caged Bird.” The lyrics made me cry. My mom opened the door and asked, “Why are you crying?” I just burst into tears, telling her how hard it is to be transgender. “I feel like the world is against me. I want to become a woman.”

My mom asked if I wanted to go to another school, but I thought,
What’s the point? I’m in my senior year. If I switched, then these guys won,
and I didn’t want them to win. They wanted me to leave school. They
really
wanted me to leave. They kept saying, “You don’t belong here. You belong in a girls’ school,” which made me feel good.

People treated me like I was a disease. If there was a crowd of boys, I could literally go like this.

And the boys would jump back. “Don’t touch it — you might get it!” they would say about me.

I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the attention. I’d be with my friends and say, “Wanna see a really cool thing I can do?”

“Yeah.”

“Watch this!” So I’d move my hands toward the boys, and they would jump back.

There was one teacher, a math teacher, who would stare at me. I would sit in class putting my lip gloss on and think,
What is this guy looking at?
I always took stares as negative. Once the class was leaving, he pulled me to the side. “What is all this? Why are you putting lip gloss on and stuff?”

“Because I’m a woman.”

He was smiling at me. “Yeah, I noticed that. What’s going to be your name?”

“Christina.”

“Okay, Christina, have a good day.”

He was the only teacher who was nice to me.

It wasn’t until I was done with the four-month therapy program that I could take hormones. In March, my senior year, I started taking hormones. They started changing me fast. When I first started taking them, I got very, very sick. I felt weak. I got headaches. I went to my psychology teacher, because in class we studied neurons and synapses and how our bodies react to certain medicines. I asked him, “If you change your hormones from one sex to the next, do you become sick?”

“You can become sick because your body’s not used to it. Estrogen is foreign to your body. You have some estrogen but not much.” My doctor told me to let my body get used to it. I might be sick for a month. And I was.

When I had testosterone in my body, I was a very horny boy. Before I went on hormones, I was able to get an erection and maintain one. Whenever I saw a boy I liked in the hallway or in gym class — the locker room is the best place to get my eyes on flesh — I’d get it. I think that’s why a lot of gay people like to have sex. They’re both men, they both have a lot of testosterone. It’s kind of a manly thing.

The estrogen slowed down my sex drive. It’s not that I had no sex drive; I have it once in a blue moon. My boyfriend feels like I’m not attracted to him. Of course I’m attracted to him. I just don’t have the want or the need or the urge for sex all the time.

There are certain things that turn me on, but most of the time I don’t want to have sex. I always wanted foreplay and romantic attention. My boyfriend was never the foreplay, romantic type. He just wanted to get right to it. What are you gonna do?

I’m glad I no longer have all that testosterone that fueled me to want sex. Normally guys can get it up with a cold wind. That doesn’t happen to me anymore. I don’t have the morning wood. I only have it when I’m aroused.

It’s kind of weird: I know what it’s like to be a man, and I know what it’s like to be a woman. That whole testosterone-driven thing is something they can’t really help. I’m happier without having that sex drive. The constant need for sex is annoying — it really is. I just realized that right now.

You know what I also realized right now? I know what it’s like to be in the boys’ bathroom and I know what it’s like to be in the girls’ bathroom. I think the boys are way more disgusting than the girls.

By April, my breasts started growing. I was surprised and excited. I was the only boy in class with tight shirts and budding breasts. Everyone wanted to touch them. Of course I let them. It just feels like flesh; it feels like nothing.

Then the time came when I first put on a bra. Now, that scared me! It was so uncomfortable. I had been going the whole year flat-chested. I was comfortable being a gender bender, not yet comfortable being a girl. Once I put on a bra, I knew this was it. That was when people needed to see me as a girl.

Before I put on the bra, I told my friends, “If you want to call me Christina, great. If you want to call me Matthew, that’s fine too. But once I make full transition, don’t you dare call me Matthew.”

In the beginning of my transition, I would literally panic if I didn’t get my hormone shot. Now I forget to take it. I say, “Oh, I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll do it next week.” I’m trying to get back on a schedule. I took it two weeks ago. I take it every two weeks and that’s annoying. I hate it with all my heart. The thing is biological girls don’t have to do that. They don’t have to put a shot in their thigh just to maintain their figure. But because I’m transgender, I have this constant worry.

I can tell when I don’t take my shot because I start to feel physical changes. I start to lose my shape, my hourglass. My skin feels rougher. I grow facial hair quicker.

I used to go to the gym a lot but I stopped ’cause I was losing my hips. That looked masculine. And there it goes again with my whole fear of being all man. I started eating more to gain back my hips. I didn’t want to end up like my friend, a transgender girl who’s so worried about looking male, she’s afraid to go outside.

An announcement over the loudspeaker:
“Let me remind you: You cannot bring a same-sex person to the prom. You cannot wear a dress to the prom.”

And everybody started laughing when they announced that. “Oops, sorry, Matthew, you can’t wear a dress.” It was so annoying.

“Okay, I may not be wearing a dress, but I definitely am going to look like a girl.” I bought a woman’s tuxedo that was curved at the waist, and it made me look hourglass. I wore a pink button-down shirt, open. I bought one-inch, peep-toe heels. I got my hair done and extensions put in to make my hair look long. I had my nails done and my makeup and my eyebrows and everything. I thought I looked great. I was so happy. My friend Josephine, who I’ve known since first or second grade, came with me.

I think the prom was a good experience. I had a lot of fun, actually. By that point a lot of the seniors accepted me and we were friends. Even if they weren’t my friends, they treated me with respect. The majority that hated me was the underclassmen. But the seniors had been with me for four years. They had grown accustomed to me at that point. Did they agree with what I was doing? No. But they were, like, “Well, that’s Matthew.”

After the prom, we took a boat ride. The captain said, “Girls in this line. Boys on that line.” I thought,
Let me try this out,
and I went on the girls’ line. All my guy friends were saying, “
That’s not fair!
Why are you on the girls’ line?” But they were just poking fun at me because the girls got to go onboard first.

When the guys got on, I was already dancing. I rubbed it in their faces. “I got on the boat first because I’m a girl. I got on the girls’ line. Ha, ha, ha.”

Nobody questioned it. That felt great. For the first time in my life, I went on the girls’ line and was not told I had to be on the boys’ line.