Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out (11 page)

Graduation was such an exciting thing for me. It was annoying that my mom wouldn’t let me wear my weave. I think she was still a little embarrassed about me, but she didn’t want to admit it. It sounds wrong to say, “I’m embarrassed about my own child.” But I knew that she was. She didn’t want me to get my nails done, but I did. She didn’t want me wearing makeup, but I did.

When I walked down the aisle, all the parents were taking pictures of me. Of me! I’m sure their sons had told them about me. Some wanted me to stand alongside their sons when they took pictures. Others wanted to take their own picture with me. One father told me, “You’re the first girl to graduate an all-boys school.”

“I am,” I told him. And he just took a picture of me. I felt great when he said that. I was making history for Mount.
They will never forget me.

Actually, they took me off their mailing list.

Sometime after I graduated, I asked one of the boys, “How was Mount Saint Michael after I left?”

He said, “You wouldn’t believe how many people started coming out of the closet.” I felt great about that. Even when I first came out, many others started to come out. So many. And I had a lot more friends because of it.

My mom was lying in bed one day and I said, “Mom, I’m going tomorrow to legally change my name to Christina.” And she was, like, “Okay.” She didn’t think I was serious.

The next day when I came back with my papers and everything, she said, “Your name is really Christina? Baby, why didn’t you tell me so we could talk about a name?”

“Yeah, Mom, I told you.” My mom hates my name. I mean, I also changed my middle name to Jayleen, the name she would have given me if I was born her daughter. I gave her that!

My mom said that I was changing what she named me. But I couldn’t walk around with the name Matthew.

At FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) everyone welcomed me with open arms, even when I told them I was transgender. I’m completely girl here. But there are no straight boys at this school. They are all gay. I wanted to experience being a girl and falling in love.

Women at a very early age are taught not to be hos, not to let anybody touch them, not to let anyone disrespect them. Well, I don’t know anything about that ’cause I wasn’t raised a girl. As far as exposing my body, I wasn’t really taught not to do that.

I’m learning to be female. A lot of times trans women dress very sexy to get attention from men. If a man hits on them, says how beautiful they are, in their minds they look passable.

I do it too. I dress sexy. I used to be borderline ho. But that’s not what most women do, ’cause women are comfortable with themselves; they know that they’re women. But a trans woman, me, is trying to convince herself by showing skin and being sexy.

I wanted to experience being a girl and falling in love. None of my transgender friends have boyfriends. There’s one girl who made a video saying that no man is ever going to take a trans girl serious. That’s what I feel. He’s going to want to have sex with a trans girl, to see what it’s like, but at the end of the day, he’s going to put the ring on the genetic female.

Whenever my transgender friends get a boyfriend, I say, “I give it one month, or two.” When a man finds out you’re trans, his respect for you goes down. If a man meets me as a woman, he’s very nice, gentle, opens the door for me, and doesn’t talk about sex. As soon as he finds out I’m trans, he starts talking about sex. It’s frustrating because he’s not treating me like a woman anymore. It makes me less a woman.

I’m learning how to deal with men. I talk about men a lot. I do. Right? Don’t I? I keep going back to men, boys . . . terrible.

When I started dating straight men, it was very scary to admit that I was transgender. They could get very violent and freak out. Or they could say they didn’t care. But I always doubt that people are genuine when they say they don’t care. What’s their motive? Sex? I feel that no man takes a trans woman seriously at all.

Talking to guys, telling them that I’m trans, gets old so fast. They ask stupid questions, like, “How do we have sex?”

I get mad when they ask me that, but I can’t blame them for their ignorance. If they’ve never had an experience with a trans woman, then how can they know? But that shouldn’t be the first question that comes out of their mouths.

They ask me so many questions that are very personal, like, Do I still have it? Do I still have my part?

If I did get to the point where I felt comfortable talking about it, I would say, “You know, it’s just like doing it with a regular female, only I don’t have the lady part.” They can use common sense to figure out what that means.

Sometimes they ask me, “Am I gay for liking you?”

I have to get accustomed to men paying the bill. I’m used to “I pay my part; you pay your part.” But on dates they’ll say, “No, I’ll pay the bill.”

At first I felt bad about it because I felt that I didn’t deserve to have a man pay for my meal. We were both getting to know each other, so why did he have to pay for it? I also had to get accustomed to a man holding a door open for me. I had to get accustomed to a man walking on the outside of the street. That was very, very weird.

My mom never spoke to me about sex. She didn’t talk to my brothers, either. I feel that if I had been a girl, she would have spoken to me about it. I learned from my own experiences that I was getting nowhere having sex with different guys. When I did, no one took me seriously. I learned that in order for a man to take you serious, and love you for you, you can’t have sex with him right away. When I met Gabriel, he didn’t believe me when I told him I was trans. He thought I was just saying that.

He tried to have sex with me right away, but I didn’t let him, not until he said, “I want you to be my girlfriend.” I wanted to be sure he was really serious. We didn’t have sex for two months. I wanted to see if he truly liked me for me and not because of the way I look.

I can’t truly let myself go with him. I’ve been in bed with my boyfriend, but I never let him see
it.
Ever. I wear my panties the whole time when we’re intimate. And that really sucks because I can’t be fully intimate with him. I’m always worried he’s going to see it; he’s going to feel it.

Gabriel went against his own family for me. At first they didn’t know that I was trans and they loved me; they thought I was a great person. One of his cousins went to Mount Saint Michael. He went on my Facebook page and saw that I used to go to Mount. It was easy to put two and two together.

He told my business to Gabriel’s whole family. Once they found out I was transgender, they said, “Don’t let her in my house.”

Gabriel stood up to them. “I love her. I’m not leaving her.”

I’ve been with my boyfriend for three and a half years, and that’s because I put up with his bullshit a lot. Right now we’re on a break. I can’t help but think that he wants to be with another girl. He’s done this to me so many times. Once, I had gone out with another guy and he cheated on me too. Girls get cheated on all the time.

If I had been born a girl, I would have had lots more boyfriends. If I had been born a female, I could leave Gabriel. I have mixed feelings about this. There are so many things I love about him. He’s accepted me. When people in the street call me a man, he’s never embarrassed. How am I going to find that again?

All my trans friends with vaginas look beautiful. They got everything they wanted. It would be so great if I could get an operation, if I could get my vagina. It will be great to get that over with and live my life. I feel like I’m not truly living my life yet. I’m living it fifty percent. If I had my surgery, I would live it to the fullest.

I still hang out with boys from Mount Saint Michael. They’re straight. I went to a house party recently where there were a lot of Mount boys. I came in and announced, “Learn your pronouns because I don’t want to have to slap somebody tonight.”

They said “hi,” and gave me kisses on the cheek. I was surprised. I was really happy. That showed me they accept me as a woman.

They didn’t give me no pound. There was one boy who put his hand out like that, and I said, “I don’t do that.”