"It is better to be hated for what one is...

...than loved for what one is not."

I want to be able to document this for myself.

This is my life, these are my feelings and someday I'll have to accept that, even if others don't.

Yesterday I talked briefly about work and the gym, today I want to talk about family and my childhood. 

This will probably be a very long blog... If you read all of it I will be very proud of you.

Family, Sports and Growing up as a girl:

I have a very close-knit extended family. 

My parents both went to college here and are still friends with many of their college buddies and we children were all raised rather communally. Most of the moms I would consider almost as close to being my mother as my mother, their children my siblings. I currently live just outside of town with my grandparents but my parents and their friends are all in very close proximity.

I used to love the extended family feeling and having all my "siblings" to go through the growing pains with, as well as many trusted adults to turn to in times of turmoil. But now, I have this new fear. I feel as though it would be almost easier to transition if one didn't have such a close relationship with such a large group of people. Because my "family" is so intermingled and extended and close, I don't even know how to begin the process of telling people, or if I should at all. Yet at the same time, how long can I keep a secret something that has been building inside of me for so long? I almost died trying to hide it from myself... I hate lying to any of them, but would telling the truth completely isolate me from the family I have grown to cherish?

They knew me as a somewhat shy young girl. Always observant, always cautious of what others thought. But if I have only just now come to realize the reasonings behind my actions, how long will it take them to accept? or even tolerate? My grandfather still doesn't even understand that I'm in a relationship with a woman, even though she's at the house constantly and we hold hands in front of him. Or maybe he chooses to think it's "just a phase."

I used to think my parents and really, my whole extended family, were just as liberal, just as conscious of social injustice as I am, and as I know they raised me to be, yet I can also tell that their feelings have not progressed as much as even they would like them to; sometimes they admit to it, and sometimes they don't, but I know some of their prejudices still come through all the years of trying to overcome it. 

My "godbrother" and one "godsister" (as this is how we explain our brother-sister relation, but from here on out they'll just be referred to as sister or brother) are constantly nagging at me to wear some tighter clothes, to dress more "gender appropriate" (not their words, but you get the point). I know coming out as a lesbian freaked out my sister at first, my brother could probably care less. I think he likes being able to talk about one hot girl or another without having to feel somewhat awkward. They have both come to accept me for being a lesbian... but I don't feel like they would be able to fully understand me transitioning, and that's what scares me. Even when my parents don't understand me, they and their moms have always been there to help me through it until my parents come around and I don't know if they would this time. 

I know it will be much easier for friends who I have only met in the past year, as this is kind of all they've known. I have been much more comfortable with myself and dressed in clothing I feel comfortable in. But for my extended family, for my siblings and close friends throughout the years. I am very scared. 

So scared that I have thought about not going through any of this, but then I think about living in this body, this body that makes me so uncomfortable, for the rest of my life, and some part of me thinks it must be worth it. Another part of me wants to run away from this town and all the people in it that knew me as I used to be, to go somewhere far away where I could start a brand new life. 

These people, my family. They knew me when I conformed to gender stereotypes because I knew what I was supposed to do. I knew how I was supposed to act. I was a very observant child. Everyone tells me that even as a baby I would sit and watch people, as I grew older I was constantly aware of what the adults were saying, how they were reacting to each child, how boys and girls were socialized differently. 

My History:

As a "cute girl in a dress" I could get away with almost anything. I was "daddy's girl" and I was always with the adults because I wanted to know what they were saying. If I was on the other side of the house and some adult softly said my name, I would hear it and rush over asking why they were talking about me. 

In elementary school I wanted to play with the boys, I wanted to climb trees and play football, but I saw how girls that tried to were treated and so instead I never learned. Even when the female P.E. coach would encourage the girls to play I never did unless it was mandatory. I wanted to, but I knew what the boys were saying and I was too self-conscious to join in. Also, my depth-of-field has always been off and never fully diagnosed so I think that was another thing that turned me off from sports. I couldn't see how far away the ball was in any sport, so I couldn't catch it, I couldn't hit it with a bat, and only rarely could I make it into a goal or a basket... In basketball, if I could aim at exactly the same spot every time, I could make a basket by memorizing where to put each foot, each hand... but it didn't work very well when it came time to play another team.  

I sat on the sidelines, I learned how to knit, how to crochet, I dressed in dresses and skirts on occasion and gossiped with the girls, but it never felt comfortable. I always felt like I was being judged, like they knew I was different and I just could not figure out what it was for the life of me. When the first girl in our class got her period I was jealous because I felt like that would confirm that I was a girl, same with wearing a bra. I didn't feel like a girl so I thought if I had those things, and that once I started puberty, I would feel more like a girl. But it didn't work that way, at least for me.

I was not a tom-boy, not by any stretch of the imagination. I tried, I tried really hard, to be the most stereotypical girl, and on the outside it worked perfectly. That is why it will be so hard for people to accept now. Maybe if I had been more athletic, more like a "tom-boy" they would have an easier time accepting me now, but I know they will refer to the days when I wore make-up and dresses and tell me that all of this is something made-up. Some ploy for attention.

Already, my mom says she doesn't recognize me, and I haven't even begun to transition physically but I'll go into that later.

In eighth grade I started cutting my wrists. I had friends, I had boyfriends even, but I was very depressed. I didn't know what it was but I wrote in my journal about feeling like there was a "dark deep black hole in my chest" and I couldn't figure out what it was. While I was cutting my arms I would have fantasies of cutting off my breasts, but I dismissed them. I didn't know what transgender was or even that it was a possibility. I was a "nice Jewish girl" or at least that is what I would have liked people to believe. On this inside I was struggling just to get by, telling myself it would get better. I just needed to get used to my body.

Freshman year of high school I lost my virginity on halloween, came out as bisexual, shaved my head with a venus razor at 1am in January, had my first girlfriend, had my first shot of vodka, passed out in a friend's car, had my mom take care of me after taking mushrooms and started dating a drug-dealer. Ditched class at least once a day and almost failed out of school, all in my first year. 

After that year I knew something was not working. I had to make a change, and I did. I started doing a program that allowed me to take college classes to fulfill my high school requirements. I loved the program and graduated with decent grades one semester ahead of schedule. During this time I started dating my best-friend, a guy, and we ended up dating for almost three years, with small breaks in between. We would break up, each thinking I was gay, I would finally come out, everything would be fine. But I was not ready to give up our relationship, essentially our friendship. I was afraid I would lose everything. He was my rock and he is still my rock. The one person I can tell everything and anything too, well almost everything... I haven't told him this part. I am much too afraid to lose his friendship again. 

When I finally came out as a lesbian I felt like some huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I could breathe. It was an amazing experience to come out and to be able to hold a girl's hand without weird questions. I became a very stereotypical "baby dyke." I wanted to be Out and Proud. And I was, I still am I suppose. But I also could still feel there was something wrong. 

I still cut myself on occasion and I couldn't figure out why. I hated and still don't like most showers, I don't like looking at myself. It's not that I don't like the way my body looks in general. I just don't want it to be mine. I have never been comfortable in this skin. It doesn't feel like mine. 

I've watched some ftm (female to male) youtube videos that talk about how they could never look at their bodies. Well I was the opposite; I look and I stare and I examine. I tried so hard to feel like this is my body, but I could never feel empowered by it. I felt so disconnected. Sometimes I think I cut myself to make sure it really was my body. Somehow feeling the pain and seeing the blood, would make it a reality. Maybe I could come to accept this strange body if only I could feel what was happening to it. 

I used to do this with sex too. I would have sex with someone, boy or girl, but feel completely disconnected most of the time. Sometimes they'd notice, sometimes not. But I would attempt to make them feel better. I was attempting to feel something, anything at all.

A Realization:

When a friend I knew started to transition, I didn't understand why a woman couldn't just be proud of being a "butch" lesbian. What was the difference anyhow? I started watching these ftm videos, and I connected with them to some extent, and it definitely made me think, but it didn't really fully click with me. 

I did start dressing in more "boyish" clothes, and during the winter, what with layers and things covering my chest, I passed with strangers almost every day, even when I wasn't trying. I was referred to as "sir" directly at least a couple of times. One particularly disasterous day my mother and I were about to have lunch when a woman stopped us, asking us to sign an environmental petition or something. She said to my mother "Would you and your... son like to sign this?" My mother glared at me and I smiled and said sure, we would love to. After we were well out of earshot of the woman, my mother said it was because she could tell I was wearing boys underwear and "why are your pants so loose?" I changed the subject quickly.

It wasn't until my girlfriend and I were together in my car a couple of weeks ago and she innocently tried to touch my upper thigh, and my hip, that I fully realized what this is. I shuttered and couldn't seem to control my discomfort anymore. She thought it was her, thought she had done something wrong, or that I didn't love her. 

It was then that I realized I had to tell her how I was feeling. I couldn't let another person think it was something they did. I love my girlfriend and I couldn't have asked her to be more accepting, I couldn't have imagined a better outcome if I had tried. 

I was expecting the worst and immediately put up my guard, trying my best to not feel emotions I was sure would come. I told her that I don't feel comfortable in this body, that I frequently have a debate between my body and my brain on what should be. That I frequently feel like I should be a boy and not a girl. What I realized is that it's not about what clothes I wear, or what sports I play. For me it is entirely the anatomy that I do not feel comfortable with. I don't like the breasts, I don't like the wide hips, or what's missing from down there. I wish I could love my body the way I love women but I just don't feel connected to it. I feel like it belongs to someone else and I'm simply inhabiting it. Like I'm a drag queen and someday I'll be able to take off the costume and be me.  

My girlfriend cried and told me that she loves me. She said that she is happy I told her. She said that I am beautiful, and that it is the beauty on the inside that counts, not the outside.