CHANCE
NEW MEXICO | SERIES #3
Being gay, bi, pan, a lesbian etc is absolutely okay in my family.
Being transgender although has mixed reviews.
In some way, shape or form. I have always known I was Trans. From a very young age I've told my parents and friends that "I don't fit in my body, it's too tight. I don't feel right, I'm uncomfortable." I still have issues with body dysmorphia and dysphoria. I have dozens and dozens of scars on my skin from my biological father's abuse. He instilled many mental ones as well.
Fast forward to the Eighth grade and the first time I had unrestricted internet access, I was really struggling with she/her pronouns but I really LOVED fashion and makeup. I constantly got in trouble for dress code violations and I came across the definition of non-binary.
However, in middle school I was pretty, popular and a first chair violinist. Coming out in the middle of the year with strange new words and phrases to people whom understood sexuality but not new gender ideas was pretty terrifying. I ended up just telling my best friends at the time.
In 2014 I moved to New Mexico and truly realized I was transgender FTM. I told my closest brother, my mom and my then boyfriend. All of them were supportive although I wasn't supportive of myself. I shoved it down into the deep, dark, depths of my heart and soul for three years.
I realize that was incredibly unhealthy.
I cut my hair short in December 2016, got a bad binder in January 2017 and ruined my back, got a Gc2b binder two months later, wore less makeup, stopped wearing heels and feminine clothing. I had come out to everyone but my dad, grandparents and my church by this time.
On April 15th 2017, Easter Sunday, I was forced to come out to my dad, by my dad. After Sunday mass, we arrived home and he asked me to go out on the porch with my mom, who was smoking. I didn't even get to change out of my church clothing. I made a passing comment earlier in the day (that I didn't want him to hear) and I had really hoped he would just sweep it under the rug like all the other missteps, because I just wasn't ready to come out to him.
He said that I would never be a man to him.
He would never call me his son. That there is no way for me to be a man as God had not intended it for me to be that way. My mom defended me.
She asked that if I got to be on hormones, if I got Top and Lower surgery and even if in 10 years, I looked more of a man than he did, he would not accept me?
And he said he wouldn't accept me as a man. He would still call me a woman, a daughter even if I had a damn beard.
I had no motivation to live surrounded by the suffocating black cloud my father emanated. I moved to a queer homeless shelter/group home called CasaQ about five months later. I was denied twice but it was my only thread to hold on to. The only reason I did anything productive. I got accepted and moved in October 6th, 2017.
My life has changed drastically since then but not magically, it took a lot of time.
My step-dad started to progress, my parents moved in November '17 and I was helping them, when I lifted something heavy my dad said to me "Damn, we got a strong guy over here!" On my eighteenth birthday, in a story he was telling, he called me son.
When both my parents and I were arguing he called me "he.''
Just a few weeks ago he went "Wooaah your voice is changing already?" because I've been on testosterone for over two months. I thought it would take years for him to come this far.
My relationship with my parents has changed for better and for worse but the relationship I have with myself has blossomed.
I have a great paid internship, I'm starting college classes in May and I just moved into my own tiny queer apartment eight days ago through a TLP program.
It is still so incredibly hard for me to ask for help. To let my emotions out or even process my emotions but I am here today because I held on to that tiny, transparent, hair thin thread.
Hold on to your thread even if it's thinner than a spider's web, hold on.
It can get very thin and short and hard to see but it is still there. It is always there.
