Yes, I am Transgender. But if you want specifics, google it. I don’t speak for everyone who’s trans so I can only say what it means to me. And for me, being a person who only just realized they are trans, it means I am a guy who happens to have been born in the wrong body and keeps being called by the wrong name even though it’s my birthname and it’s supposed to be me, but it actually fits more like fireman’s outfit on a five year old. I may have a female body, but I am not attached to it, as in I don’t like it. But that’s neither here nor there because for the time being I am stuck with it and have to make do until I can do something to fix this (like Top Surgery). 

I have never identified as female, not even when I was a little kid, but I never knew that being “trans” was the reason. I knew I wanted to be a boy, I knew that I liked typical boy things over typical girl things, I knew that guys’ clothes were more comfortable than stupid dresses and skirts, but I just figured I was a tomboy. Because that’s what I was told I was. And I was grossly misinformed, if not a bit terrified, of what transsexualism/transgenderism was and when I did learn about it (not as extensively as now) I never even dared to think to label myself as such. It was too weird and I was already an outcast in my own family, there was no need to isolate myself even more with anything else. So I ignored it. 

But while I was in school, I was lonely. I didn’t fit in anywhere. Not that I didn’t have friends, I had a lot, but because of how I felt inside, I just didn’t belong with anyone. I couldn’t relate to girls, no matter how hard I tried, I always ended up feeling lost and like they were speaking a different language all the time. I related to boys like you wouldn’t believe and I could talk with them for the longest time, but at the end of the day I wasn’t one of them either because my body didn’t match theirs. So I was stuck in this in-between, forced to hang on the fence and try to figure out where the hell I actually stood. But I had no one to help me. I was angry all the time and hurt because I just wanted to belong. But when I talked to counselors/therapists, I didn’t know to tell them that what I was feeling was a lack of correct gender expression. I didn’t know I was really a guy trapped in a girl’s body, so it was never an issue that came up. And now, I firmly believe that this is the reason no therapy has ever helped me to work through my anger and disconnection to the world.

I’ve wanted to be a boy for so long, I have fantasized and dreamed so often about what it would be like. Not because I hate women - I love women and think they are some of the strongest humans ever – but because I am not a woman. My mind has never worked like the women I know. And it is incredibly difficult for me to even try and pretend that I can fit inside that mindset. But I have learned how to pretend like the best of them. I grew up as a female and I know how to act, to an extent, like a woman, but I constantly feel like I am on trial when I am around women. I feel like I have this silent alarm on me that alerts all women around me that I am not one of them, and it scares the shit out of me. Because I want nothing more than to just belong, to just be one of them and actually have been born with everything aligned and right. But I wasn’t. I was born this way and I don’t belong anywhere.

Except I’m finding that to be wrong. I do belong somewhere, because I’m not alone. I am not the only transgender person out there. I am not the only guy trapped as a girl. I am not the only one.

So again, if you want textbook explanations on what a trans person is, google it. But for me, being transgender means being stuck in the woods for years and being forced to fend for yourself, because the humans don’t know you exist and even though you’ve taught yourself how to communicate with the animals, you will never belong to their packs. So you wander and wander and make forts in trees until one day you come across a matchbook on the ground. You don’t know what you’re supposed to do with it or what it means, but you pull out a match and strike it across the black stripe until fire erupts at the end. And you hold it until it burns you, so you throw it down and light another one, and before you know it you’ve got two badly burned fingers and only three matches left. But you don’t even care because this is something you never knew you needed, this will save your life. And if you never find another person in this whole stupid forest, you at least know they exist. Because they left this matchbook for you to find, and for once, finally, you feel like you know who you are. You don’t belong with the animals, like you once believed, you’re human and you just made fire.