LEE. NEW HAMPSHIRE – My name is Colleen Martha Heath by birth. I was designated a female when I was born. My father [who has now passed, yet I still love him dearly] almost named me a masculine yet unisex name because he had wanted a boy so badly but my parents went with Colleen. It’s an Irish name; Gaelic for “young” or “little girl.” I won’t say it’s not a pretty name, but I never felt like I truly fit in it.
When I was young I was what people would consider a tomboy. Though I still occasionally wore dresses and had a collection of Barbies, I was masculine in other aspects. Most of my friends were boys. I wore clothes made for boys and played with toys made for boys. No one thought much of it; I grew up on a farm. Of course I was tough!
It wasn’t until last year I fond out maybe I wasn’t a heterosexual cisgender female. It started with exploring my sexuality. I discovered I am asexual, but I knew I wasn’t aromantic. My romantic orientation changed labels a million different times until I landed on panromantic asexual.
I had a few transgender and genderfluid friends. These people have played crucial roles in my life. I watched them come to terms with their identities, come out, change their names, and face the world. Somewhere, deep down, I wanted to do that too. For a little while I was convinced I was a boy. But that didn’t seem to fit; there were days when I loved being a girl and showing off the fact that I was a girl. But then other days I wanted a flat chest and perfectly quiffed hair and a lower voice. It was confusing. It was almost like a light switch, but instead of on and off, it was girl and boy.
Everyone I knew knew I was a strong advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community, especially since I was out as panromantic asexual. No one expected the girl who had just started wearing dresses almost every day and doing her winged eyeliner to a T to be any part boy. But I think I was using the makeup and dresses to hide the part of me that hated them.
Bigender. Two genders. When doing a community service project for Phoenix Collective for my world cultures class, I found out other people felt the way I did, and it was called being bigender. I was so happy to have a name for it, I almost told everyone the next day.
That was almost a year ago, and only a handful of people [my mother and my closest friends] know I identify as bigender and use she/her OR they/them pronouns. I also started going by the unisex nickname Charlie because “little girl” didn’t fit anymore. Almost everyone calls me Charlie now, but not everyone knows why. I like it because it can be short for two names I love, Charles or Charlotte. It fits my masculine and feminine personalities nicely.
I’ve come to terms with myself and I love myself, love handles and all. But that still doesn’t mean I’ve told the whole world who I am. My relatives besides my mother don’t know. Heck, half my friends don’t know. It’s a sort of a difficult life. Even on my masculine days I have to present female due to the fear and anxieties that I’d be perceived as “weird” or people would make assumptions about me. So while I’m out of the sexual orientation closet, I still have most of my body in the gender closet, maybe a hand’s sticking out, but not much.
Hopefully one day I’ll come out to the school and be able to live as the real, true me. But for now I have a great support system and I’m fine being just Charlie.
Comments are closed.