When I was a kid, I wore the same blue skirt for weeks on end. I thought it was just something you did, wearing the same thing for weeks, when you wanted to feel good. Flash forward 17 years, I wear the same chest binder every single day, every single week, because it makes me feel good.
I remember crying the first time I wore it. Not a good cry- a “it’s too tight, it won’t fit” cry. It took time to get used to, and even when I finally did the restricted breathing still acted as a reminder I’d never be a real boy. The binder wasn’t the hardest part of coming to terms with being trans, though. It was my family.
I’d never say I grew up in an unsafe home. Throughout my transition, though, I found myself feeling unsafe here. It took around two years to convince my parents to allow me a binder, and from there on another year or so before they began using my preferred name and pronouns. They said it was too hard for them to switch names after seventeen years, and that being a gay trans man was just me being a hetero female and I was in denial.
I remember a conversation with my mother sometime around three in the morning after a breakdown, where she asked why I didn’t like myself. Like myself was putting it lightly, hate myself or suicidal was more accurate. (See the year I nearly killed myself, and scarred my arm on the floor of our kitchen at one in the morning.) I told her I didn’t feel safe at home, and that coming home to being misgendered and dead named was causing most of my problems as of late. My school, unlike my home, has been incredibly accepting, and does whatever they can to make sure I’m comfortable. So hearing my birth name tended to throw any progression I’d made in getting over my dysphoria backwards. I chose a new family that respected me, and I still couldn’t escape how much being at home hurt and terrified me.
There was a vow to change things after that conversation, and it’s been slow, but the change is happening. Saying ‘your brother’, instead of ‘your sister’ when talking to my siblings. ‘Would Alex like to eat dinner?’ when asking questions.
The little things are making a difference, and – I feel a lot happier now than I ever have since I came out. Being trans tends to make me feel good, now. It tells me I have control over who I am, and I can make decisions on my own.
So, to the trans readers in unsafe homes, you’ll be okay. Just give it time – get away if you need to, but don’t give up on being yourself. Being trans will feel good eventually, I promise.
