Growing Up Trans: Sisterhood and Shelter at the Hetrick-Martin Institute
http://janetmock.com/2011/07/23/transgender-speech-hetrick-martin-nyc/7/23/11
Janet Mock
"I write for my school paper and I want to be a writer like you someday," a high school junior named Evie told me last Friday. "But I have to transition first."
I was just like Evie, a high school junior who happened to be transgender. I was a year into my cross-hormone therapy, watching myself mature into the woman I always dreamt of myself being. But I had other dreams beyond settling my gender-body incongruity. I wanted to be a writer, and I struggled with balancing my dreams of womanhood with my career goals.
Hence, the duality of growing up transgender for today's youth, the theme of my talk as part of a panel of career (trans)women at New York's Hetrick-Martin Institute.
I was wracked with nervous energy when I walked into the conference room, peppered with pink and white balloons and filled with about 50 young people who regularly seek refuge in the center's after-school program. Ayana Elliott, a nurse who specializes in transgender health, was standing regally at the front, detailing the overall effects of hormone therapy.
