Monday, Aug 6, 2012 08:00 PM EDT
Trans, but not like you think As gender transitions become more visible, it's tempting to think all our stories are the same. They're not
By
Thomas Page McBeehttp://www.salon.com/2012/08/07/trans_but_not_like_you_think/Maybe you think you've heard my story before: I knew I wasn't a girl before I knew much of anything. There were the years of private, simmering mirror-hate; the jealous glances at men, the coveting of facial hair and biceps. As trans people become more visible, our stories have narrowed into a neat narrative arc: born in the wrong body, pushed to the brink of suicide/sanity/society, the agonized decision to begin hormone treatment/surgeries for the reward of ending up ourselves and looking "normal," which ends in a lesson about the tenacity of the human spirit, the gorgeous triumph of believing in yourself.
This is all true. But for me, and many others, it's also more complicated than that.
I don't think I was born in the wrong body. I am not "finally myself." I've never spent a day being anyone else. Mine is another story, a real and complex story, and one, by definition, that's not as easy to tell.
