Since my 2nd memory, which was at age 3. And yeah, this is likely going to be long, so if you don't want to be stuck reading War and Peace, Volume II, Jessica vs. Her Body, given my photographic memory, I'd suggest stopping here (and no offense taken on my end). Trigger Warning: Genital mutilation, suicide attempts.
But yeah, as I said this started at age 3. I always took baths with my mother, and it was just us two in the house at that part of my life. I knew what she had vs. what I had. Something just clicked that that was wrong. And so my 3 year old brain reasoned that I, too, could simply get my body like hers, from simple getting rid of that part of my body. And so, every time I had a bit of free time, I'd go straight to the bathroom, drop down my pants, underwear, and slam down the seat, as many times as I could, so it would fall off. After all, if my mother didn't have one, how secure could it have been? In retrospect, my mind must have thought it would fall off like if you did the same with a stick, in that it surely would fall off from impact alone. It didn't quite do that, but it did prompt my mother to walk in, and remark once to me, astonishingly aghast, "A purple p****!" She never did anything about that incident.
Around that time, my favorite toy was a Madeline doll, who I slept with every night, and my favorite stories were her stories, of living in Paris; "In an old house in Paris that was covered in vines, lived twelve little girls in two straight lines..." As the traditional opening ended, I always thought of myself as Madeline, always the shortest of them all, just like I was for many a class until like 10th grade. That wound up impacting my life even today, as I speak French as my second language now, and am a bit of a Francophile.
I also attended a day care at this time, and always just wanted to play with the other girls who were doing house. And it was a small day care, too, a little area inside a church, so around the size of an average living room, for like 15 some kids. But they always, always rejected me, because I was a "boy", meaning I was physically pushed me out, every time I tried to play with them, at one point leaving me like 25 some bruises on each leg. I was an insistent bugger, you could say. Eventually, they caved one day, and they let me in, to call me over, to let me play. I was absolutely ecstatic, even though I had to play the brother, who promptly died in about 2 minutes. My thoughts at the time, they still ring in my head today, or at least the general idea of them: "Oh, wow, yay! I want be the mom or sister, like I heard them say they are a lot, but I get to be in the girl's group today!" Other than that, I mostly just sat alone, looking on, about 5 feet away, wishing and wanting. One day, we learned how to end a performance at this same day care; boys bow, girls curtsey. I can't recall any stares or anything with negative connotations, when I did only my curtsey, except the smile on my face.
Around this age, I really got confirmed the differences down there, between a boy and a girl-it was in this book shop, and I chose to read this book called The Human Body for Kids, or something of that nature. I was hopeful they would have something on the difference between boys and girls, and indeed they did ("little boys don't have a vagina"/"little girls don't have a penis"), that's the first time I learned the word vagina, and what I needed then, and still need to this day. I wished every night there on out I could wake up right, for some time...
Then when I was 4 (don't worry, these aren't all this long!), I had really envied a pair of pink Hello Kitty boots this one girl had. I remember loving the pink, and the possibly faux-fur design of their heels. I also loved to play dress up, and play as my personal favorite evil character I knew, Cruella DeVille, so I mixed up black and white wigs, clothes, etc. to make my hair match hers. We also had open house that year, and had an arts and crafts area we were displaying, and I made a pink, stapled headband that I kept on the rest of that night. While the staples were itchy, it still made me so happy, and I had to tell my mother all about it!
Then, like now, I did acting, in some courtroom theatre, which was my first taste of acting. Awesome! This one day, they actually complied with my request to play someone's daughter, and that I got to read her lines. It absolutely made my day to have done that. Like before, my mother was the only friend I had to talk with at that point, so I told her, again beaming.
In kindergarden, we had this field trip to the local airport, and I had the curse of being born with a low voice (love ya, HRT!). So all my class got to go into the cockpit of the plane, sit in the pilot's seat, to announce the city we had "landed" in. My mother, a chaperone, and my teacher made a fun game out of this, amongst themselves and the other students: Try to guess who the student was that had just spoken. It was surprising how many they actually got wrong, so I had hope when it was my turn, that they'd hear a girl when I spoke. I tried my best girly high voice, because even I knew it was a bit on the low side for a boy that age, let alone a girl, and said: "Welcome to [city]." I thought it sounded great, they totally thought it would be a girl...ah, nope. My mother said she and the teacher were laughing over how low my voice was, and how the speaker was obviously me. She meant no harm, but oh, that one just hurt.
In grade school, like grade 1, it was simple. I talked to other girls. Period. Usually I would talk about liked stuffed animals, or other soft things. I would with the boys from time to time, but they were like (as they were), the other people. Not degrading them, but just, well, like how most kids would-mostly talking to those of the same sex.
Second grade is where things got interesting, funny, and rather nasty...I thought up my first true name for myself, in a letter addressed to male classmate I had a crush on, as Juliet. Chosen because I wanted to keep the J (hey, look, I still did!), and it was romantic in a way, with Romeo and Juliet. I just knew it as a famous love story at the time, so why not use her name? Hopefully I don't meet her tragic end in the future, though! We also had self drawings, god help me if I can do better than a stick figure most days...mine was a stick kid who was seemingly normal, except for the fact that I put a taped X where my crotch was. Yeah, I meant that by it. And I got close to doing it, too. I got a tool kit that year for my birthday, which I found utterly useless except for the saw. I got up early one morning, took out the saw, pulled down my underwear, and starting to slowly to move the saw, left and right, left and right, carefully so, as to be precise. Didn't want my family knowing, so when I heard them wake up, I hid my experiment as soon as I could. They were none the wiser about this until another 8 years after this incident.
3rd grade to 6th grade, I loved going to the 'girl' gifts part of a certain site, with the label attached to its hit counter saying, "[A]nd we know if you're a girl." I always thought that true, silly me, but I hoped they saw me as a girl, but had my worries, doubts, since nobody else did but me. Around that time, my friends and I (boys, which, egad, shock, right?) would pick 'characters' from anime (which, meh, no appeal other than Pokemon now, sorry) or video games to pick to be. I wound up picking this girl from this one show, and as such my friends called me her name. I basically was their boss, in a friendly way, so they had to do it, although they took no issue with that. I remember writing in my Crayola 64 Pack, on the underside of the flap, that year that her name was MY name, and it was NOT that wrongname. I dreamed, wished, prayed I could become her one night. And so, when I woke up, I felt like her, I truly believed I had become her, and adjusted my attitudes and such to 'become' her. I didn't dare look down, since I didn't want to be disappointed about the down there part. Tried to trick myself that since if I didn't look, I still had a 'chance' of being right. I late became her later in life...always secluded, down, depressed. Rather fascinating.
But my friends were more involved with a group I was in, so there were more like group buddies. I didn't have any other friends, so I went to video games, because they would let you see yourself for whatever you wanted to. In 2001, my favorite game ever came out...and not just because you could play as a female for the first time on it, though that really helped (and, according to my father, I played all the time as female characters in video games--he remembered more than me on that front). I loved playing as her, it was so refreshing, and right! I always changed her 'back', if I was afraid my parents would see. Why that was, I don't know-but possibly because I was a kid who had her share of trouble in the classroom until 4th grade, since I likely was bored of too easy academic work. I really didn't want to start that cycle again, since I was now basically a model student behavior wise, and academically.
I read the cocoon item some people have shared here, I did the same like every day in around 5th/6th grade. Saw that one on a TV show-this boy wanted to be less scared, and so he wrapped himself up in a blanket, and eventually his blanket became his new wings, as a butterfly; a happier, braver child. Right after the episode, I thought the same could work for me, that I'd become a girl, like that. Wrap the blanket around me, go to sleep, wake up a girl! It was RIGHT THERE, had to be! Augh, no. Of course not. At least my mother bought me a pair of girl's blue shoes then, which I proudly showed off to all the bus drivers in the district: "Look! I'm wearing girl's shoes!
" I was just happy, and proud. Can't help but wonder what they thought of it all though!
My mother got pregnant with my first sister in summer 2002, and I wound up getting a sympathy pregnancy (morning sickness, all that fun stuff!) with my mother...at least I had that, as much as I didn't know what it was. It was fascinating, almost like our symptoms lined up, like how with two natal females living together sometimes share period dates, or close to them. I'm sure it was a sympathy prenancy though, given it stopped basically immediately when my sister was born. I might not be able to birth my own, which is always devastating, but I had that. Minus the delivery, that's as close as I can ask for.
Towards the latter half, 5th and 6th grade, of middle school, I just talked to this one friend Claudia a lot-again about fun furry pet toys, cats, or just girly things in general. It was wonderful, and she thought as much of it as I did, which is to say, nothing.
Somewhere around 6th and 7th grade, I had this book of 100 Questions for Kids. 2 of them stuck out to me: Do you ever wish you were of the opposite sex? OH MY GOSH, YES! YES! How they knew how I felt, though, that's what I wanted to know. Felt like I was stalked! The other one asked if I would trade lives with anyone in my class, for I believe a week. And yes-this girl in my class who I was good friends with, since we shared a lot of laughs, fun, and academic interests. I mean, she had an awesome family, basically the same personality, interesting, etc. as me, AND she gets to be a girl. I was worried how she would feel though, if I did that, but I totally wanted to switch lives with her...so much.
For 8th grade, I read one of my favorite book series ever, all 8 of the Anne of Green Gables series. It was easy to imagine myself as Anne, with her fun imagination, school success, childhood mischief, her coming of age (like I was, simultaneously), and so on. As my father joked about my love of the series, "Maybe she read those books because she wanted to become a Canadian!"
Towards the end of 8th grade, it was getting to be the end of the year...and god help me I had a stalker girlfriend who always rang my number. I was NOT interested, never reciprocated those countless offers. She just was that obsessed and obnoxious. Around that time, I played The Sims all the time, just a fun game. I made a fictionalized version of my family, with me being named Jasmine, or another girl's name that can also serve as the name of a spice. It was really cool...and I boasted about it to my friend how awesome it was that I got to be a girl (that I saw myself as, reflected back in the screen). He was, understandably so, tepid and a bit confused as to why I did so, in his reaction. That family made me so happy to play with, it made things okay that summer, since I was on the computer basically all the time, and I got to be a girl during it.
Then, sigh, the joys of high school. I had a late puberty, and so I basically started in 9th grade. Only then did I notice secondary sexual characteristics between men and women...god help me, I wanted to look like THEM! And I knew it was going to get bad, fast. I knew too much about puberty to know this one would not end well at all. Day after day of secluded depression, wondering WHY!? Ready to smash a mirror if I so much as saw my reflection of the NIGHTMARE of changes that took place. I wanted to end it daily, never was successful. The closest I got in high school was I think sometime in early 2008, when I hung a belt around my neck, and tightened it more than it should have been, in an attempt to cut off the throat's ability to breathe. I did get a few remarks about why I had such marks, and I fed them the BS that I was simple exercising my neck, with a demonstration. Somehow, they bought that (hey, I am an actress, you know) and gave me neck exercises (which I would remember now, I'd like to exercise the area) to do instead. I had NO friends in 9th grade, so academics, save for geometry, were my one salvation. I adored algebra and French, so rather than talk to people during lunch most days (seriously, HS was 90%+ days of sitting alone at a table), I'd just read my books to learn more. Books were my friends.
I couldn't take much more in 10th grade, at which point I couldn't take it anymore. Around October 2008, I started to write something called Jenny's (the name I liked for myself at the time) Journal, which was a slightly humorous attempt (though more self-necessity than anything else) at writing my day from a girl's perspective, including the crush I had on the [American] football team's quarterback. Well, naturally, it got back to him, since a lot of my fans were jocks, and it got to the principal about this, under potential sexual harassment. If I had been born right, it sure as heck wouldn't have been-and it wasn't here, but... yeah. My parents got called in to the school about it, which made me feel embarrassed, and asked me if I felt like this. I did not say yes, since I didn't think the time was right.
Same reasoning with the two times we were asked flat out on an evaluation sheet (0-2 scale, 2 is highest): "I wish I was a member of the opposite sex." Once on my 16th birthday, once in 4th or 5th grade. Still wondered how they knew my life, but was worried I'd be harmed if I put yes, so I put 0 both times, stupid me (though truthfully, it was a 2, of course--and one person was actually shocked I was a 0, after she was told).
Anyway, after that journal snafu, I tried to hide my thoughts, that they were shameful, and more importantly hurtful to others. I couldn't hold them back. It just HURT to do so, on top of the puberty hell, and made me cry internally. I would have done so externally, but pre-HRT, I couldn't cry as well, even if I had wanted to. And so, the year flipped to 2009. I went to see then-president elect Barack Obama get inaugurated, with this group who I had done a law camp with before, the summer prior, in 2008. Rooming with like 6 boys, who were super girl crazy, and peering out the windows for them all the time, and their crushes, well, I think I was the bigger one crushed. It felt so TERRIBLE, because while they were nice enough, I did not belong, and I longed so much to be in a room with the other girls for girl chat...sigh...
Anyway, January 2009, prior to the swearing in, our first night there, we were divided not only for room purposes between male and female, but for a guideline talk. After they separated, god I wanted to RUSH to the girl's one, but I knew that one would go over oddly. First question they ask once they women are gone: "WE'RE ALL MEN HERE, RIGHT?" Unlike the others who roared like their local team had scored a winning touchdown, goal, or what have you, I stayed silent, cowered my head in fear, and depression, as I thought to myself, "This is wrong...." And I knew it was absolutely enough. I had to tell my family directly at this point, as if it hadn't been obvious enough to that point. Add that to some guy, who actually was quite nice, but felt the need to mention getting his pants fitted a certain way, to show off his "junk in the trunk". I had no idea how to react, I honestly just grimaced, because it was just awkward to hear that. I couldn't hack it as a guy, ever. Talking about those parts I detested like they are some glorious gift, it's not for me. I never had a doubt I was female, but, really, this showed me for the first and only time, just how bizarre the male world is, and why it doesn't work for me.
Obama was sworn in (not about politics, I swear, I'm only adding context to the dates!), I came home, did an interview about going there, getting a special ticket that got my close to the event, from a state senator, about the experience. About a week after, I was sitting in the car, in the parking lot of a little local diner or cafe, when I told my mother, at 16. I read Just Evelyn's Mom, I Need to be a Girl countless times the prior few nights, as well as seeing 20/20's My Secret Self, with Jazz and her mother, Jeanette, praying my mother (and father) would be similar to those two in her response. She totally did in time-and these days, I keep in contact via FB with Jazz's mother. My originally thought increasing my T levels would help cure this-not to be mean, but to offer a viable solution. I went to therapy, for many years. Nobody knew ANYTHING, or wouldn't see me as an under 18.
I was SO bummed I couldn't go my senior year as the female I knew myself to be, but given my lack of HRT to that point, and my voice, probably would have been a huge messy national article bit about it, like a bathroom spat. Still didn't make my senior year any less depressing, academics aside...I didn't want to even go to my HS graduation since it would be under the wrong name. I had to be threatened with no graduation dinner if I didn't, and I reluctantly went. Of course, oh nononono! It didn't stop at names, it went to dang robe colors, black for men, red for women. I really, REALLY wanted a red one. So much. That still bugs me. At least my family called me JD cheering for me when I graduated, which are still my initials (Jessica Danielle, to be exact). I graduated friendless, the one friend I did have found others, and basically drifted from me. Can't say I'd blame him with how I was then. That didn't mean I didn't want female friends though...I did more than almost anything else! I just worried they'd see me trying to hit on them, and not just as friends, girl-to-girl, so I abandoned the idea, at least in my high school.
So I went to driving school that summer, since I was unconfident about my abilities, as well as that I wanted to NEVER have that M marker on my driver's license. I found it super easy to talk with the other girls there, as we talked about fashion, and advice for life, and such. It was awesome! All the girls loved talking to me about, well, whatever. One told me I just had to be her fashion guide once she got her license, and we'd go together to shop! I think they thought I was a homosexual male, which nothing wrong with that, except the male part...that made the experience a touch less special, sigh.
I actually met my first 'other' (I use 'other' since this person since detransitioned) TS person, a few years younger than myself working at a local Burger King, after my first driving lesson, which was neat, but honestly rather scary to me, since the look was a bit garish, over the top. I met my 2nd one (FTM this time) while acting, and we were assigned 'partners' for one of the dance numbers, who made it a point to tell me to use male pronouns, which of course, no issue there. I asked why he was talking about names, hormones one day, turns out he said he was FTM, as thought (given a pound on his chest was hollow, sounded like a binder), and told me how I'd feel if I woke up one day in a girl's body. I didn't laugh, somehow, as not to be rude, but HA!
College was more of the same, great academics, love the professors for their intellect, and so on. Hey, I learned a lot about the awesome stuff like business, more about French, more theatre, amazing astronomy, and so on! No friends, sadly, and body hurt like hell, every day, still, and I was a Dean's List student a few times. Even this spring, my junior year, the pain, loomed over my like the black shoe over the helpless ant. I am glad I was not successful (don't do this!!), but I basically smothered myself with a pillow one night, and think I saw the afterlife, where I was free of all pain, dancing, like a music box ballerina, that it was all over. I recovered. Thankfully, I started HRT November 2012, which rebounded a 2ish GPA at that point in the semester, into a Dean's List GPA. That's the power of estrogen, baby!
And so, months went by...I waited until my birthday this year, June 2nd, my 21st, to start living partly (read: everywhere but class) as me. I went to the Philly Health Conference, this past June, which I'm hoping to present at next year with some close people in my life, to live as me all day, everyday there, haven't looked back since! I'm much more open, easier to talk with now, since other girls just see me as just another one of them, talking about whatever is on mind, and that soars my confidence. Everybody sees me as Jessica, anywhere; thank you great genes! It's AMAZING! It's like a perfect puzzle piece fit. Still need SRS to feel complete, personally, someday...in the meantime, to tell my story, like here, I've done an interview that should be out by year's end, as well as appearing in a documentary that begins work in December. Why do this? In addition to helping youth who truly need a role model or example, these actions are also in memorial of my father, who passed unexpectedly in his late 50s this July-he stood for social justice, equality, for all, which his parents instilled in him with the UN. I want to carry on his traits as a person in me, and I can't think of any better way to do so.
In conclusion, I've never lived life as a guy. He didn't exist-people did not see his shadow, literally so, as I prevented people from seeing me, outside of classes, or if they did they had to be in my really close circle, or I would be studying, or eating alone. I've always been female, and always will be. This life is SO much better now. I can't imagine how AMAZING, at LONG last SRS will be in hopefully a year! Hope you enjoyed my story.
