Hello everyone!
I am happy to be able to join this lovely community! I am PJ (nickname), currently 17 years old, and an aspiring mangaka. 😊✍🏻
Coming out was certainly a bold decision to make. I was 5 years old when I first got to know more of my true status in the gender spectrum and such. I was attracted to the same sex for some reason and I myself don't know how that came fo be. But as I grew older, the feelings of being female grew more apparent, especially being surrounded by all female members of my family. I always love to dress myself up with my grandma's clothes, wear my older sister's makeup, or wear a face towel in my head to resemble a long hair. My family noticed all I'm doing and because of fear lf me being judged by other people, they tried to stop me from doing all those things. But even then, I still secretly do them and only stopped doing them once there is the possibility of them noticing me. In school, I was bullied by my peers for behaving like a girl. It was really hard because I feel like I'm an outcast just for being who I am. That's when I started to pour my sadness into art. I watched Japanese animated shows as a child and that's where I learned to draw mangas and such. With that, atleast I have something to take my sorrow away.
High school came and it was a different environment from back in elementary. I was 12 back then (2013) and I was hoping to make quick friends and study well for my education. Again, I tried hard to act like a male, even so far as to put extra socks inside my shoes just to make myself taller (Despite being biracial, my asian genes are prevalent and I'm short as hell at 4'7). I even won Mr United Nations 2 years in a row! LMAO. With that sense, I started to feel that I'm finally accepted by my peers and that alone makes me happy. But, something started to bother me. By age 14, all my male batchmates have all grown in height and everything. But at that age, I was still short at 5'2. My male peers have also developed deep voices and muscles. I was still skinny at 45 kg, no muscles or whatsoever, and my voice didn't broke that much when it should have. But, the one that bothered me the most is when I learned that after all these years of trying to suppress this feeling, it never went away and only started to grow more. The feelings of attraction towards the same sex.
With that sense, I came to terms with myself and finally accepted that I am really different from everyone. I am a boy who is feminine, girly, attracted to guys, and feel like I'm a girl. Yes, you heard that right. I feel like a girl. Since 5, I've felt that I was one of the girls, even going as far as going in the same line as them, going into their restroom, and dressing like them. But I always ask myself, is it possible that I could be like one? Because of curiousity, I used the internet to search and hopefully find the answer to my question.
Upon viewing some searches, I found an image of a girl. I clicked on it to find the description saying, "Nong Poy, the most beautiful transgender in Asia". I found the girl gorgeous and wondered what is a "transgender"? I was curious about it so I searched it individually. I then found out what it means and was very surprised to find out that the girl in the picture I found was originally born as a male. With that sense, my mind was really eager to find out how she became a girl. I then started to search more about the processes one who born as a male has to undergo to become a female. Well, you probably guessed it. Gender affirming hormone theraphies, FFS, etc.
With my new profound knowledge regarding my true alignment on the gender spectrum, I then acted upon it. I came out to my family and my friends, with my friends offering me their full support which made me really happy. My family on the other hand, had mixed reactions. Religion (Roman Catholic) certainly wasn't the reason why some of my family didn't approved of my choice to transition. It was because of the medical transition in which they fear would affect me greatly because of my age. To add, I have an older female cousin living in New Jersey who came out already (Was the first person in my family to be LGBTQ) but probably weren't undergoing any medical transitioning. Even if she does, she is already 23 years old (born in 1995) so she is already an adult and can decide for herself without consent already. But in my case, I'm underaged and is only the first person in my family to undergo such a thing. But, my aunt who saw how hard the current situation is for me, made a promise to go with me to a gender clinic (There are only 2 in my country and both are in Manila) to help me start on my journey to become a full fledged woman.
Thank you for reading my introduction (Hope you didn't get bored😋). I hope to share my experience with everyone here and hopefully learn a lot from senior members and everyone who is included in this lovely community 😊😊😊
Sayōnara! ❤️❤️❤️
