It Took Decades For Me To Realize My Identity Was A Lie. I Was Prepared For Pain

[Jessica_Rose]

It Took Decades For Me To Realize My Identity Was A Lie. I Was Prepared For Pain — But Not This.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/it-took-decades-for-me-to-realize-my-identity-was-a-lie-i-was-prepared-for-pain-but-not-this/ar-AA1j01O2?ocid=windirect&cvid=0a9b1fc5402243fcbd035d0de912f2d1&ei=22

Story by Vic Hall (Nov 2023)

I am a 66-year-old transgender man.

By the age of 6, I learned that society, religion and family had fashioned a perception of me based on a narrow definition of gender, but the carnival mirror held up to me was not my true reflection.

I became a sullen, miserable, alienated teenager with a growing anger I couldn't explain.

I sat down with my sister to reveal my true self to her. I gathered some family photos of me as a child that supported who I'd always been...

As my sister sat across from me, I handed her the old pictures and asked her what she saw. She scanned them for a moment and replied, "You."

"They're of a boy — of who I've always been. I'm transgender."

My sister handed me the photos and simply said, "So, what else is new?"

My throat began to close and tears welled in my eyes. This — the hardest thing I had ever done — was met with love. 

From that point forward, acceptance from others mattered less to me. By 2013, at the age of 56, I began to reclaim what time I had lost to the decades of denial and religious subjugation. I was determined to fully live whatever years I had left.