The Transitive Property: Coming Out: It's Not Just For LGBT People
Monday, October 11th, 2010 | By Cristopher Bautista
http://www.stanforddaily.com/2010/10/11/the-transitive-property-coming-out-it%E2%80%99s-not-just-for-lgbt-people/So I'm one of those really lucky people who had to come out twice (because, of course, coming out once wasn't fun enough). My earliest memory regarding my gender identity occurred when I was in preschool—I'd be changing, and I most vividly remember that I'd look down and I most confidently thought that I'd eventually get the boy parts I'd always wanted, maybe as a Christmas present. If Santa Claus could get some little girl a pony, then he could sure as hell give me boy parts. (Of course, once puberty came along, I ended up more than a bit disappointed.)
My second most vivid memory happened when I was in seventh grade. Gwen Araujo, a transwoman who lived in the neighborhood where I went to middle school, was brutally murdered one night by several men when they found out her biological sex. Her story made national headlines, and her funeral was at my parish. The story terrified me as a 12-year-old—for the first time, I saw someone I identified with, someone whose mind and body didn't quite match. And she ended up murdered because of it, and this all happened within a mile or two of my school, a place I thought was safe. It probably was one of the reasons I didn't come out as transgender for so long.
