Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Anyone ever pull out their old high school year books, and go "ick!"?

I have my year book from my freshmen and sophomore years. I was sitting at my computer listening to music, and k.d Lang came on. Yes, I listen to her from time to time. I spent my entire teenage years listening to her because of all the singers in the world, she came closest to what I was before I realized I was ftm. Now I keep her on my playlist as a sort of reminder of my past. Oh, I was such an awkward child.

For some reason, the music made me want to look at my yearbooks, which I might add, I've considered cutting out all pictures of me, destroying them, and tossing out the books. I looked at my sophomore yearbook first because it was the first one where I had short hair. My dad once said that I look like a young nazi in it. Jerk! My hair is parted on the side, and I never realized it before, but I look really pissy. I don't remember what I was thinking or feeling that day. But now I am seeing it as some symbol of my younger, pre everything self. Those miserable days when no one understood me, and I longed to find someone who would explain what was wrong with me. Little did I know that the person I was dating back then was going through the exact same thing. I discovered years later after finding my high school partner on facebook, that I got dumped because he was dealing with thoughts that he might be transgender (ftm), and he thought I would not understand. Life really is funny that way sometimes. 

I then turned to the dreaded freshmen yearbook. I had long ago blacked out the actual school pic because I hated myself that much, but there is a picture of the freshmen girl's basketball team I was on that I vaguely remember being in the yearbook. My hair was long, and I looked like one of those unkempt, awkward girls who just failed at being a girl. My hair is messy, completely unstyled, I have big nerdy glasses, and I stick out like a sore thumb. All the girls around me did their hair and makeup for the pic, and I basically look like I rolled out of bed and stumbled in. Two girls down from me, I had drawn a little devil goatee, pitchfork, and tail on one of my teammates. She had tortured me all through that basketball season. I hated being on the basketball team. I hated the attention, and I was uncomfortably shy. I quit after one year. I remember cutting my hair off sometime during that year, and that's when the rest of the school decided I needed to be tortured. I had rocks thrown at me. Everywhere I went it seemed like someone was shouting "dyke!" at me. I got mooned once on the street by some boys I went to school with. A boy in my welding class called me Sh** face once. The teacher took care of it, and went as far as to call my mom and talk to her about it. I was extremely popular in high school in a very bad way. Everyone knew who I was because I was the dyke on campus, or the girl who looked like a boy.

It was an awful time, and I really don't know why I still have those yearbooks. But sometimes it is good to have them around to remind myself how far I have actually come. I am 31 now, and I am still working on myself. Maybe I will never stop, but at least life is not as bad as it was back then.   

My freshman year picture is the same, I looked like an awkward girl who failed at being a girl. I can't even make myself look at that yearbook now because that was the year of the worst hair of my life. It was girly AND it was awfully frizzy and poofy and ugly. It was also taken right after volleyball practice (wow great scheduling guys good job) and so I'm sweaty and still a bit pink. Most of the girls took super-quick showers and blow dried their hair but since I never bother with drying my hair, I didn't, so I look particularly bad compared to the others.
I'm only 18 now and just graduated, so it's not as startling a difference for me than I'm sure it is for you, and I can definitely say right now I have no desire to look back on them. Maybe one day when I've been on T for a while, I'll look at them and think 'wow I can't believe that was me' but for now I'm perfectly happy forgetting about that time.

90% of my old school pictures look like pictures of a sad young man with greasy long hair and awkwardly placed enormous breastages. The other 10% make me even more dysphoric...

I definitely went through a huge selfie phase when I was 15-17, though. Dressing up super goth or in clothes I secretly bought in the boys' department... those are kinda fun to look back at.

I got rid of all of my highschool year books, I got drunk and depressed one night long ago and threw them in the trash.. Mostly I was upset that almost nobody signed them at the end of the year, it was like looking through a book that wasn't even mine.? I really hated highschool, I felt like an alien on another planet, and never fit in anywhere..
It was the opposite in middle school, I did well and had some good friends, I even liked it a little..

I have a classmate who keeps this yearbook picture on his Fb page from 8th grade, its pretty funny to look at every once in a while..

(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi24.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fc34%2Fmarkfloridaboy%2F1410147399667_zpskde1tlmu.jpg&hash=9aded5733df0d7250a78f798ebb46e58637992df) (http://s24.photobucket.com/user/markfloridaboy/media/1410147399667_zpskde1tlmu.jpg.html)

i had fun in high school. as much fun as someone who's struggling with a terrible depression can be, at least... being a girl back then wasn't bad, but that might have been because i was in a music course, and almost all my classmates were odd in some way or another. gender roles didn't apply, gender police didn't exist, even cis boys would dress at girls on occasion. and i got to "crossdress" too in drama classes, as well as taking the lead in dance classes. too few boys...

we also had too much fun with class pics for the yearbook. in one, i'm sitting with a shawl that covers all but my eyes, right next to a guy who's slipped down his pants and is wearing them only around his ankles.

no wonder i didn't realize i had gender problems back then. things started to change later though, when people suddenly assumed i'd take a typical female role after having my daughter. i had an exam the day after a gave birth, and still don't really understand why people make that out to be such a feat to get an a on it. does a person change all that much just because of giving birth? seriously?

People signed my year books. Maybe not as many as other students, but I do have silly messages scrawled all over the inside covers and a few pages. I don't read them because they have my old name in them. In my sophomore yearbook, it is easy to look at the pic and imagine I was just a moody teenage boy. But at the same time, if I think about it too much, the memories of all the nonsense I went through at school and with my family start flooding in.   

Oh geez.  I haven't looked through yearbooks in AGES.  I don't even think I bothered to get yearbooks the last 3 years of high school (I moved sophmore year and wasn't so into it.) I do have pictures of me back then.. I don't mind them. 

It is funny to look back at all the people you knew but wouldn't really ever bother to remember otherwise.  I just got together with a friend I went to high school with over the summer.  We've remained friends since, but hadn't seen each other in a year because I moved away for grad school.  Had to give each other the updates on all the long lost people we knew.. laughing about the things that happened in high school.. It was great fun actually.  Even though some of their stories don't seem to be turning out so well.  Lots of them were pretty awful people to begin with though.

Due to triggered madness of bodily suffering I trashed mine along with other old photos... I do regret it somewhat.

School was so bad for me that I made sure knows never to have school pics around when I go home.

so a big NO from me