Losing My Past
Evan Young
On August 5, 2013
http://outservemag.com/2013/08/losing-my-past/Explaining the past is difficult for anyone who is transgender. Stories of playing softball for your alma mater become blended with your brother's experiences playing baseball so you don't "out" yourself as transgender. Explaining how you busted your knee in high school football becomes a story about playing a powderpuff pick-up game with friends.
Sports are largely separated by gender. The same is true for the military. This will slowly change with women being allowed to serve in combat roles. Today, however, if you went to Marine Corps boot camp in San Diego it labels you as male since no women are sent there for training. You cannot talk about boot camp without exposing who you were – your gender assigned at birth – just as discussing your time on submarines or serving in the infantry would out you.
There are many transgender people serving in the military today. We serve in silence. Some of us go to great lengths to hide who we are while in the service. Once out of the service, a lot of us go to great lengths to hide our new gender. After transitioning, we do not want others to know of our past because we want others to accept us for our new gender. But hiding our background creates a whole new set of fears and anxieties.
By gaining the male characteristics that I had always wanted, I lost my history as a woman.
