Lucy Grey: Gendernaut

Natalie Reed keeps hitting hard. My childhood story is very similar to hers. Excerpted from her blog: 

In childhood I knew that I was different from other kids, and from other boys, since I first was able to articulate a concept of difference. But there were lots of things that were different about me, and my head was always cluttered with a thousand concepts, and a thousand means of iterating my identity and positioning myself as Other. Most adults… my parents, my teachers, friends of the family… simply chalked up my isolation from other children and inability to fit into conventional norms of behaviour (and gender) as simply being an issue of my being “creative”, “artistic”, “intelligent” and “gifted”. My dad and brothers often just called it “weird”. For the first part of my life, I was able to simply accept that as the explanation: I was just “weird”. And for some reason I just didn’t worry too much about explaining it beyond that. I knew that I was not like other boys, but I didn’t worry too much about defining what exactly I was like.

There were certain hints and intimations along the way, little breadcrumbs forming a trail, but none of them were substantive enough. I was too caught up in other concerns and confusions, and I chalked it up to an overall fractured identity and sense of alienation (though I’d be awfully impressed if my 9 year-old self was able to use the terms “fractured identity” and “sense of alienation”).

I’m not as far along in coming out or transitioning as she is, but her story gives me a lot of hope.

All in all, my coming out went as perfectly as it possibly could.

What saddens me, though, is that cases like mine are very rare. The majority of my trans friends are in some way alienated from their families. It’s a tragic thing that so often the act of coming out has to be such a difficult choice and sacrifice… to have to choose to be able to live a happy life and live as who you truly are, but having to also lose your family and friends, sometimes lose your entire community and network of support. It sickens me that things like bigotry, misinformation, bias, cultural taboos about gender and religious edicts can end up getting to the point where they render unconditional love condition, and tear people from their families. Force them to make these choices and sacrifices.

But it’s beautiful, in a way, that so many people do find the courage and strength to make that choice. That we have a community primarily comprised of people who were able to move past the enormous amount of hatred and shame in our culture, and all the costs, risks, and sacrifices involved in coming out and transitioning, and assert themselves, claim their identity, and push forward for a life of happiness, integrity, honesty and being true to one’s needs rather than a life of compromise, sadness and quiet desperation.

I think it suggests immense hope about who we can be, us little crazy struggling humans, that trans people exist at all.

Read it all at her blog. :)