Puberty sucks but even more when you're transgender

My menses started when I was eleven. I remember the day. I was in band and was wearing a very stylish-at-the-time light blue suit with embroidery on the back. When I went into the girls’ room with bad cramps, I thought I had a stomach bug but quickly realized what was happening.  I felt embarrassed, ashamed, scared and vulnerable. It was a validation that I was indeed a woman and I was doomed for life in a woman’s body. The idea that I could now have kids was disgusting to me. 

I never wore that fashionable suit again, because I couldn’t get the bloodstains out.

When I came home I told my mom, thinking she would be supportive. She instead got on the phone and called people – family members, her friends -- and told them. I was so embarrassed and ashamed that everybody knew.  Why did God do this to me? I cried a lot that day. In fact, that was the first day I thought about suicide.  I told my mother I was going to take a walk.  There were some three-foot high metal pillars along the road, and I climbed up on one like a pedestal and prayed.  I prayed a lot as a kid. I saw that I could almost reach some power lines from my high spot.  I tried to jump up and grab an electrical line. At that moment, a friend walked up to me and asked what I was doing. I laughed and said I was just checking to see if they were all right. She remembers me laughing and kidding around. It was a great defense mechanism.

When I was 10 or so my brother and his friends used to wrestle with me and play sports. It seemed once I had my monthly thing, that all stopped. It was awful, and I couldn’t share how I felt with anyone because nobody understood how I felt.  It was the 1960s -- a girl feeling like she was really a boy, not just a tomboy, was not anything anyone had ever heard of or talked about in my world.  As long as I could remember, I wished I was a boy. My sisters and my mom would dress me in fancy dresses and socks with ruffles. If you look at baby pictures of me you can see the tear in my eyes wanting to come out.  I can now recognize that haunted expression in pre-transition transgender people. Chastity Bono was one of them – I used to say to my grandmother “That girl looks sad,” when we watched Sonny and Cher.  Later I would watch Chastity transform into Chaz, with profound results.

I did not know about dysphoria when I was in puberty. As a reminder, it is the opposite of euphoria – a state of extreme depression and anxiety.   I felt it quite often when I did not want to feel the woman thing, the dress thing, any woman-associated thing that I had to do. I developed breasts very early, at age 9. So I would use tape or wear a bathing suit to hide my top half, and I hunched my shoulders.  Nowadays, young teenagers who are transgender can use hormone blockers to prevent the shock of your body turning into someone who is definitely not you.

The statistics for suicide attempts among transgenders is startling, at about 40%. They are also at more risk for violence, particularly male-to-female trans women, and even more so, trans women of color.  On November 22^nd, both internationally and nationally, people will observe the Transgender Day of Remembrance for those lost to violence and hate crimes.

I am very happy now and would not have been able to write so freely about this before. Even now it is very hard for me to feel these emotions. It is like opening up wounds and pouring salt into them each time. I am not telling my story to gain pity, but to help others on their path who are like me, and for their loved ones to understand. I felt like I was only half a person for many years and I can honestly say I am whole now.