Trans History Month: Stories From Our Community

A masc person with curly hair and a silver earring, necklace, bracelet, and rings, as well as tattoos on their hand, arm and torso, examines their top surgery scars.

August is Transgender History Month, and here at Sac Queer Church we wanted to do something to honor that. There are many wonderful trans people throughout history that we could highlight, but the truth is their stories are already out there. If you want to learn about them, they are only a quick DuckDuckGo search away.

So instead, we choose to highlight the journeys of trans people currently within our community. New stories that might also be something for you to relate to at this point in your life.

It can be so challenging going through your transition, or your feelings of dysphoria, or even just wondering if you're trans at all. If you don't have a community around you that knows what you're going through then it can be a really isolating feeling as well. So our hope is that by reading these stories, perhaps something resonates with you. Perhaps you can feel a little less alone, and a little less isolated. And please know that you are always, always welcome here, regardless of where you stand on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. We stand with you, and we welcome you.

Charlie, he/they

Something was different with me from the beginning. I liked my dresses and skirts, but something felt off about the way I liked them compared to other girls. I learned what a 'tomboy' was and felt a wave of envy hit me. Girls were allowed to want to wear boys' clothes? I wanted to wear boys' clothes, too, but not all the time, so I must not be a tomboy. Just a weird girl.

I met a girl who chose to be a girl when I was 10. I didn't know what 'transgender' was, but I was amazed that someone could decide what gender they wanted. I thought she was the coolest person alive. I wanted to be like her, but I was already a girl, so I guess I couldn't be.

I met a girl when I was 11 who told me she wanted to be a boy, but she was scared. I asked what her 'boy name' would be, and she said Mark. I decided to call him Mark, then, because I knew his family wouldn't do it. It felt right to call him that. Whatever his old name was didn't fit him anyways.

In eighth grade, I decided I wanted to go by a different name. Just for fun, I thought. It could be fun to try something different. No other reason. I was too anxious to tell all my teachers, though, so half the school knew me by one name and half by another. The name I chose didn't feel right, either. It felt too girly still. I didn't stick with it the next year.

In sophomore year, with unlimited internet access and online friends who knew more than me, I knew that trans men and trans women existed. I knew that I didn't want to be a girl, so I figured my only other option was to want to be a boy. I had short hair, I wore baggy tshirts and cargo shorts, and I was the only openly queer person in my grade. I would explain my gender to people over and over again, and even though being a boy didn't really feel correct, I was happy to not be a girl.

When I first encountered the term 'nonbinary', I think I brushed it off. I had decided I was a trans man, so I couldn't possibly change my mind now, but the feeling of wrongness was still there. I missed wearing dresses and skirts, but I wasn't allowed to wear them as a boy. I sometimes thought I must have made the wrong choice to be a boy, but the idea of being a girl also wasn't right. The concept of going on testosterone scared me, though. I didn't want facial hair or a deep voice, but I didn't think I could say that out loud or I wouldn't be doing transness correctly. It had to be rigid: man or woman, no other options.

It took a lot of time to finally realize that I could, in fact, do whatever I wanted. I could wear dresses, pants, crop tops, skirts, anything at all, and not have it affect who I was. I could be nonbinary if it felt right, and it really did feel right. Letting go of labels, of concepts of gender based on colours or clothes or hormones or hair length or makeup, letting go of my self-imposed rules about gender, was a huge weight off my chest that I never knew I was carrying. It never had to be a big deal, and leaving that behind brought me peace.

Today, I know who I am. I am queer, I am happy, I am loved, I am free.

Ori, they/them

I would say that my self-discovery journey is a lot like other trans people’s journey–in that it was entirely unique and unlike anyone else’s.

It’s entirely impossible to pinpoint just when I found out that I may not be a “boy”, whether that was my Bubbles (from Power Puff Girls, represent) lawn chair when I was 4, or my sheer insistence on wearing light purple “girly” sneakers until I was 16. All that said, I most certainly wasn’t a boy. What am I, exactly? There’s a lot of words I can use; Agender, Pansexual, Polyamorous, and I’m sure a few that I’m missing, but what I can say is this:

My name is Ori, and I’m happy to be here because it was a fight to do so.

I had 2 coming outs, one easy - the other less so. Let’s start with the sunshine, shall we?

When I was in a white dominated, wealthy SoCal middle school I was one of the first kids to come out as bisexual. This would’ve been in 2010 abouts, and you could’ve confused my proclamation with something out of a fairy tale. I told my friends that I liked boys and they all suddenly came face-to-face with an opportunity to be an ally for the first time in their lives, and with the growing social media rise of queer folks they were overjoyed to “know one of them”. Y’know, writing that out - it doesn’t seem all that good, but they were genuinely good people. Being so excited at school, I came home to tell both my mom and my dad, and both of them were immediately accepting and gave me a similar phrase of, “I don’t care who you love, I still love you.”.

I experienced a blissful 2 weeks before my first bullying incident happened. After being recommended that I “be more quiet” about my sexuality from the principal, I faded from talking about it for a long, long time.

All throughout my life, I never really felt like a “boy” - I was always into fantasy and most of that time, I imagined myself as another species or gender entirely. So imagine my surprise when I found out that you could just….not be your sex assigned at birth. The hitch is that I thought this time may be different.

At 16, I came out at my now High School as Agender and using only they/them pronouns. This largely didn’t really matter at school, I was still bullied, used as clout, etc. The surprise came from my father throwing me out of his house saying that I “would always be [his] son” and I couldn’t “live in [his] house until I accepted that”. I don’t know if you know this, but being homeless at 16 is a real test. It wasn’t until my teachers noticed that I was placed in my grandparents’ care.

Now, that’s really bad, but now you’re reading my words almost 10 years later as I have a white cat in my lap purring, in my own home–so I can say this: As overused as it is, it does get better.

Please keep fighting; I want to learn what your name is.

Hale, he/him

I always knew I was different, but I didn't consciously know it. I just felt a "wrongness" that never went away. Growing up in a Fundamentalist Christian household, I didn't even know what "gay" was until I stumbled upon lesbian Disney princess porn when I was 12. (Ironically, I would come out as sapphic 20 years later!) Throughout my teen years and into my early 20s I just figured I was bisexual, even though that term didn't quite feel right either. I just never once considered that my gender might be the factor that needed to change.

It wasn't until I was around 25 that I started to realize that maybe I was nonbinary. I really owe this to having a lot of queer friends at that time, and I was able to see beautiful and diverse representation of gender. For the first time I was able to see what it might mean if I wasn't a girl. It was an absolutely terrifying notion, especially since I was still living with my Christian family, but it was also a thrilling one.

I came out as nonbinary first, using they/them pronouns. But even though I tried that for a little while...it still wasn't right. It wasn't the perfect fit. I had to go even further.

He/him fit like a warm sweater, even if one that was a little itchy. It fit, and it was cozy, but there was that slight itch on the skin that made you wonder if it was worth wearing. I legally changed my name, pursued HRT and grew facial hair. But any time someone used "he" or "him" or "his", I felt fake. I felt like that was the wrong pronoun. I felt like someone was going to look at me and go "well that's not a man." I figured I just needed more therapy to deal with my self-esteem issues, and surely it would get better.

3 years in, and it wasn't getting better. Thankfully, for me, I had the goddess Aphrodite that I worship. I won't turn this into evangelizing or anything, but I'll just say a lot of the work I did with Aphrodite (and continue to do) is focused on self-love. Not just on the surface, but deeper too. So focusing on loving my skin, but also focusing on loving the parts of me that give me awful, horrible dysmorphia. That make me scared to wear the skirt I like. That make me think, "I can't wear that, I'll get misgendered" and "That makes me look so, so bad" when it really doesn't.

I was on testosterone for 3.5 years. I started out thinking, "I want to pass as a man." I stopped taking it because I want to be gender-nonconforming, I love wearing skirts and dresses, makeup, etc. all while having he/him pronouns. And you know what? I don't care about being misgendered, and for the first time ever, "he/him" no longer feels itchy. It feels absolutely soft, warm, and comfortable.

I still get self-conscious about different parts of my body, but the difference is I have the confidence to put myself out there anyway. I thank and praise and uplift Aphrodite for this, for I would not have gotten here without Her.

I also want to shout out my little brother. He came out as gay when I was a teenager, and he was a pre-teen. He battled my parents for YEARS, both against their religion and their strict rules. He was fearless and at the time I was shocked and still learning what all of it meant (I was also homeschooled - no experience with homosexuality at all), but looking back I am just so proud of him and all that he stood for. He has grown into such an amazing young man and I love him so, so much.