Dinner: Cheese dip and a stale hard shell tortilla
I am a man. I have been openly transgender since I was 10, and I love my community and the people that support me... but God is it hard to stay positive right now.
I live in the South, in a state that specifically just loves to talk about transgender people. Every single day I have to deal with those ads with the same exact rhetoric... "transgender agenda" is wrong, and all parents should hate trans kids. Im quite used to these comments and stuff, i mean, im literally half arab and my home country has being trans completely outlawed. But its just getting harder now.
I am hearing my peers threaten trans people, mock them openly, or use it as a talking point to demean women... even my teachers. I am not shy about my identity, but I dont put it on blast either; I use my last name in all my classes, I introduce myself with my preffered name, I correct people who assume im a lesbian or something, and i dont allow people to use my dead name at all.
I feel bad for not stepping in, because i have been directly bullied before (both verbally and physically) for my identity, and i know exactly how hard it is to be the butt of the joke... but I can not put more of a target on myself. Every day, I have to just sit there and listen to these people talk, threaten, and use people exactly like me. It hurts to hear, and i want so badly to step in, but everytime I have in the past it just results in more social torture.
I've just got to put up with it. I've got to learn to be quiet until I actually have the power to step in without risking myself.
I am a man. And just because some may not agree with my identity, it shouldn't result in my death. I hope things just ease up soon already.
EDIT: wow. Just... wow. Thank you guys for the sweet comments, but good god there was a lot of insanely transphobic and cruel comments, so i just want to hash some things out...
1: I am NOT ashamed of my identity. I am proud to be transgender, and I hold that label proudly because of the solidarity within my community. I am a man, and i am transgender, and i will never change that.
2: how i discovered my gender identity early on is my own story. Please stop making assumptions about things. I always felt a little uncomfortable in my skin when I was young, jealous of my male family members and friends. Puberty hit me really early, and the development made me realize just how much more my body was going to change, and so I did research and found out about the queer community. Found the transgender identity about a week in and stuck with it. But my journey has not been easy, yes ive had moments of questioning and social detransition for like 4 months when I was 14. Not to mention, I got an entire year on my own due to covid where I got to actually look into myself.
3: this is not a matter of value or love or whatever else... it is a matter of danger. I do not care that people dislike me for my identity, I do not care that there will always be someone uncomfortable by it— i care that existing makes me a target. I am afraid of the violence because I HAVE been hate crimed before, I have been threatened, I have been doxxed, ect. I understand that I need to move out of the south, but i am at a huge disadvantage. I am in a low income, single parent household, and still only 17. I cannot access medical transition, nor could any job i get help me afford moving north.
With that out of the way.... thank you to all the people that shared their stories and love. I am so happy to see all my trans brothers and cis brothers stories, and i appreciate all the care and protection from the backlash.