Trapped in the Wrong Body: Trans Teens Open the Door to Self Confidence

Life as a Transgender Teen
JayTee, 14
New York

You wake up every morning and dread looking at yourself in the mirror. Many teenagers go through it. They don't like their hair or weight, but for some, it’s worse than that. We don't like our bodies at all. It's more than a weight issue or hair issue, it’s our genitalia. We feel as though we're in the wrong body and there's nothing we can do about it. I'm one of those people.
My name is Jimmy, but most people call me JayTee. Of course I was born with a more girly name, because I was born a girl. My birth name is Rebecca or Becky. I'm a 14-year-old female-to-male transgender teen. I live in upstate New York in a small town of about 1,900 people; homophobia runs strong here.

I came across the term transgender this year and I was faced with fear. This term fits me perfectly yet I didn't want to accept it. I forgot about it and went into a false happiness for a few months. In April it came back up. Our chorus was taking a trip and I was staying with the president of the Gay Straight Alliance (who's the only out lesbian in our school). On the way back from the trip, I almost cracked. I needed to tell someone. I needed help. That night I instant messaged my friend who I stayed with and told her, "I think I'm trans.” She was filled with joy because she said she already knew and that she'd help me out with everything. I soon found a bunch of sites with people just like me and I knew it was real, and I wasn't alone. I finally came to accept myself and told a few more of my friends.

Teens are widely misunderstood, but when you're a GLBTQ youth (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning), you seem to get put in your place. We are told we don’t know what we like because we're only "children" and our parents know everything, right? Wrong. What they don't seem to know or want to recognize is the fact that we are individuals with brains and we know what we like or want. Sure we question ourselves, but isn't our childhood a time of learning? We experiment with everything until we find what we want, and what’s right for us.
So far people have been accepting, but of course I have not come out to my parents or my very homophobic school, so I'm not sure how that will go. I got a binder online to press my boobs flat to give me a much manlier look. I have given thought to hormones and I most definitely plan on getting sexual reassignment surgery.

Until I get surgery and hormones, I just deal with my body no matter how annoying it can be. I have my friends to hold me up so I won't fall victim to death. The transgender suicide rate is the highest of them all. Around 30 percent of transgendered young people attempt suicide. It's scary, and if people were more accepting of differences, maybe people wouldn't commit such a scary act as often as they do now.

So let our generation be the one that changes the world. Let’s be the understanding parents and let’s spread tolerance throughout the nations. If we don't, our world shall fall to a much worse end. No matter what your sexuality, race, gender, or stereotype, try not to discriminate. You never know whom you might hurt.

Have the Wisdom
K.R. Thompson, 17
California

How exactly are mind, body, and soul related? Can one exist without the other? These are questions that have been baffling humans for centuries, but for me, the answers have always been starkly clear. My body simply does not align with my mind or soul. According to my mind and soul, I am female, but the physical reality of my body contradicts this feeling. I have always noticed this disjointedness with my body, or more aptly, with my gender.

I grew up in the countryside of southwestern England with private tutors and an elaborate doll collection guaranteed to make any little girl flush green with envy. My mother indulged my interest in dolls, dresses, and other stereotypical female toys, mainly because she thought it was “just another phase.” But this “phase,” not triggered but rather, manifested, by playing with dolls, was my permanent transgender existence.

I realized, when incident after incident proved to me that I was the wrong gender, that I could be classified as a transgender teenager. When I was only seven and saw my mother naked for the first time (not intentionally), I asked her why she didn’t have a “thingy” like me. “Because I’m a girl,” she answered calmly, wrapping a plush peach-colored towel around her tall frame. “But I’m a girl too,” I protested, miserably confused. She laughed and replied, “No dear, you’re a boy.” I don’t want to conform to female stereotypes: wear makeup and heels, gossip ruthlessly, or mess with guys’ hearts. I merely have an instinctual certainty, as much now as when I was seven, that I should be female. Growing up, I didn’t want to be a boy; I liked sports and worms well enough, but I felt uncomfortable in a boy’s body, like an impostor or a shoe put on the wrong foot.

So what can I do? We have a quote hanging in the alcove in the dining room that says, “Accept the things you cannot change, have the courage to change the things you can, and have the wisdom to know the difference.” I wonder whether this is something I should change through surgery when I’m 18, but a neurotic fear of needles, blood, and anesthesia makes me reluctant to explore that option.

My features are fairly feminine, from the long fringe* obscuring my slate gray eyes to slender limbs. I can pass for a woman if properly dressed, because I naturally have the mannerisms of a woman. I’m happiest disguised as a woman, but at the same time, I fear the reactions of other people if they guess I’m a guy. It’s hard when people jump to the conclusion that I’m gay, because I’m not at all—I am a woman trapped in a man’s body, so being sexually attracted to men is completely straight. But how can I explain this all to a stranger horrified that a man is wearing eye-shadow and a jean skirt?

I want them to understand most of all that I am not a freak, but no one else can take a visit inside my head to truly comprehend the complexities of transgender existence.

Never will I surrender my hope, though; I hope that one day I can attain the unity of body, mind, and soul that so many people have and take for granted.

*Fringe: the British word for bangs.

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