When I was born, my mother named me after herself. She was incredibly excited to be having a girl since she already had a son, my brother Drew who is 7 1/2 years older than me. When I look at baby pictures of myself, it's hard to say just what my personality really was besides full of smart ass, but those pink frills sure let people know I was a girl!
My mother was raised in the country so she didn't think much of it when I started getting older and climbing everything(I began climbing before I could even crawl.), running around outside, playing sports and leaning towards t-shirts and jeans rather than a dress. Once though, she tried to throw me in this awful, white, tutu looking dress that I despised and ,on top of that, she wanted to curl my hair... I ran through that house screaming, I could accept a lot of things for my mother but I guess I just couldn't do that, lol.
When I was about 4 or 5 everyone started to notice that I was not very girly at all. All I ever drew were aliens, monsters and reptiles eating things. I always played the husband or boyfriend when the girls made me play house with them, I would tell people I was a boy after I chopped my hair off, all of my friends were boys and ,what I didn't tell people, is that I had constant dreams of becoming a boy.
All of this seems pretty straightforward but at the same time I also had two men in my life that were either mentally of physically abusive. What if my masculinity has more to do with feeling stronger and therefore less vulnerable?
All of these things got progressively worse over time, there were moments in middle and high school that I tried to be feminine but would always crash and burn. I never felt comfortable dressing like a girl, but as a boy, I felt confident and relaxed.
Through out high school, I got more and more masculine until I was binding with ace wraps that were jerry rigged with other pieces to form a flat chest, my hair was cut short, the only clothes I would wear were male, I even had an alter ego that was male. All characters in video games were male, all of my drawings when I thought of myself were male, it just kept going.
I didn't even know what being transgender was until I was 18 and a friend had to sit me down after I broke down crying again staring into the mirror while I was trying to get ready(another attempt at being a girl). When she explained it all to me, it felt like a light bulb came on. "You can do that?" I always thought it was a crazy, impossible dream.
She let me borrow one of her shorter cosplay wigs and a hat, threw on a make shift binder and took me out to a supermarket. She made a point to use male pronouns and call me by a male name and I felt really good for the first time in so long.
I'll stop it here and pick up with the actual first attempt at transition later.
Thank you for reading everyone
-Gabe
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