Beyond Social Transitioning

Through my interview process I have realized that I need to trust that the voices of the people I have interviewed will speak for themselves.

I am honored to share Kyle’s words:

My name is Kyle and I am eighteen years old. I identify as trans guy and my pronouns are he/him. I am transgender, yes, but that is not the sole facet of my identity. I am also an advocate and a writer and a runner and an all-around huge nerd. I like to share my story with others in the hopes that they will benefit from a story that has a happy ending and that they can learn from the mistakes that I made along the way. Hopefully, they can have an even greater success story than I do.

SOCIAL TRANSITIONING: For me, that whole process of sitting and acknowledging and respecting my huge feelings was the first step for me. From there, I sat down and talked it out with my family and with doctors and created a rough outline of what I wanted to do to transition.

The first step was coming out. I came out at school. I faced constant misgendering – both well-intentioned and not – from everyone around me. It was extremely disheartening. I started to get all these feelings of doubt and pain and extreme dysphoria, wondering, “Why can’t people get it right? Why aren’t they respecting my identity?”

Really, my main lifeline through that tumultuous time came from knowing that I was taking action to feel better. I would sit down and tell myself, “No, people are not getting it right now. But my life is still better than when I hadn’t taken any action at all.”

LEGAL TRANSITIONING: I came out to my school by officially changing my name and gender in all of the school records. In the long process of changing my name and gender legally, I found that my birth state, Tennessee, would not let me change my name and gender on my birth certificate. The inability to change my birth certificate has been inconvenient, as it forcibly outs me whenever I need to share it, but luckily this particular challenge has a loophole.  If a person has a passport, then oftentimes that can be used instead of a birth certificate to prove their identity. I was able to change my name and gender marker on my passport to accurately reflect my identity. California allowed me to change all my information with no problem.

MEDICAL TRANSITIONING: I had been seeing a therapist about my identity questions in an effort to feel more confident and more settled within myself because I was still extremely confused about everything that was going on. The idea of being transgender was terrifying to my parents, but also to me. I didn’t know what this new identification would mean for my life. I knew that continuing to feel better about myself would require further steps, and might lead to medical transition, specifically starting hormones (testosterone).

At the end of my sophomore year, I started this medical transition. The first step was getting a letter of affirmation from my therapist to take to my medical doctor. The letter would provide me access to testosterone and gave me the ability to start the regimen should I choose.

I was nervous. With my therapist, we approached my parents and let them know that this was something that I was interested in.

My therapist began the conversation: “There are extreme benefits in starting testosterone and going through a ‘second puberty’ at the same time as Kyle’s peers. It promotes peer-to-peer connection and prevents a lot of isolation that many trans people experience when they’re having to go through puberty in their early twenties.”

I spoke up and said, “I know that this is who I am, and these feelings are never going to change. The changes from testosterone are gradual. I’m not going to wake up tomorrow with a full beard. If at any time, I notice changes that I am uncomfortable with, I can stop.”

My parents said, “What if ten years down the road you don’t like the changes that testosterone makes to your body?”

I felt adamant, and said, “This is who I am. It’s never going to change because it never changed in the first place.”

“What if you decide you don’t want to be a boy anymore?”

“I’ve always been a boy. There was never a moment of wanting to change from a girl. I will continue to be a boy. This will make me more comfortable in the body that I was given.”

A lengthy conversation followed, but in the end, my parents asked, “Are you absolutely positive? You are young. You don’t know how you’ll feel in a month, a year, ten years from now.”

“Yes, I am sure. This is who I am. This is who I’ve always been. This is not something I can ever see changing.”

 I started testosterone and received a blast of gender euphoria. It turned out to be amazing, exciting, and extremely helpful from a social standpoint that I was able to start testosterone and go through that second puberty at the same time as my peers. All the weird hormone changes, voice deepening, and facial hair growth happened to me at the same time it was happening to my cisgender counterparts. Instead of feeling isolated and weird, we were all bonding together in that state of change.

When I was a junior in high school, I underwent top surgery. That was honestly one of the most life-changing events of my life. Again, there were some struggles with insurance navigation and making sure this was the best choice for me, but with the help of Trans Family Support Services I was able to get top surgery. A weight had been lifted off my chest, both physically and emotionally. It was one more piece of affirming my own identity and taking steps to be comfortable in my own skin.

We choose the clothes we wear and how we wear our hair and choosing the body we want is an extension.  I changed a part of my body that I was uncomfortable with in a way that would help me feel better. I have never had a single moment of regret about that decision. When I was able to transition and live my life authentically, a significant amount of anxiety and depression and struggle to connect with my peers went away. I was finally able to focus on the other parts of my life that brought me joy: making close friends and hanging out with them and doing well in school, and going off to college to study chemistry. Without the ability to transition and be who I am, all of that would be completely overshadowed by this disconnection with myself, constantly needing to hide. Instead, I am walking proudly in my identity and educating others, and helping other people be affirmed in the way that I was so lucky to be.