My very first memory is knowing I was a girl.
This is my deepest secret, one that I have dutifully protected for my entire life. I am sharing it with you now.
Here is my life as a girl, heavily abridged for your consideration.
It’s 1990. I’m 4 years old and I’m in Kindergarten. My best friends are two other girls. I tell teachers and adults that I’m a girl, and I’m immediately corrected. I’m told, “boys can’t be girls.” I don’t think there was any malice in their reaction.
This is a disaster for me, my first identity crisis. A little child doesn’t have the life experience or emotional intelligence to understand or communicate gender dysphoria. If an adult said something, it was accurate. It was reality. The US begins Operation Desert Shield in preparation for Operation Desert Storm and it’s constantly on TV.
It’s 1993. I’m 7 years old. I clumsily learn, along with many children, how to make and wear my first social mask. I am becoming socialized. I write a comic. It says, “I am Wayne. I am a kid. I am good!”
I don’t write that I’m a boy. I’m girl wearing the mask of a kid, and no one can correct me now. My dad walks me to school every day and I love my parents very much. Pogs and slammers are banned from my school.
It’s 1994. I’m 8 years old. I’ve covertly acquired a dress, forgotten by my sister or a cousin. I secretly put it on and smile and pose in the mirror and this makes me very happy. I’m friends with a boy on my street, and I wear it once while he is over. He runs away from my house and didn’t want to hang out again. I don’t think there was any malice in that reaction.
I begin to realize things that make me happy distress other people. I start becoming uneasy about how much I should tell people about myself. My two friends at school call me Sarah. I’m concerned about dying from ebola after hearing about The Hot Zone.
It’s 1995. I read “Dunc’s Dolls,’ A story about a boy disguising himself as a girl to solve a mystery. I read “Marvin Redpost is a Girl?!” A book about a boy breaking his arm after falling off the jungle gym, kissing his elbow, and turning into a girl.
I throw myself off the jungle gym multiple times, but aren’t brave enough to fall on my arm. The thought of wearing a disguise feels depressing and inauthentic in a way I can’t communicate or emotionally comprehend. I find that it’s impossible to kiss my elbow. I start getting depressed over the realization that I will never, ever, be a girl. I’m 9 years old. The news talks about the Oklahoma City bombing devastation caused by Timothy McVeigh, showing the building torn in half. I don’t understand why an American would do that.
It’s 1996. I’m 11 years old and I’m in 6th grade. I have to change in the boys locker room and I hate it. The boys are mean, and I’m slapped, punched, and humiliated for little reason. I’m called a faggot or gay in retaliation for attempts of being nice or affectionate, or just for being in someone’s view.
I’m not sure if I’m gay. After casually asking questions about it, I decide that I’m not. I decide that no one has ever felt like me in the history of the world, and that’s why I’m distressing to people. I wish I was obviously gay or straight so I could be something. I feel very alone and isolated. Magic the Gathering is banned at my school, along with soap shoes.
It’s 1997. I’m 11 years old and I watch a girl do her makeup in class; heavy liquid concealer, thick mascara with dark eyeliner, bright eyeshadow and shiny lip gloss. She looks so pretty and flawless. I ask her to put makeup on me and she happily does. I look so pretty and it makes me so happy. The teacher is upset over this, and she makes me sit in the hall while the rest of the class goes to the upper field to complete an activity of documenting any trash they could find.
The class returns and the teacher says, “Here’s some more trash to write down. Wayne.” And everyone laughs at me, along with the teacher, as I sit there with my knees under my chin in the hallway.
I do believe there was malice in that.
It’s 1998. I’m 12 years old. The experience of being socially humiliated has deeply affected me, and it carries the looming threat of this could happen again. My two friends from elementary school scream at me to leave them alone, that they hate me, that I am ugly. One kicks me in the shin so hard I hide and cry in the bushes, but mostly from the pain of betrayal and banishment. I feel ashamed for being the only girl born as a boy, and withdraw from school into sci-fi and fantasy books. I’m further shamed for being lazy and not good at school. I don’t understand why I would want good grades. Life seems to be meaningless.
My parents put the television away in the garage because I won’t stop watching it and my grades are terrible. I read even more. It’s preferable to what my life is. I’m terrified at being laughed at and successfully keep my secret. Bill Clinton is impeached and I think infidelity is illegal, or maybe it’s oral sex.
It’s 1999. I watch The Adventures of Sebastian Cole. Clark Gregg plays a trans woman in the middle of her medical transition and my heart stops and my breathing skyrockets because I had never in my life heard of a trans woman and she explains exactly who she is and it’s exactly what I am and I’m terrified that someone is going to kick down the door and point at me and yell, “You are trans!”
I’m afraid that I’ll get in trouble if I say I’m trans. I’m afraid I’ll be laughed at. I’m afraid no one will believe me, or that I’m wrong and I’m just weird. I’m 13 years old, and this is the first time in my life that I have a word for what I am and I’m scared. I think being trans might be illegal. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murder their classmates in the Columbine shooting. My classmate is suspended for saying he’ll do the same. Clark Gregg’s character dies in the movie during gender confirmation surgery in Mexico.
It’s 2001, I’m 15 and a high school sophomore. I’m secretly dressing as a girl as often as I can. I become confused and distressed over the obvious and widening difference in my body and the bodies of other girls. I read Harry Potter, a book about a little boy who is treated poorly by everyone around him, and he feels like he has no friends, and he lives in a closet. He’s pulled, out of the closet, to a magical dimension where he finds out that he’s actually something else, making friendships by embracing his true self.
I dream about a spell that would make me a girl, and am disappointed that gender changes aren’t explored in the Harry Potter world. 17 years later, the author of Harry Potter would liken trans women to “men in dresses.” In 2024, she would call them rapists. Terrorists hijack 4 planes during the worst terrorist attack in American history. We watch it at school all week.
It’s 2002. I’m deeply and passionately in love with a conservative Christian classmate. My grades improve, along with my confidence and mood. I start playing sports and become a thespian. I find an emotional sanctuary in having such strong and authentic feelings for someone that I admired, and having those feelings returned. I get a major role in the school musical as the antagonist. I know everything is going to be alright and I’m optimistic about my future. I’m planning on going to college. I win 2 journalism awards.
A professional actor comes to our drama class and tells us that he’s probably going to get the role of Neo’s and Trinity’s adult son in The Matrix 2. I’m excited to see it. I’m 16. This is the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life.
It’s 2004. I feel so safe in my relationship so I decide to share my deepest secret with her. I tell her, “I have always felt like I was a girl.” She vomits and we don’t speak for a bit. We break up.
I start smoking pot and binge drinking. I promise myself to never, ever, share my secret with anyone who’s important to me, ever again. My secret becomes The Secret; a growing shadow of despair. I begin to hate myself. I lost what felt like my other half. It’s my fault that I’m like this. I barely graduate high school. I’m 17.
It’s 2006. I’m 20, I work full-time doing semi-skilled warehouse labor, my entire paycheck goes towards pot, beer and fast food, and I sleep about 3 hours a night. If I can’t go to a party to drink or smoke, I sit in my room and pretend, online, to be different girls over a network of chatrooms, forums, and blog posts. My parents are concerned, and I yell at them because I’m worried I’ll break down and tell The Secret under pressure, and then they’ll be disgusted with me. I hate myself for giving into an identity that I’m trying to reject. I am disgusted with myself on behalf of my parents.
If you had asked me at the time, I would’ve told you that I was very happy.
It’s 2009. I’m dating again, and she’s not a conservative Christian, and has no qualms about sex before marriage. I discover my incredible discomfort and panic at being sexual as a man, or being treated like one. She’s sapphic, but still wants to be treated like a woman in a heterosexual relationship, at least sometimes. I convince myself that I’ll somehow perform as a man if I drink enough, and it sometimes works.
She later cheats on me. She was justified in that, and I hate myself more. I’m 23 and I’m no longer optimistic about my future. I decide that life is about having as much immediate fun as possible. People at work talk about their favorite Michael Jackson songs and his propofol overdose.
It’s 2010. I’m 24 and I’m drinking heavily and getting joylessly high every day. My life is an unfulfilling montage of work, getting wasted, digital escapism, and little sleep. None of it seems to matter because of how little sleep I’m getting. I can’t focus enough to read. I get stress migraines and faint from dehydration. I miss work sometimes and feel deep shame, deeper shame for yelling at my parents when they show concern. I push people away so they can’t leave me.
I spend hours online as a girl, and I’m terribly distracted when I’m not online because I just want to be online again. I reach out to people who I know I’ll never see again, who I was never close with, and tell them I’ve transitioned to a woman. They seem a bit confused over the concept, but are otherwise supportive. I cut off contact with each. I decide to cure myself by being hyper-masculine. I am still convinced that I am enthusiastically and authentically happy.
It’s 2013. I’m 27 and I’ve wasted a lot of money on tactical and fake military equipment because of how hyper-masculine it looks. I spend recklessly and save nothing. I think about either joining the military, a gang, or becoming a cop. I intentionally develop an aggressive swagger and false confidence that men are encouraged and allowed to have. I’m convinced I’ll either die in a gunfight, sword fight, or in space. I make my voice as deep and gruff as possible.
I research trans care and the experiences of trans people. Everything seems to begin with therapy, which meant I would have to share The Secret again, and I was scared I’d be laughed at and abandoned. A lot of the trans experience seemed to be defined by suicidal thoughts and I had never felt suicidal. In the absence of suicidal thoughts, I decided I must not be trans, and continued to live without enthusiasm. The Boston Marathon bombing kills 3 people and gay marriage becomes legal in California. I read that Will Ferrell has a 3:56:12 marathon time.
It’s 2014. I’m 28 and in love again. People at work make fun of me for dating a lesbian. I start saving money, I get promoted to a training position, then supervisor, then manager.
She often asks me why I’m so depressed, and I laugh at the accusation. A depressed person couldn’t laugh about that. She doesn’t know it, but I’m secretly ecstatic that I’ve been able to cure myself of being trans, and keeping The Secret is now irrelevant. She asks me why I’m so panicked during intimacy and I make bizarre excuses, convincing myself that it’s a vestigial condition of being trans, or almost trans, that will dissipate with time.
It’s 2016. We go on vacation for a week and I tell myself that I’m going to ask her to marry me soon.
She breaks up with me because she knows I’m keeping a secret from her. I try to convince myself that she’s paranoid, but I know she’s right, and just hate myself more. I’m frustrated that keeping The Secret does the same as sharing it. At least I’m not being laughed it. Donald Trump is elected president and goes on NBC and says, “transgendered people can use whatever bathroom they want.” I hate myself for being too slow on curing myself of being trans.
It’s 2018. I’m 33 and I decide to become a machine, without emotion or desire, dedicated to a strict routine. I’ve heard the quote “Man is the cliff that the wave of emotion breaks on,” and decided I like it. I’ve surrendered to my inability to remove desires, but am accepting adding new behaviors instead: I read for 2 hours starting at 8 pm and I sleep at 10 pm until 6 am and work out: 4 days of weight training for 1 hour and 2 days of cardio for 30 minutes. I track my calories and macros and change my body composition from a tubby 220 pounds to a shredded 170. I don’t eat past 7pm and drink 24 ounces of water for every 12 ounces of beer. I have to buy all new clothes. I’m in the best shape of my life and I authentically look fantastic and I am absolutely without joy. I make reckless purchases. I feel entirely out of control. I buy things for people so they’ll be around me. If I had been asked, I would’ve said I was having the time of my life.
My dad’s cancer returns and he dies within months.
It’s 2019. I am devastated, I am ashamed, and I hate myself even more. Years wasted, a relationship with my dad wasted because I was broken trans garbage. Ashamed at how I dealt with being ashamed and hating myself for it. Remembering every time I screamed at my dad to leave me alone when he asked me what was wrong. I could’ve shared my deepest secret with my dad. He loved me. But I didn’t want to be laughed at, I didn’t want to be abandoned, I didn’t want the person I loved to throw up because they were disgusted by who I was, again. That threat was always there, and I lost my dad without giving him the honor or respect of ever knowing who I was.
This is the darkest point of my life and I feel entirely alone.
It’s 2022 and I’m 36. I’ve clung to my health and fitness routine as a life vest, my mood is buoyed by proper physical health and outweighs my neglected mental health. I still binge drink and binge eat, and lead a double life, but I’ve developed enough healthy habits to feel physically acceptable. I have the same physical measurements as Chris Evans in Captain America 2 and the beard quality and shape that’s used for beard oil ads. I’m very masculine, and I look at myself in the mirror and wonder why I feel so disconnected with my body while simultaneously aching to live as a girl and ignoring the obvious answers to my discomfort.
I watch national trans awareness slowly change. It’s been 3 years since a trans woman kicked a GameStop display for being called ‘Sir,” and everyone has opinions on if a trans woman should be called ma’am or sir, but the consensus is that laughing at them is still fine. I see more trans people continue to live visibly, bravely undeterred.
It’s 2023. I see an internet ad for HRT under informed consent. I’m bulking and I apply for HRT during the middle of a shoulder set. I’m approved to start a testosterone blocker and estrogen analog.
I realize that only a trans woman would order HRT. I break down and begin to sob. I shave off my beard.
I wasn’t broken. There was nothing ever wrong with me. I should have never been laughed at. I should have never been treated poorly. None of that was my fault, and what’s so rough is the person who’s treated me the most poorly has been myself. That’s not fair.
I feel like I’ve finally emerged from a dark and cramped tunnel into the freedom of the sun. I feel like I have kicked my way out of a cage, grimy and exhausted, swimming out of suffocating depths and finally being able to breathe by dropping the weights of self hate and shame that I forged over decades. I named myself Hazel and I swore to myself that I would never allow myself to ever be shoved back into that hole again. The world is mean enough, and I have been so mean to myself.
I started therapy and started HRT. I got terrible rashes from using Nair. I joined a trans fem support group and was called a fascist by a much prettier girl because I said I liked The Beggars Trilogy by Nancy Kress.
It’s 2024. I’ve been on HRT since November of last year. My online life is now honest, authentic, and has otherwise been replaced with being outside. I am so scared, but I feel so free. If you ask me now, I’d say I’m the most relieved and free I’ve ever been in my entire life.
My time on this earth has felt very isolated, believing that no one in the world had ever, or would ever, feel like me. It’s been shocking to meet so many other trans people who have had the exact same experience. Meeting people like me has been so uplifting and affirming. I now know I’m very much not alone.
I haven’t written every experience I’ve had. I’ve left many out. Many can only be understood by other people like me. I’ve also had a lot of joy in my life, but it was always contextualized and overshadowed by The Secret.
It’s so distressing to see so much hate currently directed at trans people, and I hope sharing my experiences might speak to some potential allies, allies which we very desperately need.
Many cis gendered, hetero-normative people have clear and strong opinions on how trans people should feel, how trans people should present, what medical care and rights trans people should get and how they should access it. Trans people are never at the front of the conversation and are rarely included. There is always someone, eager to dismiss my entire life experience as “confused,” “pretending,” or “offensive,” without knowing a single thing about me.
I’m not sure why there is so much hate or so much fear, but I’ve learned that the fear of being myself isn’t worth spending my life as someone who drives away the people I love, and as someone who I don’t really like being. The universe doesn’t reward suffering, and self-denial isn’t a virtue by default. I might lose more people being who I really am, but I think I’ll keep the ones who are actually important, and find new ones. I already have.
I know that I will be laughed at again, but I also know that I will be loved.
I have now shared with you my deepest secret, and really my only secret. I am a girl, and now I have no more secrets.
