Did My Gender-Neutral Boyhood Help or Hinder My Trans Identity?
How should I feel about how I was raised, I can’t quite tell
I’m a trans woman, and I didn’t mind my boyhood so much.
At first blush, this sounds oxymoronic. Polar opposites, right? The sort of claim likely to call forth a wave of transphobic sludge claiming how I must not be a woman.
Looking at my boyhood and admitting, “Yep, I guess it was okay,” doesn’t invalidate my current gender identity. Especially when I’m about to dive into a major disclaimer.
I could put up with boyhood. Manhood, however, felt like cosplay. It was a performance I was expected to ace, except I don’t have a lick of an idea how. What’s worse, no one bothered to ask if I wanted to perform in the first place.
Even when I was young , I would look up at my dad and uncles in overwhelming confusion and fear. Already, I yearned for never-ending boyhood while I spied manhood slouching towards me in the distance — each dreadful stomp of my encroaching future causing me to flinch.
The male role models around me should have served as helpful mirrors of the person I could one day become. Instead, they were crystal balls forewarning of my future pain.
