Sometimes I wonder what kind of person I might've become had I not been bullied, or bullied others, because of what I am or what others perceived me to be.
I wonder what my life could have been like had I the courage to be who I am at an earlier age.
Of course, the world was a much different place--at least in its attitudes toward gender nonconformists--from what it's becoming today. There was barely even a language to express what many of us felt, especially if we didn't fit into the stereotypes about being transgendered that early trans people, probably unwittingly, helped to perpetrate by living up (or down) to societal and cultural expectations (not to mention some pure-and-simple prejudices) about how people are supposed to live in one gender or the other.
I mean, how could anyone have understood that I loved sports just as much as I loved dresses, and that I prized nice accessories for my bike as much as I cherished fabulous accessories for my outfits? Or that, as a female, I was still attracted to females? (Even those who "didn't have a problem" with lesbians couldn't understand that!)
That is why I find it so heartening to see young people proudly announce who they are--and their parents supporting them.
One such child is Avery, whose story was posted the other day on YouTube:
I wonder what my life could have been like had I the courage to be who I am at an earlier age.
Of course, the world was a much different place--at least in its attitudes toward gender nonconformists--from what it's becoming today. There was barely even a language to express what many of us felt, especially if we didn't fit into the stereotypes about being transgendered that early trans people, probably unwittingly, helped to perpetrate by living up (or down) to societal and cultural expectations (not to mention some pure-and-simple prejudices) about how people are supposed to live in one gender or the other.
I mean, how could anyone have understood that I loved sports just as much as I loved dresses, and that I prized nice accessories for my bike as much as I cherished fabulous accessories for my outfits? Or that, as a female, I was still attracted to females? (Even those who "didn't have a problem" with lesbians couldn't understand that!)
That is why I find it so heartening to see young people proudly announce who they are--and their parents supporting them.
One such child is Avery, whose story was posted the other day on YouTube:
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