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I will keep adding as long as you write about it.
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From Crystal:
My Junior High years were quite easily the worst years of my life. That's when I finally put all those feelings I'd been having throughout my childhood together and figured out what was "wrong" with me. I tried to convince myself that it was just some kind of phase and that I'd grow out of it, but I couldn't lose it and constantly had trouble relating to other people. Girls wouldn't hang out with me because it was that age where you mocked everything. Guys wouldn't hang out with me because I hated doing "guy stuff".
By contrast, my High School years were great. I went to a very liberal high school, and over the course of four years, learned to accept and even like myself for who I was and made several close friends who helped my through some tough times, not mention becoming good friends with a number of teachers who were very supportive of my gender issue.
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From: Harlow
Well 6th grade was really great for me I had tons of friends at that time from my elementary school. I think what helped me out though was that I was funny and sarcastic, and very talkative. I got a long with everyone right away and was somewhat of a chameleon when it came to different types of kids. But it was also the time when all of my thoughts about gender came back to me, I always wanted to be a girl since I could remember but I repressed it soo much that I had forgotten. I started sneaking my moms/sisters makeup or clothes and would pretend I was in the shower so I could lock my self in and pretend. Once my sister caught me I was soo humiliated she was really understanding though, but I still felt dirty and perverted.
At the end of 6th grade I moved to a really conservative beach town in So. CA. this was the worst year of my life I would cry every morning telling my mom I wanted to move back home. The school was smaller than the last so it was harder to hide in the corner. The very first day I was being called a faggot (I didn't even know what it meant at first, so it hurt even more) people thought I shaved my legs and had a girly voice because I hit puberty a lot later. I was a major loner and was not used to this at all ,back at my old school I had tons of friends, and than this. I felt so lonely I wanted to die, I begged my mom to divorce my dad so she could move back to Palm Springs and take me with her. I came up with so many desperate attempts at trying to convince her to move me back home, so that I didn't have to go back to that hell. My mom was very sweet and understanding and sometimes she would surprise me and we would go to the beach and go shopping instead of having to go to school.
But by 9th grade I started smoking for the stress factor and it made all the rich assholes leave me alone cos smoking made me a "scumbag". I started to smoke pot and drink, and I drank a lot, I started to do it at school. I would get stoned before school, then get stoned at first break, then get drunk at lunch ( vodka and juice in Snapple bottles) and then any other chances I had at bathroom breaks. I then started to snort speed I loved the rush and the way it made everything move faster school seemed to whiz by. Of course I lost a lot of weight (being underweight already which was part of my femininity as well) so I looked very strung out which helped me because people didn't make fun of me much anymore. I looked dead and it scared people, I loved it, I felt like I was showing them how they were ripping me apart inside and it was all there fault so I would show off my strung out look. The next year was better because I went to rehab and quit doing tweak, I made friends with a cool crowd the ones all the rich snotty people called scumbags because they were the punks, and hippies, the pierced and tattooed. But they were warm and friendly. That is the year I came out as gay. From than on I was more comfortable being more and more effeminate as the months moved on. My father passed away my Senior yr and it was easier to be even more effeminate, I moved to Portland OR one place where drag is huge and I started to do Drag almost every night at the clubs. . I don't know what to do because my mom said she could handle me being gay but could never handle me wanting to be a woman. Why would she say that though unless somewhere deep in her heart she knew the truth? I started to drink a lot to stop thinking about how I wanted to take hormones. It got really bad and I started blacking out, I lost a lot of friends that year and could have been seriously hurt due to the frequent hitchhiking I was doing ( at the bars, so I could get home). Luckily that only lasted 3 months and I finally realized why I had been so out of control, and I am just now starting to face my transgender issues at 22. Until a few months ago I thought I did drag for fun but now I know I must deal with what is to come because my feelings to be more feminine are getting stronger.
( I know I elaborated, and I went beyond H.S. sorry about that. But I thought it was important for me to let people know how I feel now since I'm just now facing my transgenderedness)
Thanks for reading,
Harlow =)
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From: Stephanie
Thankfully I'm far enough away from high school now that I can talk about it without losing it.
I remember about 6th grade is when things really started to get interesting. Nobody had an inkling of what was going on inside my head, not even me (but I was starting to guess). I'd been seeing shrinks for years by this time. I had been identified with a "genius" IQ but my grades never reflected that. Everybody wanted to know "what was wrong."
But it was in 6th grade that the real trouble began. First there were the fights (me getting my ass kicked and humiliated), then came the name calling (at that time, "fag" was bad enough, but then they started by calling me "girl"), and me pushing the limits of what I could get away with on an anti-
It was at this time that I started to figure out that I had issues relating to my own gender -
Then came high school. God what a torture chamber that became. I tried everything under the sun to try and identify with something. There was church (what a joke), there was academics (not my crowd), there were the stoners (not my crowd...yet), and then there were the general outcasts where I finally found a modicum of repsect. Even this, though, wasn't carte blanche for me to really express myself.
Growing up in a midwestern town full of bigots, factory workers, bible thumpers and soccer moms does not tend to allow oneself free expression. So I hid I expressed myself (or tried to anyway) in theater, drawing, and writing, all of which I was very good at. I would fantasize that I had the female lead in our various stage productions. This was, in large part, my primary refuge from the storm.
The rest of my high school was spent hiding and repressing things. I had nervous breakdowns on a regular basis, though I never really let anyone know about them. I suffered in silence. My entire class was sure that I was gay. I tried to explain myself to a couple of people I felt close to, but I soon realized that that could bring much more problems than I was prepared to deal with, so I just shut the hell up at that point.
It wasn't until much later, long after high school became a waning memory, that I finally have admitted to my gender issues, figured out that this was behind most of my "problems" early on, and start doing something about them. No longer am I taking the shrinks on wild goose chases -
I'm finally looking forward to the rest of my life now.
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From: Terri
I started young knowing I was different from all the rest of the kids. I started wearing some of my sisters clothes at six. I would wear her stuff under my clothes to hide them.
My 1st grade teachers told my parents of this and things started to change for me then. That's when my parents took me to my first Doctor for My Gender Problems.
By the time I stared in Jr.High School Every one in School knew about me.The girls were great they would help me Explore My female side,but the boys always gave me shit. That's when I decided to Start my Transformation Into Teri Lynn.
That was the best thing I could have done,The boys could not believe That I looked as nice as the rest of the girls. They stopped calling me a fag as much. Some of the guys secretly ask to date me. I fit in better dressing as a girl that being a fem looking boy.
In high school Most everyone accepted me as I am If I had not gone a head and started my change I think it would have been even harder my last 4 years of High School.
In college that was the best I told no one about me and was accepted as a girl without any Question.
Only people I knew well I ever told.
Thanks
Teri Lynn
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From: Christine
High School and College were some of the most enjoyable times of my life.
I learned at an early age how to play "guy" and carved my way into the complex social structure of High School. I was not a tortured child by any means, I sort of looked upon my gender dilemma with curiosity and wonder. I hid it because I knew that others would not understand, but I would also do things with "flare" (not to be confused with flamboyance) that would satisfy the girl in me.
I realized that I had been giving a raw deal, but tried to make the best of the situation. I was lucky enough to have some really quality friends that are still close to me to this day. With good friends, I think we can accomplish anything.
I was involved in sports and band and even was my senior class president. Too bad I couldn't have been myself, though. I am not bitter, nor do I have regrets, I just see those years as a funny awkward time when I was innocent to the severity of my gender dysphoric.
I also would like to add...that I have found that many of the girls I dated in High School are now lesbians...funny how "the vibe" was there then.
Christine McGinn
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From: Josie
Subject: High School
The hard times of my life came early in elementary school as I knew I was different and eventually understood why. In first grade, I had the best friend I've ever had in my life.
During recess, he and I would play far off away from the other children, and we'd make up stories and pretend with each other. There was some kind of common bond between us. After 1st grade though, he had to move across the country. At the last time we met, he and I made a pact holding hands saying that we'd never be apart in spirit and that we'd be soulmates. It was as if we had married each other.
After 1st grade though, I never saw him again and my problems started. Though kids did tease us once in a while for going off and playing by ourselves in 1st grade, my friend stood up for me and protected me. After that, however, there was no one to protect me. I was called wus, pussy, and faggot, even though I never really projected an image of being gay, which has never really been my feeling.
Anyway, as the second largest kid throughout my grade school years, I was teased constantly and beat up by the only kid who could feasibly do it: the largest kid in the school. I received constantly beatings from him on an average of about once a month in addition to the hourly teasing. Once even a girl beat me up (but she kicked me in the balls and then kicked me while I was on the ground).
Then in fourth grade, the torture added when I had a teacher that joined the fun. She regularly gave me detentions and generally disliked me simply because she thought I was the center of the problem. She thought that if I wasn't so different, kids wouldn't be teasing me. Well I wasn't going to change for her.
Right around this time, I also was exploring in my own imagination, and after experimenting the idea with some of my mom's clothes, it came apparent to me that the problem was that I wasn't a girl. I began looking back at myself and realizing that I should be a girl. I even asked my mom once, "Do you think I would be better as a girl?" Her reply, "I like you just the way you are." Textbook. It didn't help my situation.
Anyway, my torture finally ended when my family moved in the middle of six grade, or so I thought. I was allowed to start with a clean slate. Coming to a new middle school in sixth grade, I kept quiet and repressed my self-
Eventually I started expressing myself more, and things went crazy again. It wasn't nearly as bad this time, but I still got teased every once in a while. Also during this time when I was so quiet in middle school, I was experimenting heavily at home. I had secret hiding spots for clothes, I was searching on the internet for things (though there wasn't much then), and since my dad was the pastor of my church which had a mission that distributed clothes, I had 24 hour access to it (we had the key). The clothes were free for the taking anyway, so I would sneak over at night and find what I wanted there. At this point, puberty was also hitting, and I hated it.
Next came high school. In a school of 1700, I simply blended in and didn't say much. This kept me out of trouble and out of sight. I was very introverted (or appeared that way) for the entire time, and only came out of my shell a little when I found technical theater. I was too shy to ever try acting, since it might reveal my secret, but I could dream and wish from backstage where there people who were just as open or many cases more open than the actors. If I had stayed at that high school for all four years, I would have come out to them eventually. Instead, I moved to a new high school across Iowa (where my whole life, except the first three weeks living in Miami, FL, took place). At this small town (10,000) high school of about 450, I wanted to be real careful. I was very quiet to start with and only spoke out with my talents: music and my grades. I didn't eat lunch as it was a habit from my old high school and instead practiced in the band room. There I brought and heated up my lunch in the microwave at the theater scene shop. Eventually I was a little more open to people in school and my temper broke out as people began to know how to push my buttons just like in elementary school. I yelled at teachers and students many times, and skipped several classes. It was a step down from my other high school. I just counted on the fact that I would be out of there in two years.
Really, only now that I'm in college have I begun to come out more and be me, the girl I've felt inside for so long. I've been able to wear feminine clothing to school without people bothering me, and even nail polish a few times (but it's just not practical since I play piano all the time, and I just chip it anyway). I've come out to a few friends and even a professor, and I'm getting counseling. Now I'm just trying to build up money and my wardrobe to start transitioning.
Sorry this turned into my life's story, but that's how I've had to deal with growed up TS.
Love, Josie ; )
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