The Antijen Pages

This is Page 5
I will keep adding as long as you write about it.

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From: n b
Subject: High school


High school... Well, it didn't start in high school, as I left in my sixth grade year. Upon entering school, I realized I was in for hella fun! No one like me and I didn't like them. I was in private school for two years (K-1) where I developed a major crush on one of my best friends. Odd yes, I know.

I went to public school from 2nd to 6th. In 2nd grade I came across the label "Tomboy" so I was a "tomboy" for many years until I found out what an FTM was. That made more sense... I remember being tormented mercilessly by boys and girls alike. The boys used to make lewd comments to me and the girls ostracized me completely. I withdrew into books to escape my reality. I read all the time, always fantasizing I was the male lead in all the novels.

One day I was called into the office and drilled for an hour about how I needed to be more "social" and less of a bookworm. They wouldn't let me read during lunch, even though I wasn't the one doing the ignoring. I cried all day when they took my book away.

Fifth grade year was all tears, from what I remember. Incidents in the bathroom made it difficult for me to get along. I had my hair cut short in fourth grade

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From: "Stephanie"
Subject: HighSchool
Hello,

As a 32 year old and being 10 years past SRS your page got me thinking. Then I figured why not shoot you an email? So here it goes..


At the Junior High level (i.e. 12 or 13) were you singled out as "different"?


Yes, there was always this big mean guy next to me in PE (my favorite subject . NOT!) in Junior High who berated me constantly: .fag. .transvestite.. Everyday was a living hell. I always was scared sh*tless. I wondered .how did he know?. Since I tried so hard to repress it. For the most part I ignored him, but occasionally I.d work up a svelte .f*ck off. to him. Which just made it worse.

He was the worst I dealt with. I escaped the living hell many describe. I wasn.t hugely effeminate or masculine. I was just me. Not macho, but just me. Being a skater and a punk with the whole attitude to boot saved me lots of grief. Being 5. 6. and having an androgynous body build really helped me.

In junior high I also had tons of girlfriends. I.d hang out with all the time. It was really cool. One or two in a moment of deep discussion I let it slip where I was at in my life. One was like .that.s sick. and the other, well just shrugged it off. I know they were looking at me as a .guy. but I was just into hanging out. As we got into High School, they got boyfriends and focused there. Where I just retreated into a shell of survival.

Going back further than that. People knew I had problems, especially once puberty started. This .vibe. a few people have mentioned. It was there. People that knew me knew something was up. They just couldn.t put a finger on it. I knew it too, hence my internal emotional mess. I was just too buried emotionally to deal with it. I remember seeing a Donahue episode about TS.s and was glued to it. I knew my path and seeing it on Television brought it to the front.

I was also at every convenience swiping my sister.s clothes or playing with make up while no one was home.

Its so cool people today have the internet for resources and information. It.s all out there at the touch of your fingers. In the early 1990s it was a bit of a different story.

Into High School things were mostly cool. After 10th Grade I only spent two hours a day at my High School (Radio/TV votech courses I spent the rest of the day in). So I didn.t get to hang much with the folks there nor did I try to socialize. It gave me an excuse out. Like many of us, I dated to shut people up. It was all about the front. Keeping the mask on so people didn.t prod. After I said no more and the one month relationship ended. I tried another one later foolishly to the same result. I swore after that the mask would be done for very soon. In one case the poor girl basically jumped me, and I said no. I shiver at that last thought. It was soooooooo akward.

I spent the rest of my High School years buried in the vocational Radio Station I was part of. I lost the punk and skateboarding attitude and focused on radio. The people I attended those courses with also knew something was up as I had so many walls. I didn.t talk about me, it was radio, radio, radio. It was my solace from my internal issues. After High School was over, and the involvement with the station everything came to a head. and quickly!

Hormones 4 months later then SRS a little less than 4 years later.

Regards,
Stephanie

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From: Zoe
Subject: HighSchool - Not just the same

Hello!

To be singled out is to let it bother you, I think. When the other kids started to get around to singling me out, around 2nd grade (right about the time I befriended another singled-out person), I instantly caught it and made myself singled out,  but not quite in the way that you all are probably thinking. I made myself something of the 'crazy person' in the year, and I did get made fun of because of it. I don't think anyone thought twice about it when I became more and more feminine as the years progressed.

That's probably because they didn't have much of a chance to notice. As soon as I found out that I was letting such things slip, and knowing that it wasn't normal, even for someone such as myself, I brought up masks. This was around middle school (strangely enough, just before I met another one of my close friends). They served me well, and only grew more convincing over the years. It's now my Junior year of High School, and I'm only now beginning to let them drop,
scant weeks after I found out that I have gender dysphoria. I had the feeling for years, but I never really understood it...i'm only now preparing to tell my parents...but anyways...

But, I guess in summary, I was singled out early, and I only reacted by bringing up a good defense before anything really horrible started...I'm not sure how much this helps, but if it does at all,
then I'm happy. ^^

-Zoe

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From: Mickey
Subject: High School


I have always gone to school in a small town. I'm rather lucky, in that I've never been beaten or seriously ridiculed for being different. Maybe because I've always had muscles. Maybe because I have a lot of friends who would help me if I needed them. Maybe it's because I've been nice to people, and they have no reason to hate me. I've been allowed to do things the other boys do without much hassle. I played football for a year in middle school and a year in high school.
I got a boy's part in the play and dressed with the other boys in the boys' dressing room. I've never lost a friend due to my birth defect. Teachers and students are good about using my new name. I'm a sophomore. As for the rest of high school, I'll take it as it comes.

Things are looking up.
-Mickey

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From: Lynn
Subject: HighSchool



Hi, I see I was not alone. Born in 1957. Not a good time to be a transgender person. I started at age 3yrs and by the time I got to 1st grade all I wanted was to be a girl.
I suffered terribly. I was like a sick chicken and all the other chickens wanted to peek me to death to get rid of the disease.

I was very tall since 6th grade. I was picked on, beat up, chased, outcast. All thru middle school and high school I was tormented. I hung out with the girls who saw me as harmless and one of them. The boys didn't like this because they thought I was trying to steal their dates.

I took Accounting and typing and art to avoid them. Never liked changing in the locker room because they would steal my clothes and torture me in the showers (wet towels really do sting). I was never picked for sports. I always dreamed of being a cheerleader.

To this day I still get tingles when thinking about it. I dated one girl in high school and that wasn't till I was a senior. I couldn't wait to get out of there. And when I hit the real world I wish I was back in school for it was less pain.

I thought about going to my 25 yr reunion dressed as myself and let them all suffer, but knowing most of them they probably never grew up and are still a pain in the butt. I will always be a true Homecoming Queen,

Lynn

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From: Terry
Subject: HighSchool

Like many that have already shared, my high school experience was a mixed bag.  I knew of my gender conflict at an early age and basically suppressed it throughout my childhood and adolescence.  The only truly difficult time was during Jr. High when puberty set in.   

Once over the hump, growing up post-puberty was not so bad.  I was involved in sports because it was an avenue toward acceptance, regardless of the degree.  For me, had it not been for sports, my high school years would have been pure hell.  At our senior assembly, our emcees gave a prediction of what each graduating student would do years after graduation.  They had predicted that I would be a gay proprietor of a so-called "Community House for Teens."  I was so pissed when they said that but I had to hold it in.  I dated girls regularly and had a few long-term relationships during and after high school.  I felt that I never gave off any unusual vibes where I would have been labeled as anything other than hetero.

Less than two years after high school, I joined the Army and became an Airborne Ranger.  I realized later on that I would go to great lengths to prove to everyone, including myself, that I was masculine.  This masculine mask eventually started to peel away a few years after my three-year hitch in the armed service.

Many years and one marriage later, I came to that figurative brick wall and transitioned to female.  My life is so much more satisfying now as I now can be who I have always felt that I should have been from the beginning.  

Looking back on those high school years, I wish I could have transitioned back then but emphatically know that my life would have been impossible to live during those times.  What's bringing many of my memories to the forefront is the fact that my high school class is having a joint class reunion with two other classes next weekend and I have been agonizing over my decision to attend or not.  

I finally decided not to attend.  I live several states away from where I grew up and very few people know about my transition.  For me, it would be a huge pill to swallow to witness the reactions of my former classmates when they observe me as a person who has gone from a football jock in high school to a business woman today.  Call me 'chicken!'

Terry

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Subject: Highschool
From: cody


I got shot, beaten, and stabbed over the course of middle and high school... and that was all before anyone else even knew about me being trans. I grew up in Georgia... in a very conservative community.

I got beaten several times, throughout middle and high school for several reasons... most of which involved being poor more so than anything else, but thats only because i had learned how to fight back by the time anyone found out i was bi... I got stabbed because some guy thought i was hittin on his girlfriend, and i got shot because i was seen talking to a girl "above my place" meaning she was rich and on the softball team, and i was poor and "weird"...

i left that school junior year and went to an open campus school... which was very very different. i was openly out about being bi and trans there the whole time. i became one of the most popular students and actually graduated one year early... at a ceremony where i was the key speaker.

though everyone in school knew i was out... i hid it from my parents every day. most of the time taking a change of clothes in my bags.

they knew i was trans... i had come out to them about every three months since i was 14... and about every three months there would be some big problems, often me getting kicked out. by the time i came back every time they pretended it never happened, and every time it came up, it was like they were hearing it for the first time...

i moved out at eighteen, but came back for my nineteenth birthday party. my wife and i tried to bring up the topic with them of me starting transition ... they literally shoved my wife, me and my daughters out the door screaming at the top of their lungs and makng threats. i got my daughters and wife into the car as quickly as possible, but in the yard my mom pulled a gun from their van. my dad and i were physically fighting... again. then we both saw the gun and wrestled it away from my mom...after which i immediately took off running for the car as she ran inside and locked the doors to "blow her brains out" i ran to the car as fast as i could and jumped in because my dad now had the gun. we took off as fast as it would move. my dad was trying to shoot us all the way out the driveway.

i called the police in the car, and we didnt stay in our house that night, but a hotel (just in case )

but the rest of my story dosent really relate so much to my high school experience as it does my daughters. (my step daughters are 18 and sixteen) because my parents tried to have them taken away from us on the basis of me being tg... it didnt work at all, but it pissed us off pretty bad.

anyway my daughters started at a new school as a senior and a freshman respectivley with a new tg step mom... parent teacher conference meetings made it very obvious to the whole school, because we had to walk straight through the cafeteria during lunch with my daughter, and i was dressed in full, minus my silicone inserts.

but they never had any problems arise from that... other than one guy my daughter beat up once saying somthing about it. there were bigger difficulties at that school with religious issues honestly. they had crosses painted on their ceiling tiles with big giant scriptures... but she couldnt wear her pentacle...


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From: Angel
Subject: My_High_School_Story (I dunno if my story fits in here, but I hope it might help someone!)


Well I'm Angel :P I haven't really decided if I want that to be my name or what but its just been something that's tied into my "history" I guess you'd call it. As for highschool, well I'm 14 & therefore just about to start transitioning in highschool... why's this worth while? Because, I'm doing it in stealth.

Let's start with elementary school :P It started really good, I had a couple friends and acted as girly as I wanted really. I screamed when bugs came by & stayed inside around the girls (even though I hated barbie because she was white & blonde). One horrible day that I still remember now, these ppl at a daycare I went to called "Kids R Us" or something made a rule stating that girls wouuld stay inside & play while boys stayed outside... what happened? I broke down when they put me outside... played w/ a couple friends at first till it just hit me & I started banging on the doors trying to get inside, then I faked sick, lmao^^

Then one day after naptime at home on a saturday when I was like 6, I slipped out of bed and tried on my mom's "little red dress" and well started spinning around in it like cinderella! I'd do that whenever I had something that was loose fitting, and the first thing I'm gonna do when I'm 18 is go out, buy a dress & spin like hell!!

>From then on, I guess I was pretty shy. I had a couple friends but since they were boys, they'd wanna play sports which would leave me walking (kept me thin while my little brother gained weight)...

Then in 5th & 6th, I just hit a low... I felt like I had no friends, no talents, no anything. Its depressing to really even think about it, but that was my whole religous period. Not to bash Christianity or spirituality in period but its so much easier on the mind to give up caring what invisible ppl in the sky (skip the semantics) think off your life.

7th grade got better, I thought I was gay & would grow breast & long  hair, ect like magic once I was 18... smart huh? I started making a few nerdy guy friends which made a little difference in my self asteem. I joined orchestra & loved it. I was really talented it turns out. I still had issues, but I stopped reading at lunch & talked to my best friend that year, Brian. We did practically everything together cuz wwe had all the same periods. As for physical changes, I'd been 5' 5" since 5th grade & stayed that way till present. People in my family were light so I was light-skinned to begin with & got a little lighter really. Not like michael jackson light but like Beyonce-ish in that vouge magazine where she looked white.

After being a nerd, summer came & I realized, no guys gave me phone #s, emails, ect. Not cuz they didn't like me, but cuz they were afraid of being gay... -_-

Then this year, things went from bad to GREATEST they'd ever been. I went from sitting with guys I barely really knew at lunch to always sitting with one of my best gurl friends! I went from having an empty phone to having like over 15 #s (not a lot but its a jump from 0, especially when u consider all these ppl & me r close) . I was pretty much a girl to everybody. This friend of mine from 6th grade (when I had "no friends", lol) transferred to my 2nd & 3rd period. He's so suprised how I've changed. Every time he brings that past up I change the subject XD...

I started hormones around January this year. I used herbals from a website combined with a ton of stuff from my mom's menopause stash. I couldn't get spironolactone & even if I could, I dont wanna die by chocolate overdose so its safer to be monitored on stronger drugs. I stopped taking them & stuck to my mom's menopause stash for 2 months when someone messaged me & said how they could ruin my liver. There statements(even though they thought they were helping & did in a way by sacring the hell out of me) were medically un-informed After another couple months of research, I found the following were rules to carry forth w/ me through transition:

1 (so important)- Don't trust ppl's personal anecdotes & experiences especially when ur talking about serious changes to ur body, not even mine. DO THE RESEARCH YOURSELF! Call hospitals, pediatricians (especially ones the that r endocredoligist), and medical doctors. Tons of websites have tons of #s listed. Turns out though someone told me the herbals could damage my liver, this lacked any medical back up watsoever & set me back two months... research, more research, even more research, then trial & error.

PEOPLE LIE, and what u don't kno can hurt u.
Nothing starting with "a friend of mine..." is likely true because that friend would be there to say it.

2- No Drugs*i mean the bad kind*! you notice towards 8th grade that ppl really do drugs... U cannot, its that simple. Research & make an informed desicion. You don't hav to drop them because they're usually dealings w/ something & looking to bond so... bond! Live & keep urself living...

3- Three ppl can only keep a secret in 2 are dead, & the other is blind, deaf, mute, & too dumb to do the whole helen keller thing. As tempting as it is to tell when ur chest starts to pop, SHUT UP... I almost did & immediantly slapped myself after -_- I thought "if they told me..." and came up w/ I'd post a bulliten on myspace about it.

4- Try, &  keep trying cuz there's no such thing as an unsolvable problem!

I bought Andrea Jame's "finding your female voice" (great video), got a straight-perm (relaxer, get it at cvs & be careful), started shopping at hot topic where mom is to scared to walk in & look at what I buy, and made all honors classes so I'd be sure to be around the "smarter", "non-ghetto", not nearly as trashy & mean girls I'm already friends with.
Things are really nice but I got that feelings that somethings gonna go wrong O_O! Lights, camera, action!!