My story.pdf
My story. I'm not completely sure where to begin or how much detail to include or go into. When I was younger before middle school started and I didn’t have too many social pressures from people my age I used to write and draw a lot. I liked to make stories, never things I shared with you or my mom but things I would write and talk about with my friends. A theme I really liked was zombies or anything revolving around the end of the world, collapse of civilization. I liked this because It meant that there weren't these rules I had to follow. Moreso social rules, I wanted to wear what the people I liked in the video games I played and tv shows I watched wore, long intricate designed dresses with long wavy hair. So in these stories me and my friends would create that's how I always wrote or drew myself as wearing these things. This was more of a roleplaying/make pretend game of sorts looking back? Eventually one of my friends' parents found these drawings that I had drawn of myself in dresses with long hair and my friend got in trouble and I don't remember exactly what happened next, but it put an end to things. This was with ----- ------. After that I felt a ton of shame and guilt and that made any of the writing/ storymaking I did go away. At this point I still read a lot, and liked to immerse myself in these other worlds where characters didn't have these rules.
Middle school came and with this tons of social pressure from the other kids my age, I was never really manly the way I was supposed to be, I was bullied relentlessly at church, lots of the adult men in the ward would try and toughen me up by making me miserable on hikes. Things like not letting me have water, not letting me take brakes when I needed them, making fun of me for the things I brought with me. Making fun of me for the things my mom would pack for me. Making fun of me for asking if my mom could come along since my dad couldn't. The boys my age would play into these things and the adults would turn a blind eye. One time a boy left the door to our tent open just a pinch on a rainy night. My sleeping bag was closest to the door. So it was filled with water. The scout masters had two extra sleeping bags, but I wasn't allowed to use them. I was just being a bitch and needed to be more manly anyway. They made me sleep in a wet bag that night. This is just the tip of the iceberg of things that happened to me on those church trips. Since then I've had ward leadership people come forward and apologise to me as an adult for allowing those things to happen. I can tell you to this day if I ever run into any of those men again I will yell and scream at them. In middle school I was never masculine the way I was supposed to be. I was regularly called, Faggot, Pretty boy, Gay, Pretty girl, Maxi-pad. These names made me so mad. Because of this I really started to hate queer people for existing since I was compared to them so much. This really pushed me into a weird alt-right space that I'm glad I grew out of quickly. I would not be a good person now If I stayed in the spaces I was in.
As I went into high school this continued albeit to a much lesser degree. The older boys were still bad to me on church trips and I would have to sleep outside the tent if I wanted any sleep. In high school I got more involved with music things. But to start off in high school ⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺ (Removed for privacy reasons) Right before we didn't have to follow these rules we both despised. I don’t like thinking about highschool but my memories of ⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺ are very fond. Other things in high school. Most of my friends were girls and I used to get incredibly jealous of how they were always asked out to dances. Not because I had crushes on them but because I wanted to be asked out to the dances. I wanted a guy to ask me out, I wanted to look pretty in the big flowy dress with long wavy hair! I have been wanting this since I was 6 and all I could do was watch. In high school I had a girlfriend, ⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺. She would take me to the dances, sure she was wearing a dress and me a suit but I need to find these pictures of us. Her parents made her crouch down so that I would look taller and make me put my arm around her. She was taller than me, she had a car and I didn't. She led in dancing. She held me when we watched movies. I Loved this. That felt amazing. She’s a lesbian, and I was a teenage boy so we broke up. She got married just ⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺ to a woman.
I went on a date with a woman here and there after graduating but they always felt weird to me. I hated being the man on dates. I hated that. Could I be gay? Yeah that makes sense. I was attracted to women in a weird way but the feeling of dating one felt gross. I liked the way that men felt, I liked going on dates with them. I liked flirting with men. They made me feel much more like how I wanted to feel. But I was still attracted to women but the idea of dating them made me feel sick? Weird. I was often treated like a “twink” and I would dress and act the part. Eventually I asked to not be referred to as a man, I was about 19 almost 20 at the time. I didn't want to be a boyfriend. I just wanted to be a partner and be referred to neutrally by people I was dating. This felt much nicer. It was around the time I really started taking down the walls I had put up as a kid of how men needed to act. I got into cosplay and doing my makeup. I would dress up as these girls I liked from video games and shows as a kid and go to conventions and whatnot. I started writing and drawing again. I started a job at that coffee shop in ⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺. I dressed and acted very androgynous, my co-workers all called me they and whatnot. But I still considered myself gay? But I didn't like to be seen as a man. This made dating complicated. Lots of men would see me in a gross fetishy light. As I continued to grow into a more adult male with a less androgynous body men would continue to fetishize me more and more. This felt horrendous. I had just moved out of my moms house and I was trying to date and figure myself out. I wasn't being treated how I wanted to anymore. I was just a fetish to most of these men. Going on dates with weird frat boys from the U or other gross men. But a weird thing started happening. I ended up going on a number of dates and continually going out with Transgender men. People that were born female but took testosterone to present male and consider themselves men. They had facial hair and surgery to remove their boobs. They understood me. They treated me how I wanted to be treated. Even though I always asked to be referred to androgynously I still saw myself as a man since that's what I was born as. They questioned this, encouraged me to dress how I wanted to. Stop calling myself a gay man. I was never comfortable wearing what I wanted out in public after seeing how fetishized I was but I could wear what I wanted at their houses. They would teach me things, like how to do my hair, how to do my makeup better. They would give me their old clothes from before when they transitioned. When we had sex I could “top” or be dominant and they wouldn't make me feel like a man for it, like most men would. They didn't care about having a strict closed relationship, I would be going out with a guy and his friends, and the guy was also going out with his friends? It was this strange thing, but it felt safe and like home. Eventually I moved to Logan. I lost most of my connections but I was still seeing ⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺.
⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺ and I started officially dating after I moved to Logan. He treated me the way I wanted to be treated. As I aged I saw myself grow into more of a man. This was very distressing. Seeing my hairline recede made me feel sick. Seeing myself look strong (In a way that I would be attracted to if it were someone else) made me sick. Watching myself become more and more of a man made me sick. I wouldn't leave the house. I wouldn't socialize. I would wear super baggy clothes and just go to my classes then walk around town with spam at night. I hated being seen. I hated being treated like a man. I couldn't dress the way I wanted since this was a more conservative college and area than ⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺ and looking more like a “Man in woman's clothing” meant more fetishization. It was not good. I was smoking black and milds and drinking every weekend. ⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺ was supportive of me doing things how I wanted to do them, however I asked him to call me his girlfriend, he started calling me ⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺; a name I picked from my great something grandmother who is buried very close to my house. My friends from ⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺ followed suit. This felt very nice. I wouldn't transition for some reason. I don’t know why. Subconsciously trans women were gross to me because that's what I was taught in church and by every adult and parental figure growing up. I was worried about the side effects of estrogen, and this was also something super expensive. I wrote about how I was feeling and a number of trans women (people born male and through taking hormones and sometimes surgery presented as female) reached out to me and shared their experiences- all people I knew personally. It felt very similar to how I had been feeling. I talked to them about it for months. I had wanted to take estrogen since I lived in ⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺, but for previously mentioned reasons and when I looked into it in the past this was a thing my insurance wouldn't cover.
A dr had an opening, she was a really good dr, she took my insurance (albeit semi illegally and shadily) I took the plunge. A risk. But you do what feels right. I started taking estrogen and some other drugs last January.
The last eight months have been a complete blur, in a good way. It's hard for me to write about them because I haven't even had time to process them yet. My hair line came back. I got a pretty haircut. I liked the way I looked. After time I could wear the clothes I liked and- look like an androgynous person. People wouldn't make comments at me. People would tell me nice things. Like in highschool I started being friends with tons of women again. I got involved with my local queer community and made tons of friends. The weird fetishy men left me alone. I started going outside again. I got more involved with things on campus. As time has gone on I have felt better and better about it. Plenty of people call me she without me having to say anything. Even the conservative “We can always tell” crowd doesn’t see anything weird at a distance. I started being busy on campus.
Experimenting with dating women, which, as a woman? It feels great. I like Lesbian and Bi girls who I can fist fight and draw blood roughhousing with then kiss listening to some music afterwards. I like straight and bi men slightly shorter than me who dress nice, like to crochet, sew, draw, and listen to metal. Everyone calls me Lena and refers to me using She or They, I do present a bit androgynous and I like this. I definitely dress to attract the formerly mentioned men and women. Funnily enough women seem to be significantly more attracted to me than men, I go out with a lot of women but too many men as of late. I think men are more insecure about being with a trans woman than a woman is about being with a trans woman. At concerts women come up to me all the time and ask for my number. Straight men flirt with me in the awkward way that they do and half ask me out. Straight man friends get crushes on me and make things awkward. Still working on the courage to wear a long pretty dress like I've always wanted, I used to but after being fetishized so intensely it's hard, men kinda ruined it for me.
