Let me tell you a story..
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who led a happy life surrounded by loving, caring family - most of whom weren't related by blood, but by something much more powerful. He got to see lots of beautiful motorbikes, and listen to Guns N Roses and Black Sabbath for lullabies. His parents were very lenient and relaxed about life, being considered 'abnormal' by society already. This little boy was, therefore, very happy. He loved having so many uncles and aunties about, who would all teach him things and tell him stories and jokes and play games, build ships and bases and play with ants. The little boy was quite sure of who he was from a young age, and although his family were entirely sure that he was a girl, and gave him a girls name, they never forced him to do anything he didn't want to do (except maybe washing and wearing at least a t-shirt). The little boy's mother even let him splash in puddles, as long as he didn't do it so that it got on other people.
One day, the little boy learned that because he 'was a girl' he'd never get proper bits like his best friend and that he had a thing called a 'womb' for babies to grow in. Like parasites, he thought, only probably he thought 'like horrible bugs'. After that, one of his most famous (amongst the Family) and oft-repeated phrases was 'I want my womb removed.' He never clarified this, because his life was still pretty good - because he was different from the other children in so many ways (he liked to read, and he liked science and his own pretendings, liked to learn and talk with adults and ask questionsquestionsquestions, and other things that kids his age generally didn't spend much time doing), no-body expected him to behave like the other 'female' children anyway, so he grew up quite happy, playing in the mud and climbing trees and looking at engines and listening to a wide range of delicious music. When he was nine, he moved away from his Mummy, because he was unhappy that he could not help her when she was sad about not being with Daddy any more. He also argued sometimes with his Mummy, because he thought she could be very silly sometimes, and though he had lots of good friends and even liked his little brother (who occasionally wore his few dresses which he NEVER wore himself). He knew he'd miss his friend Joe, and Iphie, and all their families, and the people in the Mosque on the corner who'd always wave at him as he walked to school, but he just made the decision and left London to move to Thanet with his Daddy.
Daddy's new partner was Auntie Kerry (not a blood relative, don't worry), and was now just Kerry as she was now a step-mother. That was nice. She was strict, but lovely and fun, but also very much a Girl. When the little boy was eleven, he fell in love with a girl. She was four days younger than him, and they played a lot and said that they were astrological twins. When the little boy was thirteen he hit puberty, and his body completely betrayed him. He lost his small boyish shape and grew chubby and boobs, and had a yuckfest each month. His lower parts never did turn into what they ought to have been; they taunted him, by changing shape, but it never went far. His voice broke, but not as deeply as the other boys' - this just made it vaguely androgynous, rather than masculine. He hated everything about life, except the girl. The worst part was when all of his friends stopped playing with him like they used to; they never wanted to wrestle or play catch or climb trees or skate with him any more, and all the boys at school treated him like he had plague - except the other geeks.
School was a terrible place for the little boy, but he immersed himself in books and the library and the worlds in his head, and there were a few other children that were outcasts. Secondary school was the first time he'd been to a Christian school - the little boy had enjoyed going to church and secondary school for a year or two before secondary school began. He loved singing in the choir, and found the bible rather amusing, and liked the message of love and acceptance. His parents were very accepting of this interest in Christianity - being Buddhist, they didn't mind what he did as long as he was happy and not hurting anyone. The little boy soon realised, though, that Christianity was not really what he had thought, and so he went back to believing in the tug in his guts and chest that would always tell him right from wrong, and where to go next. Anyhow, in this Christian school, he very quickly got a reputation as 'that weird ginger dyke' which he didn't mind too much, as it meant he could act like himself and people would simple ascribe it to his 'gayness'. He hated PE most of all, playing netball, having to change in a room full of girls (he felt uncomfortable getting changed in front of them, and in seeing them get changed, like a perverted monster, so he'd always go change in the toilet cubicle) and he hated wearing shorts or a PE skirt, so eventually he managed to get a note allowing him to wear tracksuit bottoms in PE. He'd gotten a letter for trousers for normal uniform back in primary school, and thankfully there hadn't been too much of an issue with those after the first few months of secondary. Bullying did not help the boy adjust to the world. He hated school but loved it, because it was full of information and deliciousness. Keeping moving by wandering around at break, or just sitting in the library, were his only refuges from being chased and abused - he had to stay out of sight. There were a few other outcasts who had the same trouble, but he was the only one who people thought was a girl - this was really quite nice, as his geek mates didn't talk about boys and makeup like the few girls who had tried to befriend him before his outcast status got so bad, because they were all just normal 'geeky' boys like him.
One day he asked the girl out, and she laughed at him, because she thought he was a girl too and said she wasn't 'gay'. He was very depressed, but kept it a secret and they stayed friends. The little boy liked black a lot, and thought that gothy girls were hot, so since everyone thought he was a girl, he wore gothy clothes a lot because it was the only kind of vaguely girly clothes he could bear to wear (never tight things, never cleavage showing), and he was beginning to wonder what it might be like to be a girl. He generally wore lovely big baggy jumpers and things. (In fact, the boy still has the hoodie he got for his fourteenth birthday.) Since people thought he was a girl, and he liked girls, he told people he was a 'dyke' because it made him feel less like he was saying he was a girl than any other word. Even though he didn't just like girls, he liked personalities, and intelligence, and so was occasionally attracted to a boy. He got his hair cut short a few times but it looked awful because it was so fair and ginger and it stuck out like a pouf. By the time he was sixteen, he realised that if he was going to be a 'dyke' he could just not wear any girl things at all, and still get to date people. So he wore what he wanted even more, and this generally included really baggy jumpers to hide his chest and figure, and big loose jeans, and big stomping boots. Occasionally, when he was into a girl, they'd go somewhere, and he'd wear something less baggy so that he looked 'cute' and 'curvy' for them. It was uncomfortable, but the girls liked it, so he could almost enjoy wearing a top that showed his collarbones to the world - never any lower though!
By the time he was eighteen he'd dated a few boys and decided he really didn't like that at all, it felt unnatural and uncomfortable and just not right, though he enjoyed the kissing and cuddling and company - he didn't like the way he was treated as a 'girl' no matter how boyish he was, even in bed. He dated a lot of girls too, especially in college. He never realised that he could change himself to look like what he had thought he'd be when he grew up - he imagined, when he was little, that he'd look like his Daddy; with a young slightly feminine face and long hair, just like his Daddy, but a little bit of facial hair and clearly a man, with a smooth, medium level voice and a nice laugh and a good figure for wearing leathers and bike show t-shirts, that he'd be able to get nice tattoos like his Daddy (though his Daddy did not like all his tattoos any more, and taught the little boy a good lesson about forward planning when things are permanent) and that he'd have lots of nice friends of all different kinds. The little boy never thought at all that he'd have to grow up like his Mummy, who was also cool and bikery and tattooed but very clearly a Lady.
The worst part of finishing growing up was that suddenly he was away from his family, and EVERYONE thought he was a girl, and tried to treat him as a girl and talk to him like a girl about things he didn't like. The only people who'd treat him as himself were the guys who'd known him a long long long time, and even then, they tended to adjust their behaviour without realising. Sex was a bad thing because it took so long (many many months of a relationship) to get to trust someone enough to be naked with them. The further he got from home, from college and secondary school and childhood, the more he realised that no-one was treating him as him. They all made assumptions and then when he didn't fit them, they labelled him as 'weird' and didn't like him any more. He felt he would die alone and early, because he couldn't take this thing, he couldn't take that so much of society wanted to enforce stereotypes and sexist views on itself, and therefore, on him: He was sick of adverts on Facebook, for instance, advertising fashion shows and pregnancy wish list sites. Sick of women telling him about their children, or trying to share something they thought was 'cute' but which was in fact ugly and useless. Sick of not being able to ask any lady he liked out for fear of being hurt by her friends for being 'gay'. Sick of not being able to be or do what he wanted in bed. Sick of the guys excluding him without even realising it, simply because they thought he was a girl and wouldn't be interested in the formula one or the page three girl. Sick of the assumption that he couldn't carry heavy things or figure out the best way to pack a lorry. Sick, basically, of enforced stereotypes that whilst he believed to have a tiny base in reality, he knew were not right because the wrong ones got applied to him, and thereafter, people would not change their mind about him except from 'hey, a person' to 'hey, a wierdo.'
Then when the boy was twenty-two, he discovered a forum on the internet full of queers, who all seemed very nice, and as the boy was in his first adult relationship with a guy and was depressed and lonely all the time, but had no-one to talk to about it as he didn't like talking about his internal stuff, he spent time making friends on the forum. One day, he discovered this word called 'Genderqueer' and he thought perhaps that was what he was, but it didn't fit. He also discovered these things called 'Binders' and begged his mother to help him buy one as an early birthday present - he couldn't afford it himself. As soon as he got the binder he never took it off - he could wear normal, fitting clothing! He could go out in public! He could enjoy himself!
Before the binder arrived, the boy slicked his long hair back into a ponytail, borrowed a shirt from a mate, and bound his chest with a scarf and a chunk of cardboard, and went to a Rave. He told his friends he was 'in drag' and to call him Eamon, which they tried to do, but messed up. He enjoyed being perceived as himself in the smoky rave, even being thrown out of the ladies loos by the security guys, and dancing with some hot girls, and drinking other people's drinks (he didn't know this at the time, his friend was bringing them to him, they found out when suddenly they looked at one another across the dancefloor and they were both gurning - clearly they had drunken something that was spiked!).
This changed everything for the boy. He realised very fast just how much of his depression was due to his hatred of his own body, and how other people initially perceived him, how he never fit in with ladies because he was not like them, how he never got accepted with the guys because he looked like a girl, how he was no good at talking to people because he never got practice. He realised that he had to look like himself or he'd just have to start hurting himself again, and that had taken him a long time and a promise (he never broke promises) to stop doing.
After his first binder arrived, and allowed him to wear fitting clothing (albeit in several layers to hide the prominent edging on the binder) he realised there was no way he could go on pretending to be 'okay'. He had recently met some transguys and transgirls via the forum, and he paid a lot of attention to what they were saying, and it was all so close to home that he wanted to cry; in part because there were so many people suffering like he had, and some much worse, but also because he learned about medical transition, and how his puberty could have been stopped if he'd just known it was possible and asked.
Now, the boy is a boy. He still doesn't look how he wanted - he gets told he looks like an underage gay boy, which is nice but not quite there. He's waiting for doctors appointments and things, and is both happier and more depressed than he's ever been in his life. Especially since his friends, work, and family are all fine with it, and are making an amazing effort to support him and switch pronouns and names. His Dad chose his middle name, and his Mother chose his first name, and he feels almost whole and right.
These days, the boy is slowly coming out of his shell and socialising and going to parties and things. It's very fun, and a bit daunting because he gets kicked out of both bathrooms, but generally a good rush. He likes that he seems to present well, especially as drinking lowers his voice a little, and loud music means he has to project more, which further deepens his tone. Also drunk guys are more likely to accept him without question, he's found - all good things. He's yet to get over his own disconnection with his body and learn to dance, though!
Most days, if he's alone, he's pretty depressed - he can't stop his brain going on and on. But he pretends to be okay, because giving in and admitting how depressed he is, or talking it over with someone, makes it so much worse. And he hates talking about his feelings. He vents a lot on his blog, and hopes he doesn't inflict his sadness on anyone, because he knows he's a very lucky guy, and that it's mostly just general dysphoria and impatience.
