U B U

Bear with me here, I'm trying to complete a thought.  It's hard to put into words, but... I'm not trans because I want to fit in with women.  I'm trans because I have to try if I want to fit in with males.

I have a very vivid, but incomplete, memory: I was a kid - I don't know how young, but my parents were still married so it was probably before high school.  We were eating at a Chinese restaurant.  I don't remember any of the conversation that led up to it, but my dad said, "I believe that above all else, homosexuality is a sin.  If you can't accept what you are..." and that's all I can remember about what he said.

I do remember feeling a little confronted, though.  I didn't say anything, but inside I wondered if I was gay.  I didn't really understand what gay meant at the time, and I'd definitely never heard the word transgender.  But I knew I was feminine, and at the time I thought the two might be the same thing.

But it wasn't until years later that I thought about how backwards his statement was.  Realizing you're gay is accepting what you are.  Gay is your state of being.  Being gay and continuing to date the opposite sex, pretending everything is fine... that's refusing to accept what you are.

Same with trans people.  If I were to put on a dress and makeup and hang out with more women, that wouldn't be me rejecting my identity, but rather accepting it.  "Why can't you just be yourself?"  That is me being myself.  I spent my youth hanging out with groups of males, pretending like I fit in, faking that bond of brotherhood the rest seemed to have.  It's not comfortable, and it doesn't feel natural.

Transitioning isn't like moving to some strange new world, it's more like coming home.