Reply To: How Do You Know if You Are Trans?

[carlaroberts]

I’m not sure it’s actually knowing, but a persistent feeling that has been with me as long as I can remember. Growing up in a small town where everyone knew everyone and everything about them, I was the child that joined with the girls on the elementary school playground, and avoided sports activities. I wanted to be one of the girls enjoying what they did, wearing what they were wearing.
I had been

In middle and high school, having to be in the boy’s locker room was terrible experience, even though my physical characteristics were much the same as everyone else’s, I felt exposed and embarrassed, and being less masculine, I was often the target of teasing and humiliation as if I were a girl. I remember wishing to live in a world where there were only girls and women.
I tried to engage in more masculine activities, and was quite successful, but I didn’t enjoy them, only doing them as a means to survive. But, surviving isn’t thriving, living in stealth, only allowing myself brief opportunities to express and experience the feelings of being my true self on rare occasions often fraught with anxiety.
After many years of working and accepting my culturally imposed role, I was finally in a position to claim my rightful place as a Trans woman. Too late in life for procedures that would confirm my identity legally where I live, I have been able to live and present in the way I feel is appropriate. There are those who question myself identity, choosing labels they feel comfortable with, but I am the one who decides ultimately, and I am happy to be Trans, whatever that means.
Carla