Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out (4 page)
Nicole was amazing! I love her! I was very comfortable with her from the start. I’m so glad I had those sixteen sessions with her. It gave me the time to make sure transition was what I wanted, and to make sure I was ready to deal with certain obstacles that come with transition. Like, when to start using the men’s bathroom, how to switch pronouns, and how to interact with my family and friends as a different sex.
Nicole provided the information so that I could formulate my own decision. She never said, “Oh, you can do it.” She would listen to what I had to say, and ask, “What do you really want to do? Is that how you feel?” She helped me come to my own decisions. She gave me space to think through things on my own, which really helped, because I was going through such a confusing time. Basically I needed someone to shut up and listen to me. And Nicole did that very well.
I had periods of doubt. At one point, I thought maybe I shouldn’t take the hormones. Maybe I should just stay like this. I love being healthy and was scared about possible risks.
At night, before I’d fall asleep, I would lie awake in the dark, under the covers, tossing and turning, thinking. In the daytime, I’d daydream. I was afraid that there would be technical difficulties.
How would I be seen in the workplace? On official papers I’d be identified as female. In person I’d appear male. How would an employer react?
There were sporadic moments when I said to myself, “All right, I’m ready! I’m completely ready!” Then, spontaneously, I’d go, “Oh, my God,
wait
!”
I want to be a doctor for the transgender community. I want to be able to say to someone, “I’ll do your surgery for free.” For someone like me, feeling good about the way you look is so important. It adds to your self-esteem. It defines how you function in everyday life. If you look in the mirror every day and say, “I don’t want to look like this,” you won’t have the will, the drive, to be anything in life.
I would take one step forward, then one step back. I was like a little kid about to jump in the water. My toes were in the water and I’m about to jump in, but then I’d pull my toes out ’cause it would be too cold.
I also didn’t want the dependence of taking hormones every two weeks to stop me from doing other things in life. I love to travel, and I see myself working in third-world countries. What if I got a job somewhere but I couldn’t go because I had to be in a place where I could get hormones. What would I do?
Jessy talked about these concerns with Nicole. She helped him understand that there’s always a way around things if you want it badly enough. People would hire Jessy because of his skills, not because of his gender. Bottom line: Was Jessy ready to change? Midway through the therapy sessions, he decided that he was ready.
Then he thought of yet another obstacle.
Jessy is a Thai citizen, using a Thai passport. He’s in the States on a student visa. In Thailand, you cannot change your legal gender. He worried what would happen when he went through customs looking male with a passport that said he was female. Jessy gave this as a reason not to take the hormones. It was just too risky.
Nicole told him that taking hormones was his choice, and his choice alone, but that he would be able to change his passport picture, and the clinic could write a letter explaining that he’s transitioning, so he wouldn’t have a hard time passing through customs.
Finally, after thinking and talking and weighing his options, Jessy said to Nicole, “You know what? I’m ready! I want to transition. This is me! The world will have to just deal with it.”
In March 2011, I started taking testosterone injections. After being on them one month, my metabolism was crazy. I started noticing more underarm hair, and my muscle mass was increasing a little. People noticed the changes. Even Nicole said I looked a little bit different.
I ate constantly. All I thought about was food. I ate two bowls of spaghetti when before I only ate one. And on top of that, I found myself eating two scoops of ice cream. I overdosed on tortilla chips and salsa. At night, I could have sworn I’d eaten an hour ago, but I would be hungry, like I hadn’t eaten for four hours. Food. Food. Food. I just wanted to eat! Most of my budget went to my stomach.
My sleeping habits changed too. I wanted to sleep more. That’s how it is for biological men too. They sleep longer than women.
Maybe because I’m young, my body took in the hormones very fast. I got the shots every two weeks. For the first two shots, I had a half dose. That’s the protocol. After the first two shots, you can decide if you want to keep to that amount or increase it to a full dose. How fast you want to transition is your personal choice.
At first I thought I would not rush it. I would just do low doses of T and change slowly. But then, once I started to feel the changes and I started to see myself looking how I really, truly wanted to look, I got so excited. I wanted the full dose.
In the beginning, I told my friends that I was transitioning and they were, like, “Okay, what does that mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” I said, “but it would be more appropriate to call me
he,
instead of
she,
because it would match what I identify myself as and what I look like from the outside.”
They were completely cool and honest when they told me, “Okay, you’re our friend, and we respect you. But you’re going to have to give us time. We’ve always called you
she,
and now you want us to switch in a night. That can’t happen so fast.”
I saw that they tried; they really did try. Sometimes they’d slip, call me
she,
and go, “Oh,
oh,
oh, oh,” and get right back to
he
and
him.
Girls started talking to me differently. “Hey, you’re looking more like a guy every day,” they told me. My best friend, who’s female, said that she couldn’t wait to hear me with a deeper voice. Me too.
Most of my guy friends were happy I’m taking T. We worked out together. We had a brotherly bond. The frat guys wanted me to pledge. We went on guy nights where we talked about girl problems. It was very natural to talk about girls. The friends that I had, the community that I made at school, were very open.
I was still going to the women’s lockers. Then I thought,
Wait! I’m getting further and further into my therapy, and sooner or later, I’m going to sound like, and completely look like, a man. So how do I handle the gym?
I was close with the gym owner, so I planned to tell him, “If you start seeing me going to the men’s locker room, it’s because I’ve transitioned to male.”
I won’t use the shower, though, since the bottom part of me hasn’t changed. In general I hate using public showers. I prefer to shower at home.
Ever since I started transitioning, I’ve used a stall in the men’s room. When you see me you say, “That’s a male.” It would be awkward if I used a women’s bathroom. A lot of men are pee shy; they use the stalls, not the urinals. Women are different. When women go in the bathroom, they look around, talk, they put on makeup. But men just go in, do their business, and leave. They’re not looking to chat or get friendly, so they don’t really care whether you use a urinal or not. I think men are less complicated.
Back in Thailand, I had some friends and family who knew about my transition. They called me “Prince Charming.” They sent me Facebook messages, like, “Prince Charming, how are you? You look handsome.” I had that support ’cause my mom proudly told people about me.
I recently went back and the neighbors said, “You don’t look close to being a female anymore.”
“Yeah.” What can I say?
“You look really good, though.”
“Thank you.”
At the end of Jessy’s sophomore year, he returned to Thailand to do a biomedical internship at the Chulabhorn Research Institute, in Bangkok. Before he left New York, a nurse taught him how to self-inject the hormones so that he could be independent.
For a split second I thought,
Oh, my God, I’m giving myself a shot.
I had a two-second adrenaline rush. I wasn’t scared, but I was anxious and had a kinda jittery feeling.
Now I inject myself in the thigh every two weeks. My thigh gets really sore, but the shot itself doesn’t hurt. It’s just a little tiny pinch. But it makes my thigh so sore, I feel like I’ve run five miles on the treadmill. The first time I did it, I couldn’t move my leg when I went to bed. Ouch. Ouch. Now it’s, like, I’m running, jumping, skipping.
Three months later . . .
I pass one hundred percent as male now. Everything about me is very masculine: my voice, my facial hair; even my skin texture is thicker, rougher. I’m a lot more muscular. I was never able to do pull-ups; I had poor upper body strength. Now pull-ups are so easy. I have a lot more stamina, endurance. I lift things now and don’t get tired. So there’s definitely been a change.
Luckily, the women in my family don’t have large breasts, so I assumed that I wouldn’t, either. And now the testosterone in my body reduces the fat in my breasts.
Usually, though, I bind. A binder is a double layer of spandex that looks like a tank top. It’s very tight so when you pull it over you it compresses your chest. Binding, honestly, is very uncomfortable. Binding makes it hard to breathe.
Now that I’m going through transition, I’ve finally escaped. It’s wonderful. I’m going through puberty all over again, and I’m excited. When I look in the mirror, it’s like, “Oh, I’m hitting the puberty that I
wanted,
not the other one.” If I see a pimple, I go, “Okay, I’m becoming a guy. Yeah. Look at that! Look at that!”
Before my transition, I was so frustrated because I really wanted to look muscular. Although I worked out, I could never get the body I wanted. As a woman I had estrogen, and estrogen produces fat instead of muscle. It pained me so much to see my male friends at the gym, friends I grew up with. I watched them go through puberty and was so jealous. They had the bodies I wanted. It didn’t make me mad, but it made me a little bit sad. Guys have more upper-body strength. They are physically stronger because they have testosterone, not estrogen. Every time I saw a guy working out, I thought,
I want that body! I want to be able to do that!