Read Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out for Free Online Page A

lot.”
    “I don’t go that way,” he said.
    I’d say, “But I’m a girl.” That was something he couldn’t grasp. I don’t blame him. He met me as a boy, so I can’t expect him to see me completely as a girl. He accepts me as a girl now, but I don’t know if he completely sees me as one. He treats me like a girl. He’s protective. I’ve heard from other people that Hoay really cares about me and worries about me a lot. But I don’t think he would ever want to be with me.
    I’ve gotten over that whole attraction to him. I see him as my brother. I’m glad to have him as one of the high-school friends I still talk to.

    The school gave us Mount Saint Michael T-shirts for gym class. We had Mount Saint Michael shorts, and of course had to wear sneakers. Ugh! I was okay about going to the locker room, but I felt uncomfortable changing in front of people. I had hairy legs, and I couldn’t shave them because for one, I didn’t want my mom asking questions, and two, I didn’t want to make myself more of an outcast. It felt so nasty to have hairy legs.
    At that time I tried to blend in. I had a little mustache, more like peach fuzz, that I eventually shaved off because I didn’t like it. I was still trying to convince people I was straight. (But by my senior year, I was wearing spandex to gym class.)
    I’d go to the corner to change because I didn’t want to take off my pants. I’d keep the T-shirt under my button-down ’cause I never wanted to take off my shirt in front of the other guys. I didn’t feel that I was exposing my breasts, ’cause I didn’t have them yet. I just never liked to be seen with my shirt off. It made me feel uncomfortable. No one laughed at me. The only time they started laughing at me was in my senior year when I started dressing like a woman.
    After everybody changed, we’d all go upstairs to the gymnasium and sit on our spots. The instructor, Mr. Valentino — I really hated him so much — there need to be more understanding gym teachers, there really do — he would make me do push-ups and sit-ups. We’d run around the track or play basketball. I told them I had asthma and I couldn’t run. This is the truth. I do have asthma. But I also didn’t want to run.
    Then when we played basketball, I was always picked last. The teacher would place me on a team, and the boys would get upset, not because I was feminine but because I just couldn’t play. I didn’t know how to dribble the ball. I didn’t shoot. I had never played these things. My dad would take me to a park and try to teach me, but I was never interested. I didn’t want to ride bikes. I didn’t want to play football. I didn’t want to play Frisbee. None of that! I wanted to shop. I’ve been drawn to shopping all my life.
    I wasn’t really interested in learning, I just did what I had to do, and that was that. If there was a test, I’d study, but I wasn’t interested in English or history. I was interested in art and fashion. I guess I was good at it. I did what I had to do and was on the honor roll and dean’s list all four years.
    I wasn’t a reader. I read
Cosmo.
I read
Glamour.
For some reason, my mom didn’t think much of it. She was in denial.

    I drew girls a lot. That’s all I drew. To this day, I draw girls. I’m so into looking good and beautiful, and I’m always trying to figure out the next thing to make me more feminine.
    One of the school counselors said, “I want to see your sketchbook. I want to see your art.”
    “Sure.” I showed her pictures of girl after girl after girl — different kinds of girls. She said, “You know, when people draw, it’s kind of like a way of escaping. People draw what they want to be.”
    The moment she said that — I had never spoken to her about transgender issues; I just said that I was gay and that people disliked me, they hated me — the moment she said that, I started thinking,
Well, yeah, I want to be a girl, but it will never happen.
    I told her