I’m Trans. This Is My Story

I was born in the late 1970s, back when “transgender” wasn’t a word you’d see on television, let alone in a school curriculum. Back then, there was only “he” or “she,” and if you didn’t fit neatly into one of those boxes, you were expected to hide it. I learned early that whatever I was didn’t fit, and that saying so could make me a target.

I remember being six years old, draping a towel over my head and pretending it was long hair. I wasn’t rebelling against anything. I was aligning myself, in the only way I knew how, with what felt true. It took years before I discovered there were others like me and decades before society began to admit that such people even existed. The shame came later, when I learned that such feelings were unspeakable.

My first experiences with desire were tangled up with fear. As a teenager, I was drawn to boys but couldn’t imagine anyone seeing me that way. Every crush came with an undercurrent of panic: If he knew who I really am, he’d hate me. And all of them did. The first time I came out to someone I liked, he laughed and told his friends. The next day at school, the whispering started. Within a week, I had no friends left.

Transition isn’t a lifestyle. It’s a form of care that restores equilibrium.

For trans women of my generation, that kind of rejection was typical. You learn to move through the world invisible because being seen too clearly can be dangerous. It still can be. Even now in my 40s I find myself editing how I walk, how I speak, how I dress in public. Not out of vanity, but self-preservation.

But when I say that being trans is the last thing I want people to notice about me, it’s not from shame, it’s because being trans should be irrelevant to my humanity. It’s a rare medical condition, not an identity that defines the whole of a person. I’d rather be recognized for my work, my sense of humor, my curiosity, and my contributions to the world than for the fact that I had to undergo medical treatment to live comfortably in my body. Transition isn’t a lifestyle. It’s a form of care that restores equilibrium. A way to make the physical self match the internal one so that life can finally move beyond gender altogether.

That’s why I bristle at the way trans discourse has evolved in the past few years. I’m grateful that young people today have the language, visibility, and community. But I also worry that online activists (many of them very young!) speak about gender transition as if it were a simple matter of identity affirmation rather than the profound, irreversible medical journey it is. Hormone therapy and surgery are not accessories to self-expression. They are life-altering interventions that carry serious physical and emotional consequences.

To conflate transient identity exploration with the rare and lifelong condition experienced by people like me is to risk harm.

We are also witnessing an unprecedented rise in gender dysphoria among adolescents and young adults, particularly girls transitioning to be boys (I intentionally use “boys” here instead of “men”). While I don’t doubt that some number of them are trans—trans people have existed in every culture throughout history and we are not going anywhere anytime soon—the sudden increase suggests many are likely grappling with broader questions of identity, anxiety, and belonging rather than a deep-seated, persistent dysphoria, and latch onto gender identity because it is so visible and so celebrated today. But to conflate transient identity exploration with the rare and lifelong condition experienced by people like me is to risk harm. The medical establishment must be able to tell the difference, without fear of being called bigoted for doing so!

I say all this not to gatekeep, but to underscore the gravity of what transition entails. I’ve had surgeries that permanently changed my body. I inject hormones, knowing they’ll likely to affect my liver, my bones, and my fertility. I made these decisions as an adult, after years of therapy and reflection. I don’t regret them for a second but I also wouldn’t wish their necessity on anyone.

Caution is not cruelty. It’s compassion informed by reality.

They are serious medical interventions that alter the body permanently, often with side effects that require lifelong management. For adults, with informed consent and psychological support, they can be lifesaving. For children and adolescents, whose identities are still in flux, such decisions must be approached with restraint and rigorous oversight. Caution is not cruelty. It’s compassion informed by reality.

Gender-affirming care saves lives, no matter what anyone says. I know this because it saved mine. But that doesn’t mean it should be prescribed without deep, individualized assessment, especially for children and adolescents who are still developing their sense of self. Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones are not toys, and it’s not transphobic to say so. The medical community must balance compassion with caution. Both can coexist.

At the same time, we cannot let this conversation become an excuse for cruelty. The backlash against gender medicine has brought out voices who see our existence itself as pathology. They call for bans, restrictions, and “re-education,” pretending that trans lives can be legislated out of reality. And many more make disparaging jokes about genitals or trans people supposedly not knowing that plastic surgery cannot change biology. These people are not protecting children. They are using them as pawns.

The surgeries and hormones are not what make us who we are.

What gets lost in the shouting is the truth most trans adults live quietly every day: We don’t want special treatment! We just want to be left in peace! To work, to love, to grow old without fear. The surgeries and hormones are not what make us who we are. They are tools that allow us to stop fighting our reflection and start living!

I wish more activists today understood that dignity doesn’t come from angry rhetoric or slogans. It comes from honesty. And honesty means acknowledging not just the courage, but also the risk and the pain it takes to become yourself. It also means being truthful about those things with our youth.

Trans rights are human rights, not because trans people are flawless or because half-naked activists shout it at a protest, but because no one should have to justify their existence. Defending trans rights means defending the right to live truthfully and safely. But truth also demands clarity: transition is not something to be entered into lightly, nor denied to those who need it. The middle ground—careful, evidence-based, compassionate medicine—is where reason lives. And it’s where our humanity should, too.