People can hate me all they want for my efforts to pursue my happiness, they aren’t the ones who got born in this birth defect of a body – I am a 35 year old transwoman in the long, painful process of transition. I was terrified of saying anything to my family for years due to a fear of being disowned and losing the only support I have since I’m also disabled. Plus the fear of being murdered by a hateful society didn’t help. That fear held me back from transitioning for a long time, I didn’t manage to begin HRT until this past April. My family now knows and they are thankfully supportive, hard to say with my sister though and while I’ve had to put up with a lot of transphobia from many where I live, others have been supportive. Years of being forced to be male since early childhood though and from being forced to be male in things like video games for years on end has resulted in a strong physical and emotional distress from being forced, demanded and addressed to as male. I’m a woman, I can’t help that my body was born wrong. So many who are trans* are forced to suffer because of the stigma and hatred there is towards the trans* community, from radical feminists groups ensuring that our rights are denied to religious groups trying to force us to be what they demand and forcing conversion therapy on us. It has to stop, it must stop.We are human beings who yearn and ache to be able to live our lives as ourselves, we are not ‘freaks’, we are not ‘things’, we are human beings. We are daughters, sons, wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, we are real people who just want and need to be true to ourselves. Trans* youth need the support and guidance to be able to be who they know they are, and trans* adults need the same help and guidance to be who they know they are. Too many of our trans* sisters and brothers have died, so many lives have been ended because of hatred, bigotry, damaging ideals, misinformation, oppression, violence and many other means. We are fellow human beings, please let us live. No more hate.
~Reina~