Free Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin

I’m not leaving her.”
    I’ve been with my boyfriend for three and a half years, and that’s because I put up with his bullshit a lot. Right now we’re on a break. I can’t help but think that he wants to be with another girl. He’s done this to me so many times. Once, I had gone out with another guy and he cheated on me too. Girls get cheated on all the time.
    If I had been born a girl, I would have had lots more boyfriends. If I had been born a female, I could leave Gabriel. I have mixed feelings about this. There are so many things I love about him. He’s accepted me. When people in the street call me a man, he’s never embarrassed. How am I going to find that again?

    All my trans friends with vaginas look beautiful. They got everything they wanted. It would be so great if I could get an operation, if I could get my vagina. It will be great to get that over with and live my life. I feel like I’m not truly living my life yet. I’m living it fifty percent. If I had my surgery, I would live it to the fullest.
    I still hang out with boys from Mount Saint Michael. They’re straight. I went to a house party recently where there were a lot of Mount boys. I came in and announced, “Learn your pronouns because I don’t want to have to slap somebody tonight.”
    They said “hi,” and gave me kisses on the cheek. I was surprised. I was really happy. That showed me they accept me as a woman.
    They didn’t give me no pound. There was one boy who put his hand out like that, and I said, “I don’t do that.”
    He was, like, “Oh.”
    “I’ll take a handshake, but I’m not going to do that.”
    I won’t do the hand bump, either. Michelle Obama may do it, but not me. They’re doing that to me because they probably still see me as a man, like, “What’s up, bro!”
    There was a boy at the house party; he was like a rocker boy who called everyone
dude.
With me you have to walk on eggshells with that word. I take it very defensively — especially when there’s alcohol involved at the party.
    When I was drinking he called me
dude
and I took it the wrong way. I told him, “Don’t call me dude, ’cause I’m
not
a boy.” And he was like, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m just trying to help you out.” I was really drunk.
    I was with my friend Hoay because we still hang out; we talk all the time. So the rocker went up to Hoay and said, “You need to watch out for him.” Him being
me.
    I got up out of my seat and said, “Don’t call me
dude
!” and I put my hands around his neck and started backing him up against the wall. Everybody was pulling me off him.
    “Relax, relax,” he said. “I’m just trying to help you.”
    People were saying, “That’s not very ladylike.”
    “Well, people gotta learn,” I said. I mean people are not going to learn anything if there is no consequence to it. If you’re nice to people, they’re not going to take you serious.
    The next day, he told me that he didn’t mean to call me
him
or
dude
or anything like that. It’s just that he wasn’t used to me. I’m not around him much.

    I am around Hoay a lot, so when Hoay calls me
he,
I scold him.
    I saw the rocker again at the next house party. He said, “Hey, Christina, how are you?” He was being nice to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
    Sometimes I see Matthew in the mirror. Sometimes, on my lazy days, when I’m just lounging around the house with no makeup on or anything, I see him.
    Once I put on my boyfriend’s clothes to see what it was like. I pulled my hair up and put on his do-rag. All I could see was my face. I must admit I was very happy with what I saw in the mirror. Although I had on boys’ clothes, I still looked super feminine. I had my breasts, and my hips were poking through the sides of his jeans. My boyfriend told me that I looked like a lesbian; I didn’t look like a boy at all. He can’t imagine me as a boy. I was so happy about that.
    “Hold on! Hold on! I have something to say,”