I am ME [ftm transgender boyxboy]

[1] Possibly Unlovable, totally confused.

A/N: Hello people! My name is Kyler and this is a story of a boy and his journey as an FTM Transgender during high school. I found this extremely relevant because more and more people are going through this difficult transition and i really wanted to write about it. I am also going through something similar and he is me in a lot of aspects. I hope you all enjoy.

[story/cast being edited, the picture is of Renee when his/her hair is not cut]

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 I gazed at myself in the lone mirror that hung in my bathroom, just next to the shower. A slight noise of disgust rose from the back of my throat, and I turned away from my reflection. I hated it. The curve of my hips and the bow of my breasts that gave me a womanly hourglass shape, everything. I didn’t know why. I had very little idea of the reason why I despised my own reflection and it frustrated me to no end.

I snuck another fleeting glance at myself and nearly choked. My hair was long, just past my shoulder and sandy blonde. I tugged the tips harshly, bringing myself to the brink of a panic attack. I felt as though I was tiptoeing the edge of a rugged cliff, teetering back and forth, my feet threatening to betray me and toss me into that convulsing ocean of pain that pulsed with my every heartbeat. But of course, I was only standing barefoot in my bathroom, staring at my reflection.  

In the back of my mind, I knew I was being utterly ludicrous. A panic attack over the length of my hair? What kind of idiot was I? I giggled hysterically to myself, thinking that I really had no idea.

I stood utterly still, poised on the edge of my metal sink. Then, in a moment of perhaps pure insanity, I snatched up a pair of scissors, gripped my hair tightly in one fist and violently clipped it off at my chin. I stood still again and a ghost of a smile flashed across my face. Better. Still not good enough, but I felt better. The hair hung straight, parted down the middle and ending just at my jawline all the way across.  An odd sense of calm washed over me and I raised my fingers to my hair, the scissors snipping more and more hair off.

By the end of my own personal Brittany Spears moment, different lengths of hair pooled at my feet and for the first time in a long time, I felt a little more whole.

My hair was longer in the front now, and my newfound bangs swept across my forehead in a messy effortless fashion. It was much shorter in the back, nearly shaved even, and when I ran my hand across it I smiled broadly to myself.

I stripped the rest of my clothes without looking in the mirror and stepped lightly into the shower.

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I woke suddenly in the middle of the night to a piercing shriek and I immediately bolted upright. Staggering out of bed, I glanced sleepily at the clock and groaned.

“Renee,” my mother exclaimed breathlessly, and when I rounded the corner I saw her staring slackjawed at my bathroom floor, hand clutching her small silver cross tightly. When she looked up and met my gaze, a small gasp of horror escaped her lips and she desperately clamped her hands over her mouth. She took a shaky breath and pointed wordlessly to my head. At first, I had no idea in all hell what she was talking about. Really, it took me a moment, and when my hand jumped subconsciously to my head, it suddenly dawned on me. I cringed and looked down, not in shame, but in acute horror that I had been caught so quickly.

It took my mother all of two seconds to go from shock to boiling anger.

“What,” she asked in a voice that quavered with rage, “did you do to your beautiful hair?!”
I stood silently, saying absolutely nothing. It was best at times like these, times when she got out of control, just to shut up and let her go. It wasn’t as if I was going to get a word in edge wise anyway. I never did. Oh, and in case anyone detects a tone of bitterness, it’s because there is one.

“What did I ever do Renee?”, She questioned angrily, “What made you want to rebel against me? Is it all the freedom I give you? The house in a safe neighborhood and good school? The fact that your father and I can give you most anything you want? Huh? What is it? Because I am at a LOSS.”

She threw her hands into the air and laughed bitterly, shaking her head, “Just look at all I give you! What did I EVER do wrong?”

She just stood there, staring at an invisible spot just above my left ear. After a few moments, she opened her mouth to speak and her tone changed drastically.

She pursed her lips and nodded her head several times, staring intently at my head. To be honest, it made me majorly uncomfortable.

“You know what,” She said fervently, “we can still fix this. I’ll go first thing in the morning to buy you some hair extensions. How does that sound honey? Yeah, this will all be okay, and things will be back to normal soo-”

“Mom,” I interrupted in exasperation, “what if I like what I did? You are totally overreacting! It’s just HAIR! It grows back. And what about school tomorrow”  

“Oh honey,” she laughed and shook her head, “you look like some kind of cross-dresser! Now what would the people at church think? Tomorrow morning, forget about school until you have your extensions. I’ll call them in and explain a minimal emergency.”

“But-”

She started walking away from me, shutting the door softy behind her. To me, the soft click of the door shutting was like a gun going off and shooting me in the chest. I bit my lip and tilted my head up towards the ceiling, chanting the words, “I will not cry” to myself in my head.

It took me a full ten minutes before I was sure I could hold true to those words and not end up bawling on the floor that was still covered with my own hair. Instead, I took a deep breath, and walked numbly out of my bathroom and sat back on my gray bedspread. I felt empty. Dazed. Emotionless. It didn’t even really hurt. I kind of wish it hurt but in the back of my mind I knew it wouldn’t. I was just too far gone to have that as a possibility.

My chest shuddered and heaved as I struggled to regulate my breathing. I focused on one word that my mother had said, one that had struck me deeply.

“cross-dresser.”

She said it in a way that seemed to taint it. She hissed it like a snake and spat it like one would a rather dirty cuss word.

“cross-dresser.”

To me, it sounded slightly appealing. I didn’t know why, but the more I repeated it to myself, the more a feeling of longing spread through my stomach and made it ache.

“..what would the people at church think?”

Those words drifted past my ear, a horrific whisper of pain in the darkness. It shot through my haze and a gasp ripped from my chest. No. That wasn’t me. It just couldn’t be. This was a phase, that’s all.

Or was it? Maybe I really WAS like she said. Maybe…

I covered my head with a pillow and burrowed under the covers, burying myself in blankets to hide from my own toxic thoughts. I remembered earlier as I stood in front of the mirror. The sudden sense of triumph washed over me briefly, followed by intense confusion.

The thoughts and emotions threatened to drag me under and drown me, so I silently pleaded to be lulled to sleep quickly.

My last thoughts before I drifted to sleep were, “I hate hair extensions..”

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