Trans Guy Survival Guide

My Story and Experiences

Im going to be honest here - I have always struggled with my body image. Whether it be my weight, my hair, my eyes, you name it, I most likely have struggled with them at certain stages of my life. Though it has always been a present problem, when things really started picking up was when I started middle school. In 6th grade, I started going through the early stages of puberty, and so did many of the girls at my school. Even the mention of female body development was enough to make me visibly uncomfortable, and to this day I still feel the same way about it. 

Many of you have probably had a moment in school where some of the teachers (mainly gym teachers for me) pulled all of the students from one gender into a separate room and talked to them about puberty, safe sex, HIV's, etc, and I think its safe to say that many trans people - including myself - feel very, very uncomfortable with this topic. On my first class like this, I sat at the very back of class and hid my face in my girlfriends shoulder the entire time, trying to do everything possible to block out what was happening. At the time, I didn't know why I hated it so much, but now I know that a lot of it has to do with me not identifying with what we were being taught about. 

Though I was not yet aware of my true gender identity at the time, it did help me come to the realization that I am actually male. When that happened I thought it was just me being uncomfortable because im not a very emotionally open kind of person, and while that is part of it, it was actually mainly just me not identifying with what we were being forced to learn about.

When I first was starting to realize I wasn't comfortable with my biological sex, I was in 7th grade. I remember I was doing a project on lgbtq+ rights, and I was reading a book on what it meant to be transgender. There was a part of the book that focused on non-binary people, and I thought thats what I was. I realized that I didnt identify with being female, so I decided to start going by they/them pronouns and the name Eli. 

For two years I started going through a transition to start appearing as a non-binary person. Though my male transition had not started yet, I still began changing everything I could so that I would appear more masculine. I even started asking my mom to let me take hormone blockers. Ever since the beginning, I had always planned on eventually going on T (testosterone), and getting top surgery to flatten my chest. At the time, I viewed myself as a non-binary person who expressed myself in more masculine ways. 

Even though I thought I had found out who I was, it still felt off to me. It felt right for a bit, but the feeling gradually faded. For months I hid this from everyone, including my therapist and girlfriend. I was afraid they would get mad at me for telling them one thing and then going against it. Turns out, everything ended up being okay. 

When I told my mom and therapist, they were incredibly supportive. I started looking at exclusively male names, and I eventually settled on the name Lucas. Surprisingly, my mom got used to using my preferred name and he/him pronouns pretty quickly. In the two years I identified as non-binary, my family struggled with using my name and pronouns, and in the past three months of being a male my mom has completely started using my preferred name 99 percent of the time. Slip-ups are of course to be expected, so Im not really that upset when it happens. Still, that doesnt mean Im okay with being referred to as female. It genuinely makes me uncomfortable.

Last year I got my first binder, and I have gained a bunch of male clothing to help me pass. My hair was cut into a mens hairstyle, and ive been learning how to deepen my voice. Last week my mom took me to the doctor to talk about me potentially starting hormone blockers, and soon Im going to see gender therapists to determine whether they think I need them or not.

Thats basically my experience summarized into a brief explanation, but there are some things that I left out.