Authenticity at Our Core
- Today, I wish to discuss who I am, or rather, what I am. I am a trans person, now some people think that I was born male, and have transitioned into a woman; this is incorrect. Prior to birth, my mother suffered from night terrors, and her Dr prescribed her a medication, my mother refused to tell me what medication it is that she took. However, my mother was retrospectively aware that the medication she had been prescribed could cause changes in the unborn child - this much she did tell me. Anyway, when I was born, my mother believed that she had given birth to a boy, eventually it became clear that was not exactly true. You see, I was born with an intersex condition, that the NHS has never felt it prudent to diagnose. Whilst I was born with a penis and testes, at approximately the age of 13 and before going through male puberty, I started to grow small mammary glands. This is not to be confused with the condition called Gynecomastia; you see gynecomastia is often a diagnosis given to males that have excess fatty tissue in the chest area, making the appearance of small breasts - I did not have this condition. Rather, I had started to grow mammary glands, and my nipples had grown a little, and had a feminine characteristic to them. I found out that I had this condition, because I was at home, on a Saturday night, watching a movie with my family, the weather was warm and I had taken my top off, which was not unusual for a boy. My older brother suddenly declared that I had breasts; my dad then said that I had nipples looked like my mother's. They both made some noises of disgust, and I was ordered to put my top back on. A year or so later, something similar also happened at school, where my friend Dean declared that I had breasts. At this point I learnt to cover my chest, just as girls learn to do this.
Authenticity at Our Core
- I have jumped slightly ahead to the teenage years; however it is important to go back. Though I was believed to be a male child, from an early age, and from my earliest memories, I was always being called a girl. In fact my older brothers used to have a female name that they used to call me on a daily basis, by way of bullying. As I grew up, and went to school, children and even teachers followed this tendency, and I was being referred to as either female or gay in a pejorative fashion. This continued throughout my entire childhood. Taking us up to the age, when I started to naturally grow breasts.
- At this point I should be clear, because whenever I talk about the fact that I started to grow breasts at the age 13, since I am trans, people always ask: 'At was age did you begin transgender hormone treatment?'
- The answer to that question is 29; my breasts started to grow, because like all other genuine trans people, I was born with an intersex condition. Not all trans people are quite as intersexed as I was, but all are intersexed.