Janessa's Transgender Life

[Guest Janessa]

Before reading this I'm going to say now it's kind of long; also if there's anything in here people may find offensive feel free to lock this post. I'm kind of new so I'm hoping I didn't mess up. >_<. My memory's kind of bad, but this is what I remember of my life relating to me being transgender. Also sorry if the random colors bother you at all, was hoping it'd make it a little less boring.

When I was born my parents thought I was going to be a girl, so my parents were originally going to name me "Ashley." Because of the fact my parents told me they thought I was going to be born a girl, I suspect my being transgendered is in some way related to my genetics. But unfortunately I was born male, therefore my parents decided to name me after my dad; although personally I hate my name and wish it would've at least been something that both boys and girls could have, but I can't tell my parents that.

Another reason I believe my being transgender is in some way related to my genetics is because of a certain birth defect I had when I was born. My mom never gave me all the details, or maybe there really just wasn't much to tell, but apparently a certain part of me did not develop correctly making me incapable of urinating. I know she's telling the truth because I have a long scar across my waist; I can't help but wonder sometimes if I was born with both male and female genitals, and perhaps my parents lied to me because they didn't want to tell me what the surgery was really for.

The furthest back I actually remember is kindergarden, when I was around 5 or 6 years old; I am really uncertain just how accurate these memory's are, though. From what I recall I always had problems socializing with other kids, so during recess I would normally just sit by the door waiting for recess to end. Unlike other boys I never had any problem talking to girls, in fact a good portion of my friends then were female, yet I don't remember who they were exactly. During my kindergarden years was also the first time I began crossdressing; there is a certain room we had full of old clothes since my mom throws nothing away, so one day I was in there and I decided to try on a dress; I also used to play with barbie dolls.

I actually had quite a bit of fun trying on dresses and clothing such as that. So I guess it's safe to say I was the type of kid that enjoyed playing dress up. I never viewed it as wrong or anything, nor did I even realize I was different for enjoying to dress up like this. I also often

During my kindergarden years was also when my parents had me diagnosed with ADHD. I may or may not have had ADHD, I'm not really sure. All I do know is that at the age of 14 I stopped taking my pills when I wasn't in school and I found I could concentrate exactly the same as I could while on the pills. All I know for sure is that I definately do not have ADHD now, as I'm not even on pills anymore.

At around age 13 or so one of my friends got me on the internet; this is very significant to me, because I began faking my identity online. Going by the name Janessa I easily passed as a girl; I do still fake my identity online, but I have some online friends that know I have a male body. This had problems in its own, yet I was able to socialize a lot easier as a girl than I ever could as a boy.

While online I got so into being Janessa that I had no problem keeping the secret at all. I never accidently referred to myself as he and I never had to try and act like a girl, I just acted like myself. There were a few times when someone had a crush on me and I had to lie and tell them I've already got a boyfriend in real life; I would never date them because I just wouldn't feel right letting someone date me when I wasn't as pretty as I said I was.

My parents thought I was addicted or something, and maybe I was, but I know the main reason I was on the internet so often was because I felt it was the only place I could be myself. In fact, the truth is it is still the only place I can be myself. I have told two real life friends recently though.

A major problem in my faking my identity occurred when I fell in love with a girl. I never knew what she looked like at the time and I guess I didn't even realize I was in love with her; though later on I realized I was in love with her and had to tell her the truth. So I messaged her one day and told her that I love her, and that I am actually a guy.

After telling her this, I said "I'm getting off now..." because it felt extremely awkward and embarrassing. But she stopped me and told me she wanted me to stay online, and that she's loved me for a while now as well. So we began dating for a while, although this was an extremely stressful relationship. I was 14 when this happened.

The reason this caused a big problem is because her friends knew she was in love with me, and she was annoyed because all her friends thought she was a lesbian. So she asked me if I would tell everyone that I'm actually a boy. In the end I decided that for her sake I would tell everyone I'm a boy.

Their reaction wasn't as bad as I thought, but it was still bad. Almost all of them began making fun of me daily and never left me alone about it; some of my male friends that had a crush on me absolutely hated me now. I think this was worse for me then than it would have been for me now, because I didn't realize I was transgender; I actually did think I was some kind of pervert for wanting to be a girl. There was one person in specific named Brian I remember; not because he was mean, but because of how supporting he turned out to be. I also remember him because he also loved her, so I don't know maybe I was jealous or something. ><

She was only 12 at the time so that may be why she didn't understand my feelings, but she started calling me "he" as soon as I told her I'm a boy. I think being referred to as a guy in the one place I could be a girl stressed me out a lot, because being on the internet actually became another source of stress for me; both real life and internet life became stressful. The only reason I even got on the internet anymore was to talk to her.

We ended up breaking up about 1½ years later when I was 15 and she was 13. We almost completely stopped talking for a long time, until just two weeks ago when I asked her if she wanted to add me on my new msn messenger email address. She added me and now we talk occasionally; not as much as we did when we were dating, but we've become friends again.

(almost at the end, don't die on me yet) xD

Now I am 17 and I have met a few people from my past again. She has recently got me talking to Brian again, although Brian is no longer Brian and he is now known as Alex. Alex has been very supporting of me being transgender; in fact, it'd be odd if he hated me for it because Alex's birth name was Alyssa. So I guess she has two transgender people in her life; I worry things might be difficult for her having two transgender people in her life.

Alex has already begun his transition, but I doubt I will ever be able to transition because I am afraid of how my parents would react. I may also just be afraid of the awkwardness seeing them every day after telling the truth would cause, as I already barely talk to my parents as it is. Then there's the fact I have a younger brother that seems to really look up to me; he listens to the same music as me, he tries to act like me, and he copy's a lot of what I do. I guess maybe I'm worried how me suddenly becoming his older sister would affect him.

[Sally]

Janessa,

That is a very good narrative - very well organized and it does help me to understand you so much better, we have a lot in common.

But one thing that we must always remember - we cannot always please everyone else at some point we must take the chance of offending someone and becoming our true selves.

Love ya,

Sally

[Guest Janessa]

Guess that's true, transgender or not it seems impossible to please everyone. =x

Also I just noticed "like this. I also often" in there, if anyone reading this is wondering, I was going to say something but decided it wasn't really important, so I must've accidently forgotten to remove that. So can just ignore that. >_<

[Guest Wanderer]

Wow, that was really interesting. I feel like I know you already. It's very nice to meet you, and I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually. ^^

[Guest Janessa]

Rawr, figure what out?

And nice to meet you too. =x

[Guest Wanderer]

What to do about transitioning and family and what not. ^^;;

Rawr, I like to say 'rawr' too. =3 Ooh! And I have peanut butter filled pretzel nugget things! *omnoms* Oo wan shum?

If you haven't noticed, I'm feeling rather silly today.

[Guest Janessa]

Oh yea, I'm hoping if I see a therapist they'll help me tell them but not sure. =x (probably help convince them I'm not crazy, at least)

[gennee]

Thank you for sharing your story, Janessa. Welcome to he forums.

Gennee

[Guest Kayliegh]

Hi, Janessa, and welcome!

Your story is very similar to many if us and I think you’ll find that you are not alone here at Laura’s – we all have similar stories – very different in so few aspects!

Look around and you’ll start feeling more comfortable knowing that you are not alone!

Thanks for sharing your story – Hugs! Kayleigh

[Guest Janessa]

Thanks for the welcomes peoples.

Sorry I'm so late answering back, friend got me into an online thingy and she's accepting of me being transgender; she actually encouraged me being a woman on there so it was fun and still is. I'm definately staying a good while at Laura's though. =x

[Guest Janessa]

Just a quick update: (sorry for the past tense, feels too weird suddenly going present tense) xD

At the age of 18 I came out to my mom when I was not ready, because one of my friends ratted me out to the counselor that I was suicidal and transgender, so the school told my mom. Although my mom knew I'm calling myself transgender she either did not know what that means or she did not think I was serious about that. Either way, I was hoping to make her understand on my next therapist appointment which is scheduled for December 22, 2009.

Around December 7, 2009 one of my friends back stabbed me and managed to turn both friends that were accepting of me against me; using methods that I believe to be lies. So I had been having a lot of trouble coping with the loss of the only two people that accepted me for who I am outside the internet; not to mention they were really good friends and I only had 1 friend now.

[Guest Amanda joan]

Janessa,

I think you have allot going on and at 18 it must feel very confussing. Friends will come and go. Some will come back, you will always find new ones. I have to tell you if it were not for the friends I have here I would be lost. We all support each other when no one else will. I am a parent of a teenager and I watch him strugling with who I am. It is hard when so much of who you are is how you see yourself in others eyes. I think you are a very brave and creative person. Keep your head up and you will find real friends that want you to be Janessa.

Moms take this kind of change hard. My Mom cried after I told her. Now she is one of my strongest allies. My transfriends and my gay friends are my closest friends. People who know what it is like to have to hide who you really are are the friends you can count on. If you have not already go look at the post on "telling your parents". There is also a great guide on this at HRC.org. Coming out is hard but, it shows people you know who we are. Your educating them about being trans is a gift. Most people I have come out to have been supportive. They don't all arive there at the same time. So people, especially the ones that have know you the longest will take longer. Mom and Dad will want to blame themselves. They will question whether or not they have been good parents. You must tell then that this is how you are. That you have come to be who you are not from any thing that they have done or said. This is something that lives inside of us. We have two souls. The femine one is the stronger of the two and that is something that we can not control.

I hope that you will seek out more knowledge and help. You can PM me if you need to talk more.

Peace & Love Amanda

[Guest Janessa]

*Feel free not to post this message if it has anything offensive in it, my judgement is bad, I think, when I'm like this so I really shouldn't be posting anyways right now.

One of the friends I lost happened to be bisexual and I think that might be part of the reason she understood what I was going through better than most people would. I find it odd she considered me a friend and wouldn't even listen to my side of what happened though; I hope one day she will realize that what I did was not nearly as bad as what she thought it was so that she can forgive me.

What I had done was made a mistake by talking to one of my friends when I was a bit too depressed, meaning I was saying stuff like "I want to die and not exist anymore, because not existing and feeling nothing is better than existing and feeling nothing but pain" or whatever it is I say, which is what she used to rat me out to the counselor. I had originally thought my friend did it out of concern(even left a post on Laura's saying she did in the coming out forum, which I somewhat regret doing now), but the fact she hasn't talked to me since and somehow managed to convince my friend it was a creepy love letter makes me think she did it out of hate of some kind. Then there's the fact her boyfriend threatened me on her messenger login, but I don't know whether she wanted him too or not. There really was nothing that sounded even remotely like a love letter though, so I think my other friend didn't even bother to read it and just believed her or she is just really good at tricking people; what's worse she did not even listen to my side of the story, she even called me a liar when I swore I didn't write a love letter. It might be a misunderstanding, but so far it definately seems like she hates me. If lying was really necessary though I really wish they would have lied about -anything- else, because saying that just makes me sound like a pervert and I really take offense to being compared with people like that.

I know it's my fault because I've always known I need to be careful about who I tell and I shouldn't be talking like that around other people, but I really wish my friends would have just forgave me. I guess I just let my guard down a bit too much and hopefully others won't make the same mistake. =\ Kind of worried she might tell me people or try to black mail me or something.

I am indeed worried my parents will blame themselves, because I am almost positive they will and it is really not their fault. I am actually very grateful they did not try to "make me into a man" or whatever you want to call it, because nothing can make me into a man no matter what methods they try to use. That or they might straight out refuse to support me, which would be even worse.

Umm well sorry for the long post, thought I'd try to clear up what position I was in here because no-one will believe me in real life(and I'm worried if I try to explain it in real life it'll just tempt her to show people the suicidal messages, which happen to mention me being transgender in them), and if it's all a misunderstanding they'd just get angry and assume I could read their minds or something. >> I Might want to talk to a moderator or someone, but I have to go to sleep soon and I don't want to burden anyone that is already going through a lot themself. =\

[Guest Janessa]

Went through a lot of pondering on the past today and ended up typing a lot of stuff. I will post it here as an update, since I think it is significant - I am quite a bit more sure that I really am transgender after remembering all these things. There is a lot though, so just a warning ahead of time if you decide to read it. XD

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For me puberty was the same as it is for many transgender adoloescents - it was complete and utter mental torture. When I saw I was developing an adams apple I continuously punched myself in the throat; I was hoping that this would somehow make the adams apple go away, but in the end all I did was hurt myself.

I was Christian at the time and I would pray to god every night asking him to either make me a girl or kill me in my sleep. However, every day I woke up and realized I was still a boy, so I wanted to kill myself since it seemed like the only way to end this suffering. I am surprised I never did manage to kill myself, because I had plenty of pills I could have overdosed on at the time and my dad had a handgun he kept in his closet.

I often hurt myself around this time and would punch myself in face; I think self inflicted harm was my way of letting loose my frustration on myself, since that seems like what I was doing. I often times would throw a fit, banging my head against the wall and hitting myself with pretty much anything I could get my hands on while crying the entire time. One time I even tried to pull a dresser down ontop of myself, yet because I was still young I was too weak to topple it.

Later on into puberty I started cutting and stabbing myself with razor blades, pencils, and whatever else I could get my hands on at the time. Most of these cuts were minor and did not leave noticeable scars, but I recall one time I got really upset and sliced my finger deep enough with a razor blade that it bled for about an hour; this scar is still very noticeable and I used to wear a ring to hide it. Another time, during financing class, I got upset and stabbed hard enough with a pencil that it left a permanent, gray scar - I believe it is gray because a piece of lead might have gotten lodged in my skin.

My parents never noticed my strange behavior, because this stuff always happened after school when they were not home. During school I tried extremely hard not to show my emotions and after a while I think I became a bit too good at this, because to this day I have great difficulty showing when I am upset by something. I sometimes cry over odd things, such as sad movie scenes, but I find it next to impossible to cry in front of people.

My way of coping with these feelings was by faking my identity online and crossdressing in secrecy, which is where my name, Janessa, came from. I always told everyone that I was a girl in real life, because I knew that if I told them the truth they would be disgusted by me and would never treat me like a girl again.

Unfortunately I fell in love with someone and told them the truth - that I was actually a boy. She apparently had feelings for me as well and was actually glad I was a boy, but she wanted me to tell the others since she was tired of them thinking she was a lesbian. I told the others my secret and sure enough, they all hated me.

She treated me like a boy after I told her and I think this is the main reason this relationship did not work out. If she had always treated me like a girl no matter what, I think the relationship might have turned out differently, but we eventually broke up after constantly threatening suicide to eachother. We are still friends and she is now dating a different girl - they seem a lot happier together, so it is probably for the best we didn't stay together.

During my Junior year of highschool I made my first true friend - I considered her my first real friend, because she was the only friend I was really able to talk to outside of school. Eventually I told her and one other girl that I was transgender and she was accepting. When I told her I was very afraid things were going to turn out like last time, in other words I thought for sure she was going to think I'm some sort of freak and hate me.

Unfortunately, she found out I was suicidal and told the school counselor I was suicidal as well as transgender. The school counselor told my mom I am transgender and that is how I came out to my mom about me being transgender. I was angry at my friend for outing me to my mom and my friend apparently wanted nothing to do with me anymore since it would just cause drama in her life. So once again I was alone and for a long time I was even more suicidal than while we were friends.

Eventually, the other girl I had come out to contacted me and started talking to me again. She told me she had no problem with me being transgender and wanted to date me. Since I felt no-one would ever want anything to do with a transgender person, I dated her even though I did not have feelings for her and tried to force myself to like her.

This was a huge mistake, because I found out she was just using me for sex and other things as well. She constantly tried to get me to act like a boy in the most annoying ways possible, such as trying unsuccessfully to get me to be on top during sex and making me carry all the groceries. I never really did enjoy sex with her and to be honest, her body felt gross and I never felt anything, even orgasm, during sex.

While dating her I was introduced to a group of friends and, although she was a jerk, she did help me come out to these friends. They are all very accepting of me being Janessa and I think they are probably the best friends I've ever had. I am still friends with these people today and I hope that, even if they find out about how messed up I used to be, they will still think of my as a friend and know full well I have changed.

She eventually broke up with me, telling me that she just could not handle the transgender thing in a relationship. I think this was a very good reason to break up with me, but then I found out she was going around telling people that I'm possessive and other lies that just are not true.

I first found out about this when she told me "stay here, we're going to talk about girl stuff" and dragged three other friends off to another table to lie about me. Since her trying to leave me out of a conversation using girl talk as an excuse made me really angry, I went over there, sat down, and refused to leave, stating that I am a girl and girl talk does not bother me.

Both friends she had been telling these lies to were my good friends that accepted me as Janessa, which is how I found out she was telling lies about me. She had told her that what she was saying was upsetting me, but apparently she did not stop her lies. So after a while I got irritated, went to the school office, and told them she was spreading these lies about me. The next day we were put in peer mediation and she got angry, but seemed to have stopped telling lies about me.

Now at the present day my feelings are a lot better and I rarely ever freak out nearly as bad as I used to. I think I have become so much more emotionally stable because I've found friends that accept for who I am and try hard to think of me as a girl, even knowing what I look and sound like. I have been unable to get hormones yet, because every therapist I have seen so far has been transphobic and I am very limited to what therapists I can see, due to my insurance only covering one building. My insurance will not cover hormones either, because they apparently do not think they are a "medical necessity" as they called it - however, they would probably cover anti-depressants and any other medication.