for me, patting me on the back, like, “Don’t cry. It’s okay.” Getting teased every day was getting hard on me.
Deep into my senior year, I went home after school and I sat in the dark with music playing. I listened to an Alicia Keys song called “Caged Bird.” The lyrics made me cry. My mom opened the door and asked, “Why are you crying?” I just burst into tears, telling her how hard it is to be transgender. “I feel like the world is against me. I want to become a woman.”
My mom asked if I wanted to go to another school, but I thought,
What’s the point? I’m in my senior year. If I switched, then these guys won,
and I didn’t want them to win. They wanted me to leave school. They
really
wanted me to leave. They kept saying, “You don’t belong here. You belong in a girls’ school,” which made me feel good.
People treated me like I was a disease. If there was a crowd of boys, I could literally go like this.
Christina stretches out her arms like Moses parting the water.
And the boys would jump back. “Don’t touch it — you might get it!” they would say about me.
I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the attention. I’d be with my friends and say, “Wanna see a really cool thing I can do?”
“Yeah.”
“Watch this!” So I’d move my hands toward the boys, and they would jump back.
There was one teacher, a math teacher, who would stare at me. I would sit in class putting my lip gloss on and think,
What is this guy looking at?
I always took stares as negative. Once the class was leaving, he pulled me to the side. “What is all this? Why are you putting lip gloss on and stuff?”
“Because I’m a woman.”
He was smiling at me. “Yeah, I noticed that. What’s going to be your name?”
“Christina.”
“Okay, Christina, have a good day.”
He was the only teacher who was nice to me.
It wasn’t until I was done with the four-month therapy program that I could take hormones. In March, my senior year, I started taking hormones. They started changing me fast. When I first started taking them, I got very, very sick. I felt weak. I got headaches. I went to my psychology teacher, because in class we studied neurons and synapses and how our bodies react to certain medicines. I asked him, “If you change your hormones from one sex to the next, do you become sick?”
“You can become sick because your body’s not used to it. Estrogen is foreign to your body. You have some estrogen but not much.” My doctor told me to let my body get used to it. I might be sick for a month. And I was.
When I had testosterone in my body, I was a very horny boy. Before I went on hormones, I was able to get an erection and maintain one. Whenever I saw a boy I liked in the hallway or in gym class — the locker room is the best place to get my eyes on flesh — I’d get it. I think that’s why a lot of gay people like to have sex. They’re both men, they both have a lot of testosterone. It’s kind of a manly thing.
The estrogen slowed down my sex drive. It’s not that I had no sex drive; I have it once in a blue moon. My boyfriend feels like I’m not attracted to him. Of course I’m attracted to him. I just don’t have the want or the need or the urge for sex all the time.
There are certain things that turn me on, but most of the time I don’t want to have sex. I always wanted foreplay and romantic attention. My boyfriend was never the foreplay, romantic type. He just wanted to get right to it. What are you gonna do?
I’m glad I no longer have all that testosterone that fueled me to want sex. Normally guys can get it up with a cold wind. That doesn’t happen to me anymore. I don’t have the morning wood. I only have it when I’m aroused.
It’s kind of weird: I know what it’s like to be a man, and I know what it’s like to be a woman. That whole testosterone-driven thing is something they can’t really help. I’m happier without having that sex drive. The constant need for sex is
Deep into my senior year, I went home after school and I sat in the dark with music playing. I listened to an Alicia Keys song called “Caged Bird.” The lyrics made me cry. My mom opened the door and asked, “Why are you crying?” I just burst into tears, telling her how hard it is to be transgender. “I feel like the world is against me. I want to become a woman.”
My mom asked if I wanted to go to another school, but I thought,
What’s the point? I’m in my senior year. If I switched, then these guys won,
and I didn’t want them to win. They wanted me to leave school. They
really
wanted me to leave. They kept saying, “You don’t belong here. You belong in a girls’ school,” which made me feel good.
People treated me like I was a disease. If there was a crowd of boys, I could literally go like this.
Christina stretches out her arms like Moses parting the water.
And the boys would jump back. “Don’t touch it — you might get it!” they would say about me.
I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the attention. I’d be with my friends and say, “Wanna see a really cool thing I can do?”
“Yeah.”
“Watch this!” So I’d move my hands toward the boys, and they would jump back.
There was one teacher, a math teacher, who would stare at me. I would sit in class putting my lip gloss on and think,
What is this guy looking at?
I always took stares as negative. Once the class was leaving, he pulled me to the side. “What is all this? Why are you putting lip gloss on and stuff?”
“Because I’m a woman.”
He was smiling at me. “Yeah, I noticed that. What’s going to be your name?”
“Christina.”
“Okay, Christina, have a good day.”
He was the only teacher who was nice to me.
It wasn’t until I was done with the four-month therapy program that I could take hormones. In March, my senior year, I started taking hormones. They started changing me fast. When I first started taking them, I got very, very sick. I felt weak. I got headaches. I went to my psychology teacher, because in class we studied neurons and synapses and how our bodies react to certain medicines. I asked him, “If you change your hormones from one sex to the next, do you become sick?”
“You can become sick because your body’s not used to it. Estrogen is foreign to your body. You have some estrogen but not much.” My doctor told me to let my body get used to it. I might be sick for a month. And I was.
When I had testosterone in my body, I was a very horny boy. Before I went on hormones, I was able to get an erection and maintain one. Whenever I saw a boy I liked in the hallway or in gym class — the locker room is the best place to get my eyes on flesh — I’d get it. I think that’s why a lot of gay people like to have sex. They’re both men, they both have a lot of testosterone. It’s kind of a manly thing.
The estrogen slowed down my sex drive. It’s not that I had no sex drive; I have it once in a blue moon. My boyfriend feels like I’m not attracted to him. Of course I’m attracted to him. I just don’t have the want or the need or the urge for sex all the time.
There are certain things that turn me on, but most of the time I don’t want to have sex. I always wanted foreplay and romantic attention. My boyfriend was never the foreplay, romantic type. He just wanted to get right to it. What are you gonna do?
I’m glad I no longer have all that testosterone that fueled me to want sex. Normally guys can get it up with a cold wind. That doesn’t happen to me anymore. I don’t have the morning wood. I only have it when I’m aroused.
It’s kind of weird: I know what it’s like to be a man, and I know what it’s like to be a woman. That whole testosterone-driven thing is something they can’t really help. I’m happier without having that sex drive. The constant need for sex is
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