LGBTQIAP+ Milestones: Book 4

Earning My Wattpad Stripes

By Freddie FinnyH

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The last time I wrote for Milestones I wrote about going to the London WattCon (it's in Milestones 2, for anyone wondering). It was absolutely terrifying for me, because my acquaintances on Wattpad, whether they be readers, writers, Wattpad Stars, Staff, or Ambassadors, didn't know I'm transgendered. They just knew me as some random dude on Wattpad with nothing particularly worth noting. I hid it from them for a long time and my last Milestone was about how I worked myself up to 'coming out' to a room full of about 60 people I've only ever known through a screen.

This time I'm writing because I took myself halfway down the country to a Wattpad London meet-up. I thought I'd be exactly the same wreck as I was before, and in a lot of respects I was. I was late to the get-together by about an hour and a half (which is an improvement on two hours last time), and it once again took a lot of coaxing to get myself out of that hotel door.

I was anxious as hell, but hey, at least this time I got some sleep and didn't lose my appetite days beforehand (also an improvement). The worst thing for me is walking into a room and feeling as if everyone is looking at me, trying to work me out. But I know it's all in my head. In public I can put my earphones in and block the world out, and I just get by, but walking into a room is different because for the first few moments, it's all eyes on me. Or so it feels.

I ended up dragging Wattpad Star Shaun Allan and Wattpad Ambassador Rachael Mole away from their lunches to come meet me, so I didn't totally bail. (I really appreciate that!) If it wasn't for them, I probably would've got all the way to Cannon Street Station, dossed around for ten minutes and got on the first tube back to my safe place. (Scratch that, the hotel housekeeping staff had already walked in on me getting dressed -- what the hell!)

Turns out I really didn't have to worry about a thing, and Kimberly, the lady who organised the whole thing, made me feel so welcome and special.

It's probably the most confidence I've had in a public setting like that, and it really didn't matter that I'm transgendered; I was just back to being some random dude on Wattpad, which is all I ever really wanted. I also met the admin of FreeTheLGBT, another community page here on Wattpad, which was a wonderful experience. I even got up and spoke in front of the whole group and let somebody take a video of me (in which I showed off my Wattpad t-shirt and a big cheesy grin.) It sounds absolutely ridiculous to anybody else, I know, but for me it was a pretty big deal.

Being transgendered isn't a case of 'discovering yourself' one day and everything just falls into place like you were the missing piece of the puzzle. It really doesn't work that way around at all. Being transgendered is knowing yourself all along and letting other people discover you, and you're never really sure how they will react, or what they will whisper, or what they really think. That's always going to be on my mind, but I also realise it's incredibly vain, and actually, I'm not giving my peers enough credit.

So my latest Milestone, eight months on, is thanks to some incredibly awesome Wattpad people.