The Life of a Trans Teen

Finding Out Who I Am

Finding out who you are in general is so difficult, the goal of life is to know who you are and where you stand and belong in this world. For me, finding out where I stand and who I am on the inside at the same time has been extremely challenging. We'll start from the beginning of this journey.

I was born on October 22nd, and I grew up as a girl. With me having two sisters and my mother, my father was the only other male in the house, so I was forced into what my older sister and mom wanted me to be. I was sculpted into what they would see as their image of perfection. I was an experiment to them. I never liked makeup but they wanted me to wear it, I didn't like soccer but they wanted me to play it, I didn't prefer dresses but I still continued to wear them.

If having a majority of females in my immediate family wasn't enough, the majority of my relatives are females. I have a great-grandma and my grandma, two aunts on my mom's side (who are married but my uncles never converse with me), two aunts on my dad's side, and two uncles on that side as well. I have no grandfathers, and I only have one male cousin around my age who is male. 

What topped off the cake was that my elementary school only had about 100-150 kids in all, and guess who was the majority? Females. So, I was pushed into what I had to be versus what I wanted to be. I wanted to play with the boys, but my friends preferred me hanging out in their cliques instead. I wanted to play a sport like football or hockey (even though I am the least active person I know), but I had to play soccer. I wanted to play with my cousin, but as we got older, the idea of not playing and/or being around boys was drilled into my head by my family, especially my aunts and my mother. I never grew up knowing who I was, and most days, I woke up hating myself because of that. And yes, I am well aware that girls can grow up doing, playing, or being whoever they want to be, but with all of the changes in my life and being surrounded by the negativity of boys, "boy activities", and the state of mental health that I was in at such a young age, I wasn't able to be myself. 

It wasn't until the fifth grade when I knew that I was queer. If I'm being honest, I didn't even know that boys could love other boys or that girls could love other girls. Being trapped in a girl body then, I identified as bisexual. There were very few boys in my grade, and I only remember having a crush on two of them (and they were gone by the time I was in fifth grade), but I had small crushes on almost all of the girls in my grade because, to me, they were all very pretty. I imagined kissing my best friend and didn't seem to realize what I was thinking, probably because I didn't know any words to fit my feelings. That changing soon though; When I got an iPod in sixth grade, I was exposed to a lot more information than what I had had before, and I was swimming in it. There were girls that I liked and boys that I liked throughout the entirety of sixth grade, and having these crushes helped some with my identity crisis. I knew that I was attracted to both boys and girls, but I still didn't know where I properly fit in. I didn't know who I was. 

Seventh grade came around and still, I couldn't find what was missing. January came and went, and in the midst of February, I really sat down with myself and thought about everything. Who am I? Who do I want to be? I knew about the term non-binary, and that was the first time I felt like myself using it. I was transgender. I still am and always will be. 

I started going by the name "Jin". I wrote it on all of my papers at school, wrote it on documents, on notes to others, and that's how I referred to myself. I felt a lot better than I had ever felt in probably my entire life. Though, that name didn't stay long, so I started to go by my dead name again. I cannot fully describe how much I hated my dead name and pronouns and how much I still despise them, but I can try. It's like a stab in the chest whenever I'm called she or her, especially when someone asks for my name and continue to say "Alright, I'll remember her name now." I understand when it's accidental, but at the same time, all of the names that I've gone by have been pretty masculine. It's even worse when you've been called your preferred name for a long time, or people know that you are going by different pronouns, but they continue to refer to your as your dead ones. 

For the first few months of eighth grade, I went by the name "Logan". I only chose this name for the fact that this is what I would've been named if I was born male. I felt better going by a more masculine name, and most of my teachers agreed to call me by this name. I felt more accepted and I felt more like I was supposed to be, but again, this name was not the right fit. Sometime after February in eighth grade, I started to go by Preston. The name seemed to fit a lot better then "Logan" had, and I've now chosen it as the name that I love so much, Kaleb being my middle name. I believe now that the name "Logan" didn't fit me well because I realized that I was feeling more masculine than before, which lead to more dysphoria (which sucks). 

Finally, after years of living as someone who I was not supposed to be, and being raised with the systems and beliefs of my family, I broke free and became myself. Preston Kaleb: The boy who finally had meaning.