Beneath My Skin

It started with a binder. I suppose it started before then, with thoughts and questions, but I will always look back at that first binder and view it as a defining moment. I wasn’t one of those people who had grown up always knowing that I was transgender. I liked being a girl, or at least, I liked the idea that one day I might like being a girl. I tried very hard to do the things I was supposed to do. That didn’t mean wearing makeup or dresses, though I did plenty of that, because girls are so much more than what they wear. I tried to just be happy in my own skin, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t do it.

Growing up in the late 90s and early 2000s meant hearing gay as an insult. It meant the word “tranny” being thrown around, and watching as adults around me used it to describe someone they perceived as ugly. If trans people were mentioned at all, it was as something disgusting. Always the punchline to the joke. I didn’t necessarily fear transgender people because I’m not sure I even understood what they were. But I definitely always felt this little bit of discomfort towards the idea.

Once I got older I still didn’t know many trans people, but I was exposed to a lot of different communities online, and I’d read about how trans men and some non-binary people wear chest binders to reduce dysphoria. It was like a seed was planted in my mind, and one day I decided that I was going to be brave and buy one. I was 25 by this point, and turned to the internet and my belief that you can buy anything online if you really want to. I’d be lying if I told you the first binder was a success. There was a part of me that felt immense relief when wearing it, but it was also made out of uncomfortable material and I didn’t love the fit of it. I was also unsure how exactly I was supposed to just go out into the world and start wearing it. How was I going to tell my family that this was something I wanted? And what did it all mean, that I liked it so much?

In the end it became impossible not to come out. It really is that simple, though I suppose it isn’t simple at all when you think about it. I am so much happier in myself. I am also under a huge amount of stress because I know that there are people who will be incredibly hostile towards me because I am trans, and I could have saved myself a whole lot of heartache by never coming out. But what kind of life would that have been? One where some people were less mean to me, but I was miserable in my own body? That is no life to live.

Luckily I’d grown up in a family where being a girl meant liking the things you liked, whether those things were dance or running or climbing or theatre. Being a girl could mean anything you wanted it to mean. This has helped me so much since coming out, because a lot of people seem to think that being transgender means liking either stereotypically masculine or feminine things. I am a trans man. I like theatre, baking, reading, ballet (though I can’t do it so I just watch,) rock climbing, travel, new clothes, and so much more. I don’t lean heavily on the interests men are “supposed” to have, because I think that kind of attitude is ridiculous. Thankfully I’m surrounded by lots of people who also feel like this, and who are unapologetically themselves.

There was fear in coming out. I felt scared because all I saw online was people saying that gay men and lesbians are hurt by trans people. Would I be accepted? Would I ever get a boyfriend? It might seem silly that this was a thought I had, but the desire to be wanted by another human isn’t one I am ashamed of. It is normal and understandable, and although people might laugh at it, I think that deep down most of us long for connection.

What you see online is often very concentrated. Hate is amplified because a minority of people who feel strongly are able to connect with each other in a way they would not be able to do offline. My experiences in the “real world” (though I do hate to imply that online life is not real,) have been very different. The majority of my friends are not straight. This wasn’t even a deliberate choice. I just found that in Leeds I met more gay people than I’d ever met in my life before.

Gay men have been some of the kindest people to me since I came out. Their complete acceptance of me has given me strength at times when it would be easy to fall apart. Lesbians, who are so often portrayed as completely opposed to transgender people, have held my hand both literally and metaphorically on the hardest days. I have had some of the most deep and interesting conversations with bisexual friends, as we explore where we belong in a world which would like everyone to be binary, whether that is in respect of gender or sexuality.

Coming out is awkward and embarrassing. For starters, I’m having to slot myself into the gay dating scene with absolutely no clue what I’m doing. How do you explain at the age of 29 that a lot of this is actually very new to you, even though you’ve been successfully dating and lets be blunt here, hooking up with people since you were a teenager? “This will be hot guy summer,” I tell myself, with all the false confidence of a person who knows that summer will come around but that the first part of the statement is very unlikely to become a reality.

Some aspects of this situation feel very funny, others feel deeply profound. This time next year there will no longer be breasts contained by my clothes. I will not have to wear a binder at all. I will be able to go swimming without spending half an hour in the bathroom beforehand talking myself down from a state of complete panic. I will be able to change for sports without turning my body to the wall and quickly pulling my shirt over my head, praying that nobody notices what my binder is hiding. Maybe I will turn my thoughts of dating another person into actual action, because I will no longer fear their reaction to my exposed skin.

It feels like I’m getting to relive certain experiences for the first time. This time, I am living them as myself, rather than as an actor desperately trying to put on the performance of my life and always falling short.