.Being.Us

CW: Rape, abuse, suicidal ideation, Christianity, religion I'm writing this blog to process through my feelings about a recurring dream I have in which I return to my old church for a visit and am shunned by the people there who used to be my friends. I used to be heavily involved in the Church. When I converted to Christianity at 15, I took it for granted that God would talk to me and was hailed as a prophet by some in my church as I "heard from Him." When I hit 18, I found other people who believed God still talked and worked among people today, and I became heavily involved in the Charismatic Church movement. I continued to be involved in this for several years. I even went to college for a year on track to be ordained as a minister and leave as a missionary at the end of my schooling. When I transferred to another school, I changed my major to Teaching English as a Second Language with the same goal in mind. At age 22, with my Associate's Degree in hand, I fled...

CW: suicide, dysphoria, ptsd, memory loss My relationship with my transition journey is complicated by the fact that PTSD has erased most of my memories of a decade of my life, including all of puberty. However, I want to try, as best I can, to tell you about my transition. When I was a child, my family did not emphasize gender roles. I was allowed to wear wear and play with whatever I liked and be whoever I liked, and therefore, I didn't feel a great need to push back against my assigned gender. Early in puberty, I was still allowed to date who I liked and be who I liked, and my body was late to develop, so I still didn't feel much dysphoria. Even though I didn't know what trans was, I was already presenting as my real self.  Autism helped me be oblivious to the opinions of anyone who might have disagreed with my gender presentation. I also remember being exposed to the concept of intersex people around this time and thinking "I was supposed to be born that way....