posted May 25, 2008 01:52 AM         

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I know, it feels like you were mutilated, so sad. My Bro still has woman parts, and he is so male it's hard to imagine that he has breasts and female genitials. He works out a lot and his small breasts look more like muscles now, not much fat on his body at all. He has prosthetic male parts to make him feel more normal. Yes he was suicidal and I've been reading his poetry and it's so heartbreaking not to feel compatible with your body.

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posted May 25, 2008 02:54 AM         

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SEPARATE SOUL

Even as a baby, I was mistaken as male. When I turned five, I arrived at school at (edited). School was fine for me, I was never afraid of it and never had the urge to run home to mummy when I was there alone. But of course, my older sister was there too.
I think that ever since I hit Grade One I felt something different. I didn’t know what it was of course because I was too young to comprehend anything psychological. For some reason I refused over and over again to my mother to where the school uniform which was a dress in the summer and a long skirt and T-shirt in the winter. I wanted to where the sports uniform everyday which consisted of trackie pants and a jumper or T-shirt. I didn’t understand it and neither did mum. I just wasn’t comfortable in it. I knew I didn’t “fit” in it.
I was always friends with boys and girls pretty evenly, and got on with both sexes equally. Yet something still pulled at me.
When I turned seven, I moved away from that school because we moved house. The was the St. Agnes school right across the road and mum thought it would be easier if I went there. Not long after going to that school, I lost contact with all my friends from the previous one but I didn’t seem to mind and neither did they. I was much happier at this new school because I was basically more comfortable. The uniform was pants for the boys and girls. I made a few friends, but a few is all I wanted and needed. As time progressed, I started to get that feeling again. A feeling of anxiety and the fact that I just didn’t feel right in my own skin.
I remember hating to introduce myself to people in school and otherwise, because I hated saying my own name. The name was Tahnia. Even now I cant stand it. I realised eventually that I didn’t want people knowing that I was a girl, even though I looked like one with my long hair and all but at the time and at my young age I thought everyone could be duped. Another thing I hated was when people mum and I met and they automatically assumed I was biologically male, she would correct them and tell them, “No, this is my daughter…” Mum thought I got upset because the people mistook me, but in fact it was the fact that she corrected them.
This happened after another step I took though. I began hating my long hair. I looked at the boys’ hair cuts and felt like that was more me. I decided to go the whole way, and mum took me to the hair salon and I had them shave it all off, until it was about half a centimeter long. That’s when everyone thought I was a bio-male.

At nearly eight, I became so frustrated with my own skin that I had to tell mum the best was I could. So I wrote her a letter. It basically was asking my mother to help me. To help me fix my body. It said something along the lines of, “Mum, please help me, I’m not a girl I’m a boy. Why don’t I have a penis? Why am I like this? Please help me mum…”
I still remember that every night before I went to sleep I’d say a prayer. At this age, again, I was brainwashed into religion. I would pray to “God” asking Him to let me wake up with a male body. It never happened. I didn’t know what to do. Mum thought it was a phase I was going through. Rob (my step-dad at the time) had no idea, and I don’t even think my sister knew at this point. Well, soon enough I was thrown into therapy. My first psychiatrist at nearly eight. I can’t really remember much of the sessions from that long ago. I spoke, but they never targeted my problem. It was as if they “beat around the bush” just to get me to think about something else so I would stop these “crazy thoughts.” That never happened. Its all I ever thought about.

Eventually, after about three years of therapy I just got sick and tired of it and I got sick and tired of them not doing anything to help me. In the end, each session I had with a shrink consisted of silence. I never spoke. Not one word. Sometimes they would never talk either, and wait for me to start, but I never let them win. Even now I can stare into space and not say a word or move a muscle for up to three hours. I know because I’ve done it at school when I was suspended. This was easy because it only went for up to an hour. I’ve trained myself.
Thinking back, I notice that I’ve always felt older in the head. I could compete with these “adults” with their mind games. And I never lost a battle.
Anyway, mum took me out of therapy because it was redeeming no good. So I was out of there at eleven. I remember that year to be a living night-mare.
I was in Grade 6, and I was friends with (edited for privacy), and her twin who now I forget the name of. And there was a few others here and there. For some reason, I could no longer stand my skin on the school yard. Just like with mum, I wanted to tell them, but in a different way. So, I told them that I really was a boy. A bio-male. Because I felt older in the head, I knew how to trick them into believing me just so I could get them to treat me the way I wanted them to. Like a male. I still don’t know how I did it, but I got quite a few to believe me and I felt better. It wasn’t until “the question” started that my life became hell. The question came from everyone. Students I didn’t know. It was, “ Are you a girl or a boy?” they would ask. I would tell them I was a boy (because some how I knew I was, just not physically, but they’d never understand that.) Then they’d ask why did I have a girls name, at which point I had to make up a fake name to cover my tracks. I told them my real name was Toby. What was I getting myself into? I thought. What do I do now? I knew if I backed out and came clean, that something would happen to me. Beaten, or even just teased I don’t know but I was scared.
Eventually my teacher found out and he spoke to my mum about it. I never knew what they talked about exactly but I knew that they knew.
From age eleven to twelve things didn’t go anywhere with my situation. It went back into the darkness from where it came but it was with me always. When I did hit twelve though, my rebellion started. I was just so angry with who I was and that no one was helping me even though I begged for it.

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