Growing up when you are not a man, and you are not a woman

When I was 9 years old, I used to play the runaway with my older sister. One of us was the model, and the other was the presenter. We would alternate roles and spend hours changing outfits and walking across the room.

It was a summer day, and we were playing in the swimming pool in the garden. I was wearing only my yellow Speedo, and I had an idea - “Why don’t we go upstairs to play the runaway?” We closed the door, I pulled a pair of red shorts on my yellow Speedo - leaving part of it showing off the pants, like the boys on TV used to do - and pretended to be a shirtless, charming model showing off their body, at 9 years old. Puberty didn’t hit yet and my body was not much different than the one of my male friends.

I have no idea whether my sister remembers that moment, but it’s stuck in my head like it was yesterday.

It’s always been stuck there, like all those other moments of stolen euphoria out of secret games. Not knowing what I was looking for, but knowing how I wanted to be. Who I wanted to be.

And then puberty hit and it messed up my plans. My body changed. My voice changed, and I couldn’t hide anymore, but, according to everyone else, I had to grow up and be a woman.

And gosh how hard it is to grow up as a woman when you are not a woman and you are not a man and you want to be a bit like a man but not really and also you definitely are not a woman but you worship women and you are grateful of what you learnt in your life as a woman, but you are not “she” and you want that masculine aesthetic without the toxic traits, even if the toxic traits are the easiest way to validate your identity as someone who is not a woman, but you know you are not a man.

It messes up your head.

I never count how many times I am called madam or “she” during the day. I never count because “it’s not their fault.” Because they can’t know. Because I don’t pass as that little boy with the yellow Speedo anymore.

And that’s my fault.

Because it doesn’t matter all the effort I put into going to the gym to hit it hard, to lift heavy, to break my muscles to make them grow bigger like those boys on TV. It doesn’t matter the clothes, the hair, the sex. It doesn’t matter the top surgery.

I still spend so much time looking at myself in the mirror, spotting those parts of my chest that are too round, too full, not flat enough. And my face is too soft, my jaw not strong, my voice too high.

And I ask my girlfriend to protect me when we are in public. I am scared of going to the spa or to the swimming pool and being looked at. I am terrified of having to explain myself. And she tells me she is going to scream at them and rip their eyes off with her bare hands. And this relieves me. I know the responsibility for my existence is not only on me. I did not decide to be trans. It just happened this way, and me being trans is the only way I can exist.

I wish I could think about something else than being trans.

Because in the end I am just a sweet boy wearing a Speedo, locking the door when they look at themselves in the mirror shirtless, afraid that their mom is going to enter and catch them being a boy.

There was no space for gender queerness at the time. But I want a space for us now - for us trans boys who are not men. Sweet trans boys who cry. Trans boys with a feminine soul - whatever this means. Trans boys who just want to be loved and seen. Like everyone else, but trans.

No amount of love will ever make me forget all that was before, but love opened up a future that that kid in the yellow Speedo could only dream of.

Sometimes I wish they could see where we got together.