The Trans Awakening

This story is a pretty deep one filled with confusion and emotion. It’s a story of a girl who didn’t know she was a girl until she was an adult man. This is a story of a 25-year-old woman born and raised a man. This is the true story of Alexandria Victoria in the making.

You see, 25 years ago there was a baby born. Her name was Alexandria Victoria, Alex for short, but that was not the name she was given by her parents. It was not customary to cross gender names at that time and Alex’s birth. Nowadays it is more common but barely accepted. She was born a beautiful baby boy to two loving parents and eventually would grow up under the guise of who she thought she had to be.

She was born with boy parts so therefore she must be a boy, right? Growing up she always preferred “girl” things, playing dress up, barbies, playing house, etc. She was always careful to never let it appear that she enjoyed but rather she was being a good brother to her sister and going through the horror of having to play with girly things and games, but there was a secret. Her secret was that she preferred this over the typical “boyish” things. She always felt wrong, like, there must be something wrong with her. Boys aren’t supposed to like things like this, she couldn’t like this stuff, could she?

She made a conscious choice as so many of us do in the face of the unknown, she hid herself. She hid her self deep within the guise of a boy. She and her family were quite religious and she prayed every night to her god that she could change. She prayed that she could start liking boy things and become more boyish. Her stepfather, growing up, always expressed the importance of the man and masculinity. There were things boys could and couldn’t do. For example, boys were supposed to be strong, masculine, they dressed a certain way, they did certain things, they didn’t mind getting dirty, boys had short hair, they were everything she wasn’t. So, that’s what she became.

She worked hard on being a boy for years, though some things she still could not change. Her mannerisms still remained slightly feminine, her mentality remained feminine, and she still had a particular liking for boys. In her teenage years, she began exploring herself a bit more, but not deeply enough, as her exploration was only on her sexuality. She figured what she was at long last! She just knew this was the answer! She was gay! After all, she was a boy who liked boys, had feminine mannerisms, and a feminine mindset about a lot of things and that’s what being gay is right?

So now that she had the answer as to what she truly is how was she going to live with it? She would still have to live under a guise just a new adapted one. No longer was she having to live under a guise of just a mere boy but now it had to be adapted to a straight boy. But, she already had the guise of a boy down for so many years how hard could this adaptation be? Well….the answer to that question wouldn’t truly be answered for several more years to come. You see the problem with having a secret is that it lives to be set free and all secrets will come to light eventually. The truth will out as they say.

“Truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself” – St. Augustine of Hippo

St. Augustine was very right in his words but I feel like they don’t go deep in enough into the full of the truth. You see while, yes, the truth will defend itself yes but as I was saying before a secret will always come to light eventually. To play on Augustine’s words, a secret will not only come to life but like a caged lion it will come forth with a roar and rage so loud and strong it cannot be ignored, it will demand the attention of anyone it is revealed to.

I had to preface the next part of this story with that short understanding about truth and secrets so you could fully understand what happens next to our dear Alex.

If you remember, our little Alex has a secret but little did she know her secret wasn’t the truth she thought it was. Our little Alex has lived so many years so full of secret that she, herself, didn’t even know the real truth but if you remember she just knew what it was and she knew it so strongly that it just had to come out into the world like a caged lion and that lion changed her life in ways she never knew was possible.

She was graduated from high school now and living with her father helping him with her little sisters. She comes from a split family which is more like a fractured family than a traditional split. Her parents have both been divorced and remarried a few times. She was working full-time, working her way up a corporate ladder she never knew she would jump off, and going to college full-time at the local community college. She was a very busy young girl or was she a man? Either way, she was a very busy person.

One day she had to the let the lion loose, he had been rattling the cages in her mind for so long she couldn’t handle it anymore, she called her mom and invited her to lunch at a local restaurant. She needed this meeting to be in a public place because she had been watching coming out videos day and night for weeks up to this moment and knew that it good go either very badly or it if she were lucky, could go quite well. She loved her mother but she didn’t know which way this would go. Her mother was very Catholic and we all know what the Catholic view on homosexuality was and in part still is to this day. Was her mother’s love for her son stronger than her devotion to her faith? Alex didn’t know but she was about to find out because she was coming out to her mother whether she was ready for it or not.

So, we’re going too fast forward a few years as this is not a story about a gay boy but that of a trans woman. The time is September of 2017 and Alex, after a few years of knowing the truth has finally come to start accepting the truth. You see it’s one thing to know something but a completely different thing is accepting it. Part of accepting the truth is letting it loose to the world and Alex has started letting the lion out of her cage. To this date, there are 5 people in her personal life who know the truth and only handful of other trans people on the internet who know. She’s slowly shedding the disguise she has worn for so many years and starting to accept who she truly is.