![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qwiddityWhen I was five years old my family moved from rural Queensland to Brisbane and I started school. I was invited to a birthday party where there were lots of boys and girls. This was in the early 1980's and gender roles were rigidly enforced. I wanted to play with the girls, and while they were somewhat accepting they thought I was weird, so the adults in charge kept moving me back into the boys group. The girls were talking, playing clapping games, trading party trinkets, helping each other do their hair, and (I felt) sharing a sense of community. The boys were playing thumb wars and wrestling. I was small and weak and of course quickly wound up being hurt then crying, so to rid the party of my undue influence my parents were summoned by phone to take me home early.
At home, while the sun was setting, I went for a swim in my parent's pool. I dove underwater and breathed out and thought about how difficult it would be to just inhale water and see what happened, and something stopped me, and I came up and floated in the water watching the sun, and started sobbing profusely. I begged the universe, the sun, and God to change me into a girl, knowing it wouldn't happen but hoping something would come of it. I wished I could change my body, with a child's naivety, I wondered if merely wishing something badly enough could possibly make it happen - and of course was to be sorely disappointed with the harsh reality of my situation.
The following day I said to my parents over breakfast. "I wish I was a girl."
I think I said it every day for quite a long time.
Eventually they, and everyone I said this to, told me never to mention this to anyone.
The shame of caring for a transgender child in that time period was too great for to bear, especially for religious church-going people, pillars of the community who wanted the respect of their peers.
Over time I tried to seek treatment, at age 15, and again at 16, my parents stopped me from accessing medical intervention.
I finally started with the help of a court intervention order at 17 and 9 months, just a few months shy of 18.
But that's a different story which involves a hospitalisation. But let's just say the medical community has been very kind to me.
I see it more as a "missed opportunity" on behalf of my parents and other caregivers, who were presented with an opportunity to show kindness and love, to help me to grow in the way I wanted to. Instead, like harshly pruing a plant back far beyond what it can bear if it is to remain healthy, I was profoundly damaged and retarded in my growth, which has only been allowed to heal and complete far into my adulthood.
I am happy that things are different now. Nobody ought to go through childhood this way.
At home, while the sun was setting, I went for a swim in my parent's pool. I dove underwater and breathed out and thought about how difficult it would be to just inhale water and see what happened, and something stopped me, and I came up and floated in the water watching the sun, and started sobbing profusely. I begged the universe, the sun, and God to change me into a girl, knowing it wouldn't happen but hoping something would come of it. I wished I could change my body, with a child's naivety, I wondered if merely wishing something badly enough could possibly make it happen - and of course was to be sorely disappointed with the harsh reality of my situation.
The following day I said to my parents over breakfast. "I wish I was a girl."
I think I said it every day for quite a long time.
Eventually they, and everyone I said this to, told me never to mention this to anyone.
The shame of caring for a transgender child in that time period was too great for to bear, especially for religious church-going people, pillars of the community who wanted the respect of their peers.
Over time I tried to seek treatment, at age 15, and again at 16, my parents stopped me from accessing medical intervention.
I finally started with the help of a court intervention order at 17 and 9 months, just a few months shy of 18.
But that's a different story which involves a hospitalisation. But let's just say the medical community has been very kind to me.
I see it more as a "missed opportunity" on behalf of my parents and other caregivers, who were presented with an opportunity to show kindness and love, to help me to grow in the way I wanted to. Instead, like harshly pruing a plant back far beyond what it can bear if it is to remain healthy, I was profoundly damaged and retarded in my growth, which has only been allowed to heal and complete far into my adulthood.
I am happy that things are different now. Nobody ought to go through childhood this way.
