Transgender Day of Visibility: The Lies They Told Me And The Lies I Told Back
My first thought, when I put down the book where I first read the word “trans”, was “They lied to me.”
All of them had: my parents, my teachers, my friends, my pastor. They had lied to me at school, at church, at home. They had kept that information from me, and used that ignorance against me. They had forced me to pretend for years to be someone I was not. They had made me feel pathetic, trapped, suicidal.
But telling me I was a woman wasn’t the last lie they would tell me, and far from the last one I would believe.
The lie they told me: It’s a girl
My mother didn’t know if she was going to have a boy or a girl when she was pregnant. I was her miracle baby, after years of chemotherapy, and she didn’t care. She told me that was where my name came from. It took me a few years to realise it had nothing to do with my birth, and it was a family name. My mother loved pretending she didn’t care about family, appearances, reputation. But I will get back to that.
The important thing is that my doctor looked at me, and then at my mum, and I suffered the first act of violence, even more painful than childbirth. A single F on a piece of paper.
The lie I told: I wish I were a boy
The title is a lie itself. I never actually said that, although I often used similar words. “If I were a boy, I would drive a car”, I would say looking at my sibling’s Hot Wheels. “If I were a boy, I’d play with you”, I would cry, holding the soccer ball against my chest for a minute before returning it to the boys. “If I were a boy, I’d marry you”, I shyly told my best friend in 2nd Grade, before running away when I saw her recoil. “If I were a boy, I’d buy a big house and have lots of kids”, I would sigh longingly looking outside the window during class.
The words I was looking for were “If I were a boy, I would live.” The words I was looking for were “I’m a boy, but you can’t see it.”
The lie they told me: Trans people don’t exist
I wish they had told me this one explicitly, for I often longed to be something that didn’t exist. I would have still loved the term, carved my own space to use it. Even pretending, even as a dream, I would have found comfort in it the same way I did in my books. Glancing at the window in class hoping a dragon would appear, focusing on the fence while horse riding thinking how long I could run for before getting caught.
I would have loved to have a choice, even an impossible one. To have a word I could use to describe what was going on. To find others around me.
The lie I told: Trans people have to come out everyday
Once I found that word, it haunted me. It jumped into every conversation, every interaction, every introduction. I would brace myself for the looks, the laughs, the violence. But what hurt the most was the silence. Looking at my phone wondering why everyone stopped texting me. Expecting invites I never received. Sitting in school and seeing people move to a different desk or table when I was too close to them. It was loud, and a single word was enough.
Saying it led to nosebleed, and bruises. Led to calling the cops. Led to changing schools. Led to being used, abused, thrown away a number of times.
And not using it was worse. Not using it meant being called queer, dyke, lesbian. Not using it meant getting my identity wrong on top of the slurs. So I had to tell them. Every single one of them. I had to tell them how I preferred to be hated.
The lie they told me: Trans people can’t go to church
It took me years to find comfort in the idea I was no longer welcome there, and it was the best option for me. I wouldn’t have felt safe, or secure, and I was ignoring most of the systemic damage that had been done in the name of the God I dedicated my life to. But at the time, it was another door shut. What once was a welcoming community shut me off before I could find an alternative. I didn’t stop believing just because I realised who I was. To an extent, nothing had actually changed from my point of view.
But suddenly I was dirty, possessed, a sinner, a threat, a danger, a deviant. No one explained to me why. No one told me why me being myself was being demonised and why I was being punished for it. What I knew was that I would have rather been seen as an outcast than broken, and I learned to be glad they never tried too hard to “fix me”.
The lie I told: Trans people were born in the wrong body
I never hated it. But I resented it. I resented its curves, its softness, its size. I thought I had to hate it. I started looking for guides online, pictures about what I was supposed to look like. Stretching my diet and my habits and my schedules to try and become myself. I wished I could have carved myself out of me, but the clay was too soft and didn’t hold any shape.
HRT didn’t come with desperation, but with kindness. I started looking at myself in a different way. I had made peace with my body and started working with it instead of against it. Like redecorating your childhood home. It was different, but felt familiar. More pleasant, but nothing really changed. The bricks, the foundations, the floors were still there. But I was finally able to see myself in it.
The lie they told me: You can’t choose your name
Trans names are sacred. Of all the notions of holiness I had to reject and reconsider in my life, that never changed. There’s something so powerful in naming yourself. It’s an act of love, of empowerment. For years, I was robbed of it.
I was named after a person I hated. Not the miracle my mum told me, just a close relative, in the hope of healing broken family ties. My name was a treaty, a truce, a ceasefire. Nicknames hurt as much as my deadname, I never used any.
Yet, the government for years tried to force me to use the masculine version of my name. Took away from me the right to name myself. I still don’t have a document. I refuse to have a document without my name.
The lie I told: I always knew
I remember being excited about unisex uniforms and breaking down in tears when I realised my mum had embroidered my name in pink. I remember feeling genuinely excited when people would yell at me for being “such a boy.” I remember secretly swapping toys with my sibling on boxing day, grabbing all the cars and dinosaurs my hands could hold. I remember the satisfaction of learning to climb trees, playing soccer, getting my hair cut.
I remember crying when I had to start shopping for bras. The pain I felt in my chest when my friends called me out for not wearing one. I remember my first period. I remember avoiding mirrors. I remember rubbing my face until it bled when I was forced to wear make-up.
But I didn’t know what it meant. Any of that.
Looking back is easy.
Looking forward wasn’t.
The lie they told me: You’ll never get married
At the dentist, I would browse the pages of glossy magazines, looking at dresses, daydreaming about flowers. In church I would look around, picturing myself walking down the aisle, people turning around smiling at me. A day to just exist, be celebrated, not having to worry about what people thought of me. Everyone could just pretend to love me, just for a day.
At my wedding no one was pretending, at least that I could tell. Our dress code was decadent, jewel tones. “That one dress in your wardrobe you thought you'd never wear again. The expensive jacket you just couldn't leave at the thrift shop. The sequins suit you're afraid might be a bit "too much". As long as it makes you feel hot and confident, you're welcome to wear it.”
I spent a few days before at EL&N because I loved its pink walls and overpriced hot chocolate. I wore a printed jumpsuit with lots of colours I had been taught to be ashamed of.
And yet, while laughing and hugging everyone, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About all the times I had been told that day would never arrive for me.
The lie I told: I’m cisgender
For the longest time, I thought moving to a different country to start my life would mean leaving all my problems behind. I knew it was running away, and I was never proud of it, but I hoped and prayed and ignored the signs.
But things didn’t change, not really. My manager would walk in and say “hi ladies.” He tried to get me fired after I corrected him. People would call me “ma’am” everyday at the register. I don’t remember when I stopped correcting them, but it hurt. It hurt how easy it was to slip on that mask again. Anytime I needed a toilet. Anytime I was alone on the tube. Anytime telling someone who I was would have resulted in a fight.
I was tired of fighting. I started picking my battles. It took me a while to find the strength I needed. And, until then, I kept lying.
The lie they told me: You’ll never be happy
It wasn’t just weddings. I needed to hide who I was. I could either be trans or be happy. It was my choice, but a choice I needed to make.
I needed to choose between a job and being trans. A wedding and being trans. A family and being trans. At some point they started agreeing being trans wasn’t a choice, but that would have meant I needed to give up everything else.
And I’m still making those choices. I compromise safety. Access to healthcare. Ability to travel. Education. Jobs. But what once was a hard choice, is not easier, although there should be no choice at all.
I don’t trust people to see me for who I am because I don’t trust them to see my joy. They see me as something to fix, at best, something broken. Someone delusional or in the wrong body or struggling. And I am struggling, but not because of who I am. I am struggling because of the choices they force me to make. Because of the lies they keep telling me or forcing me to tell them. I am struggling because my happiness is always “despite” and never “because”.
They don’t see reasons for me to be happy. Not after they’ve clipped my wings over the years. They don’t see any reasons why I should love my body, my name, myself. They don’t see any reasons why what made me depressed was my upbringing, their poor attempts at protecting me from my community and the knowledge of who I was. They never understood why what made me happy, for the first time in my life, wasn’t just being myself.
I’m happy because I’m trans.
Written by Ramses Oliva
In addition to working 9-5, Ramses can't seem to stop writing, even if it means scribbling on a notebook overnight. He's a trans activist who loves talking about queer identities, diversity and art. He is co-host of the brand-new podcast "Punching the Wall" and you can find him posting overpriced selfies on Instagram at @queer.discart.
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