I’ve always wondered why I was born a girl. As a kindergartener I remember wondering this, but we were taught then that you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit. I know some people get angry with God for doing this to them, but for me it was just a confusing fact. There was no anger because there was nothing I could do about it. But I do remember trying to figure out the purpose of my being born a girl, because I thought there had to be a reason for it.

When I was five, I remember playing games in my school’s computer lab. At the start of one of my favorite games, you would be asked your age and whether you were a boy or a girl. And I would always click boy. There wasn’t really any thought process behind it – I was five, and acting on impulse and instinct. I just did it. Those sorts of things have happened my whole life.

Growing up, I played with Hotwheels, remote control cars, and other stereotypical boy toys. I always played as a boy in video games, and most of my friends were boys. I dressed in boys’ clothes once I was old enough to pick out my clothes from the store, and even wore boys’ swim trunks and swim shirts from the time I was eight. I begged my mom for years to allow me to get my hair cut short, which she finally allowed just before I turned 14.

People in public would often think I was a boy, especially when I was young. Sometimes they would apologize profusely for using the wrong pronouns or calling me a boy if they found out I was female, and I would tell them that it didn’t matter to me. In truth, I liked it better when they thought I was a boy. But of course, I couldn’t tell them that. So, I just told them that it didn’t matter to me and then hoped that perhaps they would revert back to treating me as a boy.

______

My dysphoria got worse the older I got. I hated the way my body was changing and was desperate to stop it. At eleven years old I found out about preventative mastectomies like Angelina Jolie had done. As soon as I heard about it, that became a goal of mine – but not as a way to prevent cancer. When I was 15 I struggled with eating enough because I was afraid it would make my hips wider. But I later learned that controlling body fat couldn’t stop the way my body was changing.

The fact that I was considering the mastectomy is significant – I’m a very squeamish person, I don’t even do shots well. I once lived with a chipped front tooth for three years before getting it fixed because I was afraid of getting shots in my mouth. But my dysphoria was so awful that I was willing to consider surgery. In fact, I dreamed of it.

My family assumed that I was either a lesbian or wanted to be trans because I had short hair and dressed in boy’s clothes, but I would always deny it when they asked. As a teenager at my Christian school, I knew that transitioning was off the table for me. My friends knew I liked girls, but I kept my gender issues from almost everyone until I was in college. I only confided in one of my closest friends about it. It seemed like being trans was even worse than being gay, which was pretty bad already. Plus, I thought that there was no point in making myself seem like a freak if I could never transition anyways.

Despite thinking I couldn’t transition, I still always planned on getting a mastectomy since I didn’t personally consider it to be transitioning or see it as a step toward becoming a man. I learned of mastectomies before I found out about trans people, so the two were not tied in my mind. I simply just wanted to get rid of the horrible dysphoria I felt about my chest.

It’s not that I am aiming to emulate the opposite sex—that wasn’t driving my desire for surgery. Rather, my goal was to just be comfortable in my body and appearance. I know I’m biologically female whether I like it or not, and there’s unfortunately no changing that. I’m just trying to figure out what works, what triggers the dysphoria, and what enables me to live a more normal life. Pronouns sometimes help, and identifying as a boy sometimes helps. But my clothing and the idea of a mastectomy really helped.

When I started finding books written by Christians explaining gender dysphoria, I got excited because for the first time, I saw the possibility of having gender dysphoria and being a Christian coexist. I started opening up about my gender dysphoria, and I was sure that if my friends and teachers read these books they’d be more understanding. I ended up being outed, sort of, with my teachers around that time. I think my tomboyishness had tipped them off long before; I just didn’t realize it. Word got around that I was planning a mastectomy, and they started wanting to talk to me a lot. I think at one point I had seven meetings in the span of five days. I felt like I was on trial. Up to this point, I had been flying by the seat of my pants, trying to figure out my dysphoria on my own but never really having to answer for it, much less defend myself against accusations.

The accusations caught me by surprise. It seemed like everyone already had a decision in their mind about trans things even before the conversation. It’s true that I had been planning some surgery to alleviate the dysphoria, but with that one piece of information it seemed like they equated me with the activists they see on the news. They would keep telling me that “God created male and female,” even though I believed that, too. I’m a Christian, too, and we had so many beliefs in common. I’m not waging war against the gender binary – I don’t believe that God made anything other than male and female. But they didn’t seem willing to listen.

______

I spent a lot of time trying to search for answers. In the process, I even had conversations with a “de-transitioner” – someone who transitioned to live as the opposite sex for a while, but later regretted it and reverted back – and also with Cece, a close Christian friend of mine. Both talks went much better than talking with my teachers and other staff because they listened to me. They didn’t always agree with me, but they did listen.

The de-transitioner and I connected on a lot of things, like how we don’t like the “affirmation only” approach taken in secular medical treatment of gender dysphoria. We both felt caught in the middle between two extremes that seem to exist. One side says that transitioning is right for absolutely everyone who wants it without question, and then the other side says transitioning (or any sort of medical options like Hormone Replacement Therapy) is never right under any circumstances at all. There didn’t seem to be any type of middle ground.

Cece, my Christian friend, is one of those people who mentions God in almost every sentence. I knew her views on my planned mastectomy were similar to my teachers’, but our talks never turned into arguments. She and I talked about this for months, and never once did I feel like our friendship depended on me saying the right things. She was coming from a place of wanting to understand me, and it was clear that she was willing to let her opinions be changed or informed by what I told her. Our conversations were grounded in respect because we knew that we were both open to each other’s ideas. I don’t think I changed her mind on my mastectomy, but it was huge to know that she was willing to hear me out. She listened.

Since then, I think I’ve softened a bit. I’m out of school, and I don’t feel like everyone’s coming at me all at once. I wouldn’t say I’m on the same page as my old teachers, or the de-transitioner, or Cece: I just can’t understand the certainty they feel that surgery and hormones are an out-of-bounds way to manage pain when I look at the good they’ve both brought me. I don’t think they are right for everyone, but personally, getting surgery has been a massive blessing for me. I mean, I haven’t worried about my chest in years now. But I do understand better where they’re coming from. It’s much easier to talk when you’re being taken seriously, and when your relationship or safety aren’t on the line.