Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out (12 page)

He was, like, “Oh.”

“I’ll take a handshake, but I’m not going to do that.”

I won’t do the hand bump, either. Michelle Obama may do it, but not me. They’re doing that to me because they probably still see me as a man, like, “What’s up, bro!”

There was a boy at the house party; he was like a rocker boy who called everyone
dude.
With me you have to walk on eggshells with that word. I take it very defensively — especially when there’s alcohol involved at the party.

When I was drinking he called me
dude
and I took it the wrong way. I told him, “Don’t call me dude, ’cause I’m
not
a boy.” And he was like, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m just trying to help you out.” I was really drunk.

I was with my friend Hoay because we still hang out; we talk all the time. So the rocker went up to Hoay and said, “You need to watch out for him.” Him being
me.

I got up out of my seat and said, “Don’t call me
dude
!” and I put my hands around his neck and started backing him up against the wall. Everybody was pulling me off him.

“Relax, relax,” he said. “I’m just trying to help you.”

People were saying, “That’s not very ladylike.”

“Well, people gotta learn,” I said. I mean people are not going to learn anything if there is no consequence to it. If you’re nice to people, they’re not going to take you serious.

The next day, he told me that he didn’t mean to call me
him
or
dude
or anything like that. It’s just that he wasn’t used to me. I’m not around him much.

I am around Hoay a lot, so when Hoay calls me
he,
I scold him.

I saw the rocker again at the next house party. He said, “Hey, Christina, how are you?” He was being nice to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

Sometimes I see Matthew in the mirror. Sometimes, on my lazy days, when I’m just lounging around the house with no makeup on or anything, I see him.

Once I put on my boyfriend’s clothes to see what it was like. I pulled my hair up and put on his do-rag. All I could see was my face. I must admit I was very happy with what I saw in the mirror. Although I had on boys’ clothes, I still looked super feminine. I had my breasts, and my hips were poking through the sides of his jeans. My boyfriend told me that I looked like a lesbian; I didn’t look like a boy at all. He can’t imagine me as a boy. I was so happy about that.

Christina and Jonathan are my children, and I love my children regardless. I would never throw them out into the street like some parents do. Some families throw their kids out and they get into prostitution and they wind up dead. I would never, ever do that. I told them, “Baby, not for nothing, I’m glad that you guys are proud to be gay or transsexual. But you can’t let people know.” I had a lot of learning to do.

Christina was always very sensitive. I couldn’t yell at her the way I yell at my other sons, Elvin and Jonathan. She was crying all the time! All the time!

“Will you stop crying?”

Even the lady upstairs heard it. “What are you doing to him?”

“Nothing! He just cries at every little thing.”

Jonathan was wearing women’s clothes long before Christina came out transgender. He was cross-dressing. That was very hard for me. I said, “Okay, Jonathan, you are gay, but you don’t need to dress like a woman.”

My next-door neighbor told me that she saw Jonathan dressed as a woman outside. When I confronted him, he said, “No, Mom, not me. I never dressed outside.”

I thought that was a phase he was going through, because after a while he stopped that altogether. Right now he’s very masculine. He works out; he’s very husky.

I was telling Jonathan, I said, “Jonathan, do you think Matthew — that was Christina’s name — is gay also?”

And he would tell me, “Mom, time will tell.”

As a child, Christina didn’t tell me much about how she felt. I found out that she was transsexual the second year of high school, when she was sixteen. That’s when I noticed certain things about her and I actually thought that she was gay. Her movements — she was acting different — the way she was walking, the things that she liked, and she started wearing makeup.

She said that she wore makeup because she was breaking out a lot. She said that she was covering up her acne. She was going through puberty. But the truth was, she was transitioning. I had no idea.

Matthew was at Mount Saint Michael’s, and that was a problem. He was letting his hair grow long. I thought that he was gay, like my other son.

One time I found him crying. I said, “It’s okay, it’s okay. I know that you’re gay.”

“No, Mom, I’m not gay. I’m transsexual. I feel like a woman inside.”

That was shocking to me. I didn’t know what that was. “What do you mean, you feel like a girl inside?”

“Mom, I feel like a woman inside.”

“Okay, okay.”

I spoke to my family about it. They were even more in shock than I was. Nobody exactly knew what a transsexual was. I have a huge family, seven sisters and three brothers. One of my sisters said, “Wanda, I thought Matthew was gay. I saw some indications. I saw the way Matthew moved.” At the time he was obese; he was very obese. She’s still a big girl. So I just thought she had her little moves because obese people tend to move in a certain way.

Most of my family accepts Matthew as Christina. But my older brother in particular does not accept her because he’s religious. He thinks there’s a bad spirit in both my children, that there’s no such thing as being born that way. I don’t want to disrespect my brother, but I tell my mother, “Ma, did you see that program on the Spanish channel about transgender? That they are born this way?” Christina doesn’t want to see her uncle.

I worry about her when she’s not home. She’ll call me on the phone, crying, “Mom, I got into this situation!”

We live in a six-building complex. Once she called me: “Mom, some guy punched me in the face!”

“Are you okay?” I got all upset.

“‘Yes, Mom, I’m fine.’ ” She called the police. I believe she pressed charges. My son started looking for the guy. A few weeks later, I was coming out of my building and saw a whole bunch of men. I said to myself,
Maybe that’s one of the guys who attacked my daughter.
I just walked between them and said, “I want to know who attacked my daughter. Be a man and come out.”

One man was looking down, and I had a feeling it was him. I told him off. I said, “What is it your business that my daughter is who she is? My daughter goes to college. My daughter works. My daughter goes to an internship. My daughter isn’t bothering anybody. Have you ever seen her bother anybody here? Why is this your business?”

He finally looked up and said, “I was the one.”

“How dare you! How dare you attack my child! What has she done to you?” And I started criticizing him. I said, “Look at you! Are you jealous of my child? My child as a man
and
as a woman is handsome and beautiful.”

I think he was a foreigner. I said, “You’re not from here, right? In America people are used to this. There are gays, there are lesbians, there’s transgender. There are all kinds.”

The other guys said, “Don’t worry, ma’am. From now on, we’re going to have respect for her. We’re going to watch out for her.”

When Christina got her breast implants, I was relieved because she looked more like a woman. But when I’m in the train with her, I still hear little kids say, “Mom, is that a man or a woman?” I don’t want to hear that. I sometimes have to remind her not to show her Adam’s apple, and that’s so sad. I don’t want to have to remind her to keep her chin down.

Christina’s very intelligent; she can understand difficult things. But something simple? She can’t do it. I tried to teach Christina how to wash her clothes. I tried to teach her how to cook. “I don’t want to, Mom.” I think she’s a little lazy about things like that. But as for makeup, she teaches me. She’ll do my hair. Being that she’s into fashion, it comes natural.

I go to her and say, “Christina, how does this look? Should I do this? Should I do that?” And she tells me.

It’s different having a daughter. The other day I bought dye to color my hair. When I went to look for the dye, it was not there. I said to myself,
I know I’m not going crazy. I know I bought the dye.
Well, guess who took my dye?

She dyes her hair all the time. I got angry with her. I said, “Baby — I call her
baby
— you can’t be doing this to me. I was getting ready to dye my hair, and you took my dye.” She takes my mousse. Everything is in her room.

But then she takes off her weave and leaves it on my bed. That part I don’t like about having a daughter. She’s very messy. She wasn’t messy as a boy. You should see her room. No, it’s too embarrassing.

I took Jonathan’s situation a lot harder than Christina’s because it was new to me. Jonathan’s situation helped me with Christina. Jonathan was only thirteen years old when he came out of the closet. I feel bad to this day that the first words that came out of my mouth were “That’s disgusting!”

I insulted him so bad. That was a horrible thing to do. I have apologized to him. I hope he knows how sorry I am.

When Jonathan started making his little gay moves, we had a problem. We went to counseling and we used to argue right there. My issues were he was doing the hand movements and talking like gay people. I said, “You know what? The day before you told me you were gay, you sounded like a normal teenage boy. All of a sudden, one day later, you’re sounding like gay people. You’re moving like gay people. I don’t want you to do that. I don’t want it because you’ll be in danger. You’ll get attacked.”

He argued with me. “No, this is who I am and this is how I move.” I fought so much with him about that.

Jonathan was at Mount Saint Michael’s too, but he couldn’t take it. He purposefully failed his classes to get thrown out. So I moved him to a school for gay, lesbian, and transgender students. In the beginning it was rough for me. I had to go to parent-teacher conferences. I did not want to be there. I was still not used to the idea of a gay son. There were guys dressing up like girls, and I would give them dirty looks. They would act flamboyant, and it would kill me. I felt it was not necessary.
Oh my god, they’re not girls, why are they acting this way?