Read Online Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin - Free Book Online Page A

with respect. The majority that hated me was the underclassmen. But the seniors had been with me for four years. They had grown accustomed to me at that point. Did they agree with what I was doing? No. But they were, like, “Well, that’s Matthew.”
    After the prom, we took a boat ride. The captain said, “Girls in this line. Boys on that line.” I thought,
Let me try this out,
and I went on the girls’ line. All my guy friends were saying, “
That’s not fair!
Why are you on the girls’ line?” But they were just poking fun at me because the girls got to go onboard first.
    When the guys got on, I was already dancing. I rubbed it in their faces. “I got on the boat first because I’m a girl. I got on the girls’ line. Ha, ha, ha.”
    Nobody questioned it. That felt great. For the first time in my life, I went on the girls’ line and was not told I had to be on the boys’ line.

    Graduation was such an exciting thing for me. It was annoying that my mom wouldn’t let me wear my weave. I think she was still a little embarrassed about me, but she didn’t want to admit it. It sounds wrong to say, “I’m embarrassed about my own child.” But I knew that she was. She didn’t want me to get my nails done, but I did. She didn’t want me wearing makeup, but I did.

    When I walked down the aisle, all the parents were taking pictures of me. Of me! I’m sure their sons had told them about me. Some wanted me to stand alongside their sons when they took pictures. Others wanted to take their own picture with me. One father told me, “You’re the first girl to graduate an all-boys school.”
    “I am,” I told him. And he just took a picture of me. I felt great when he said that. I was making history for Mount.
They will never forget me.
    Actually, they took me off their mailing list.
    Sometime after I graduated, I asked one of the boys, “How was Mount Saint Michael after I left?”
    He said, “You wouldn’t believe how many people started coming out of the closet.” I felt great about that. Even when I first came out, many others started to come out. So many. And I had a lot more friends because of it.
    Once Christina turned eighteen, after graduation and just before college, she legally changed her name.
    My mom was lying in bed one day and I said, “Mom, I’m going tomorrow to legally change my name to Christina.” And she was, like, “Okay.” She didn’t think I was serious.
    The next day when I came back with my papers and everything, she said, “Your name is really Christina? Baby, why didn’t you tell me so we could talk about a name?”
    “Yeah, Mom, I told you.” My mom hates my name. I mean, I also changed my middle name to Jayleen, the name she would have given me if I was born her daughter. I gave her that!
    My mom said that I was changing what she named me. But I couldn’t walk around with the name Matthew.

    At FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) everyone welcomed me with open arms, even when I told them I was transgender. I’m completely girl here. But there are no straight boys at this school. They are all gay. I wanted to experience being a girl and falling in love.

    Women at a very early age are taught not to be hos, not to let anybody touch them, not to let anyone disrespect them. Well, I don’t know anything about that ’cause I wasn’t raised a girl. As far as exposing my body, I wasn’t really taught not to do that.
    I’m learning to be female. A lot of times trans women dress very sexy to get attention from men. If a man hits on them, says how beautiful they are, in their minds they look passable.
    I do it too. I dress sexy. I used to be borderline ho. But that’s not what most women do, ’cause women are comfortable with themselves; they know that they’re women. But a trans woman, me, is trying to convince herself by showing skin and being sexy.
    I wanted to experience being a girl and falling in love. None of my transgender friends have boyfriends. There’s one