Deviations

Learning about the term "transgender" online at seventeen, something clicked in me. I had never told anyone how I felt at that stage in my life, but once I had the word for it, talking about it was the only thing I could think about. I didn’t know anyone like me. Up to that point, I had thought "cross-dresser," not "transsexual." To me, that term held heavy implications. A tarnishment. It wasn’t that I thought less of them; I just felt too insecure to go that far. I thought that was the only path. But with this new term and my understanding of it, I finally had the language for who I was. It all made sense. I started looking for chatrooms on Yahoo Instant Messenger. Whatever time I didn't spend gaming was spent chatting with other gender-diverse individuals. Most were femme. I didn’t even know trans men actually existed; they seemed like unicorns. Non-binary wasn't even a term I knew yet, but if it had been, I would have accepted it. Who was I to judge anyone, knowing how I felt? As I chatted, I became more myself in my online persona. At first, I would lie and just say I was curious. A lot of people would come on to me, or try to get me to send them money. I never knew who was fake until I learned the hard way. It didn’t take long to learn, but then I began to learn how to let go. I started making new accounts, trying on different names, landing on a few that seemed close. But sitting in front of a monitor was not the same as just being me. Sure, I loved the friends I made, but I wanted to live in the world. I would sometimes daydream about having the ability to freeze time for everyone but me. I could just go get whatever clothes I wanted, wear them, and live my life alone and content. But even then, it would have felt hollow. I much preferred being me, but I also wanted friends. Experiences are harder to have with just one person. Not impossible, but rare. Moving into my first apartment was a high point. Laying on the floor on moving day, playing *Wind Waker* with my friend on the GameCube I bought with my own money—that was a core memory. Most of the friends I made were through my older sister. I had made a few really close friends in high school, but they lived in an area I hated with a passion. These new friends were in a bigger city. Not huge, but more my speed. My sis introduced me to some of the best music I had ever heard. But I wasn't quite close enough. I still hid my clothes from my friends at the apartment. It felt like a hidden shame. I wanted to tell them, but I didn’t want to lose them. It may have seemed like a slim chance, but any chance was too much risk. My own guardedness was probably the reason everything happened the way it did. I didn’t think there was a way they could ever truly understand, fearing they would secretly judge me behind veiled kindness. It may have been wrong, but it didn’t feel like it at the time. I felt like the only ones I could trust were the people online. We had a great time in that apartment. I made so many new friends, but eventually, I had to go home. I didn’t have a job anymore, and I didn’t want to burden my friends with my failure. I make knee-jerk reactions sometimes and then get too stubborn to change them. So, I moved back home. I got a job and, after working there a while, began to transition. I didn’t really see my friends anymore, and it didn’t seem like I was making new ones. I just talked to my mom and stepfather. Sure, people liked me at work, but... they wouldn’t like the *real* me. So I didn’t do much with them other than joke around on the clock. My inability to make friends was usually my own fault, and my fault was my precious secret. The one I couldn’t share with the world. The one I had to protect *from* the world. It was like living two lives: the one I wanted in secret, and the one I showed the world, which I hated. I figured if all I had was work, I might as well transition. If I had no friends I saw regularly, why deny what I wanted? I knew it would alienate people; most had never heard of "transgender." No, they still knew it as "transsexual." Oh well. I put on a brave face and slowly wore whatever I wanted. Or at least, what was comfortable for a warehouse. My stepfather acted accepting. It seemed like most did. My father, apprehensive, seemed willing to let me be me. Until there were probing questions. Then I simply said I didn’t want to talk about it with him anymore, and it seemed to temper down. I was being myself at work, doing my thing, but then my mom called one day to say she was getting divorced again. We ate at a fast-food restaurant when she told me. I asked her if it was because of me, and she said no. I didn’t believe her entirely, but I couldn’t change anything anyway. It was better that he left. He seemed like a bad person to me. It hurt, but we moved on. I moved out and got my own apartment again. Well, it was supposed to be. Look, another friend appeared. They were a friend I had known for a while who was living in a shed. I felt bad, so I invited them in to get on their feet. We had some fun, but it was not quite the same as my first apartment. I eventually started talking more and more online. These friends felt like they got me. All my interests and similarities. I found one halfway across the country who said they wanted to help me transition. They said they had the money, and they looked beautiful based on their pictures. I knew something was fishy when I tried to get them on camera and they kept having "issues," but I didn’t care. If they loved me, who was I to judge what they looked like? They helped me book a flight, and I abruptly left with not much intention to stay in touch with home. I didn’t want to hear it. I was rude for no reason. I just wanted so badly what I had been denied for so long. To be seen as the beautiful woman I wanted so desperately to be. I didn’t think the people at home could see that, knowing my history. I needed to go away to be me. To be seen as me from the start. When the plane landed in Arizona, I thought we were going to drive straight to California. But the person who got out of the car was not the person in the pictures. My suspicions were confirmed, but I was too scared to mention it truthfully. They told me they had cancer and the pictures were from before. They looked twenty years older than me. I was young, dumb, and scared in a skirt, two thousand miles from home. I also felt bad. This person, whoever they were, was as lonely as me. I wanted them to be happy, too. We did talk in the text, and that connection felt real. And I felt pity. So I stayed. They tried to be nice, but I felt like an object. Not a person. Like something on a shelf. I didn’t feel love for them, but I felt care. I was away from home for a year before it finally ended. I wanted to leave so many times, but I didn’t want to hurt them, and I wanted to be seen. In the end, they were the ones who sent me away. It was January when I got back to Missouri. The climate shock was something else. My brother-in-law at the time was the first person I had really seen. I gave up on being me at the Taco Bell we ate at. I had cheese roll-ups. My son's favorite there. Hahaha. It only lasted a few months before I transitioned again, so I don’t really count it as stopping. I was working at a department store in my hometown. I got a name badge with my chosen name and felt like I was doing much better this time at home. I was a bit jaded from the experience in the West and maybe gave less care. I was going to be a bit more defiant this time. I think my hyperactivity was off-putting to some, but being trans in this town at that time made me an alien. The alienation did its own work on everyone. I moved jobs and lived alone at my Mom’s house while she stayed in town with her new boyfriend. My sister was about 45 minutes away and my father not too far. I didn’t really want to see too much of him, so I stayed home mostly. I didn’t have my video games after the move, just my CDs. I could watch TV, but it was one boring channel. So I listened to music. I loved it. All kinds, well most kinds. Not country. I then stopped the hormone treatments due to the cost and the seemingly little effect they were having. That is when the delusions started. They were not something I believed in entirely at first. It seemed like the music was being arranged by what we would call today an algorithm. Used to manipulate the listener to be a puppet. I didn’t know why "they" wanted it, but it didn’t matter. I was going to combat it with my own music somehow. Regardless of the "battle," it felt real. I also thought that everyone could watch me. Slowly, I thought everyone was in on it. I felt so alone, so isolated, and trapped in a fake world of my own paranoia. I wasn’t gonna let them win. One day, I went the wrong way down a one-way street, and a cop tried to stop me. I got scared. I was in a small town and was a trans woman. I drove all the way home. I never sped, but on one turn, a cop thought he could stop my moving car like Superman with his fist. He shattered all his fingers. They tried to charge me with assault on an officer, but it was reduced to attempted assault. He had no case. But I took the plea to avoid jail time. My family had an intervention about the delusions and what happened. They took me to a psychologist and put me on meds. I leveled out and gave up on being trans for the last time. It is funny, though. In those delusions, I actually made the thing I feared. I brought it to life, and I just realized it last night. You can see what I am doing with my status page and the Darkstar System. Everyone who reads the book has the potential, too. I manifested my fear into reality without even trying. It kinda blew me away again this morning when I talked to my sister about it. I am not delusional now. I do not think to be any kind of prophet or sage. I am a troubled individual living in a society that is actively attacking people like me. I am no hero. I am just a person working in IT with hobbies. I really just want to be me, and have the world be okay with it, and see that I am a person worth existing. And with my friends, I see that. I know that I may lose some just talking so openly about what I am going through. But the growth into a better person in the present is worth it. And the friends who stick around—the ones that truly care—are the ones that matter anyway.