being trans; the “enemy”

it’s no secret the world over is up in arms about trans people. it also hasn’t been a secret to myself about my identity, if anything it was always something i convinced myself was a phase. from as young as i remember, i wished i was a girl. all of my friends were girls, all of the shows i watched were girly, all of the toys i got were girly, i dressed up girly with my siblings, and i loved that feeling. i vividly remember being in the bathtub crying to my mom saying “i wish i was born a girl” at 4 years old because the girls at my school stopped letting me play with them for not being like them. by this time, i had no idea about trans people, the lgbtq+ community, or anything of the sort. my mom eventually started to take away those girly things and replaced them with more boyish things, like nerf guns, watching tv specifically for boys, and limiting what i watched from youtubers with content catering to a younger girl audience. i remember not being happy about it for a while, all of those things didn’t really appeal to me. my little pony was the one thing i specifically remember being something i could call my thing. i watched it with my family, my mom, my friends, and by myself all the time. when i wasn’t allowed to watch it anymore, even though it sounds silly to say, i was devastated. being 6 years old without my favorite show simply because it wasn’t masculine made me feel like shit for months. now instead of watching my little pony, i was forced to watch sonic. i didn’t give a shit about the adventures of sonic the hedgehog, the only thought in my mind was “why can’t i keep doing what i like?” i stopped playing girl characters in games, my mom donated all my girl toys, i stopped admitting i liked the girl characters in anything i watched out worry i’d be ridiculed, and eventually i stopped thinking about it all together. by the time i was 10 years old, i was just any other normal cis boy. i still thought about what it would be like as a girl, but in my eyes at the time i justified the thought by thinking “who doesn’t do that though?”. it wasn’t until a boring fishing trip with my stepdad that suddenly a conversation came up. i don’t even remember the conversation specifically, i just remember the words “surgery to change your gender” come out of his mouth. i paused and i was stunned. i asked, “that’s a thing?” and i felt something different. even though he said it in an insulting way talking about whatever controversy with trans people was circling the media in 2019, i was astonished. for the first time, i had.. hope? i wasn’t sure what feeling it was since it came with the fear of admitting i liked the idea to my family, let alone myself. it stuck with me. in that moment i immediately thought back to a conversation i had with my dad as a toddler. i was a fairly smart little kid when it came to one thing; animals. i loved learning about animals and wanted to be a vet just like my aunt. i remember my dad telling me that clownfish can change their gender and reproduce asexually, and as a little kid distracted in the back of the car playing flappy bird, i replied “that’s so cool!” which was immediately met with the words “no it’s not, it’s disgusting”. i never forgot that moment, even before the fishing trip since i wished i was just a clownfish, able to switch gender. even now that i knew about trans people, i was still an ignorant kid in a conservative household. i look back on my life from 10-13 where i would just regurgitate whatever ignorant words i had heard from my stepdad or equally ignorant friends i had made, not realizing that i was what they hated. i still actively researched how to transition. i became best friends with trans people. by the time i was 12, i had met so many trans and genderfluid people i eventually got curious and expressed those thoughts. i even did come out as trans for a week, i told everyone i wanted to be called ari and how i was happy with that. but the truth was that i was more scared than happy. i was scared of my mom and stepdad finding out, scared of telling my teachers, scared of telling my male friends, scared of the commitment, and terrified of being “the enemy”. i was aware of the controversy that being trans brings, the stigma of being “a failed son” and it was too much. i played it off like a joke, telling everyone that it was fine and i didn’t want to bother them with calling me a new name. that moment deterred me from being trans for a long time. it wasn’t until around the beginning of 2025 where it came up again. i liked expressing myself and seeing myself in girl characters, but who doesn’t? i was walking with my dad one time after going to a restaurant and heading back home when he said “you know most of the popular guys in my high school were the ones that look like girls”. for some reason that feeling came back. i look like a girl? really? i admit that i grew out my hair long because when i was in middle school i wanted to have long hair for the sole reason of presenting feminine, but hearing him say that made me feel odd. i thought about it a lot, but i didn’t want to admit it until around august of 2025. i told my ex that i've wanted to be a girl my entire life but she immediately shot it down and said it didnt make sense to her and that it’s disrespectful to what cis women go through. and i decided it wasn’t my place to explore that part of myself if i’m being disrespectful to her. it just kept coming back. by january i had a pretty bad day and felt guilty so i blurted out those feelings again. she shot it down again. i was upset this time. why was my gender an issue to her? i built up a resentment for her. i told all of my friends what i felt, especially the trans ones by this time. none of them doubted that i was more than likely trans, and one of my friends i look up to the most said i “acted more trans” than she ever did. those conversations shocked me. i spent every night for a whole month researching. by the time valentine’s day came by, i sprung the conversation with her up again. as usual, it was met with an argument. but this time i didn’t let it get to me. if the only way for approval is pretending i'm someone i’m not, then what’s the point? we broke up and i felt peace that i hadn’t felt in years. the only question in my mind was “what now?”. it’s not like i could just get hrt the same day or get an appointment for a gender dysphoria diagnosis, those would require me to tell my dad and even then, they won’t give me hrt. i was incredibly discouraged for a week until i started talking to my old friends again, coming back suddenly going by kathryn is a shock, but they all took it well. then i talked to my old friend from elementary. she immediately was incredibly supportive, completely understanding what it’s like. being genderfluid and always being the most supportive person i've known since i was a kid, she helped me feel more like myself. we recently started dating, and she’s the best partner i could ever ask for. i still get called my birth name by my family, but i don’t take it to heart. i don’t think i’ll tell most of them for a while, but i’m content with that. my dad recently said “don’t let other people tell you what you are, only you can decide for yourself” and i’ve taken it to heart. i like being like this. i’m not super girly, but i like being more tomboyish if anything. that makes me happy. 

---

recently in india, trans rights have been stripped away. in the us, where i’m from, trans rights are constantly being challenged. in the uk, bathroom laws are a constant topic. but why? from all i’ve said, does it sound like i'm trans because of any harmful reason? does it sound like it’s a “fetish” like most conservatives constantly say? why are trans people constantly called predators, immediately met with slurs, hate crimed, losing rights, and hated worldwide? why does the trans community itself see people who are transitioning young as “lucky”, and  act with passive aggression, and the people who transition when they’re older as “too far gone”? i love my community and friends, but instead of rising up against the people who clearly hate us, we’d rather focus on our own friends because of insecurity. it’s rough being trans right now. i encourage everyone in the community to show support and love to trans people across the world, bring all eyes on india, bring all eyes on us. even if we’re “the enemy”, i believe that we can rise against anything. we’re all scared but we’ll do what we’ve always done. keep going scared. eventually we’ll come out fearless.