Why Am I Trans?

I have always thought “Why me?

When you stop and think about it being trans is like anyone else with a disability, we all face discrimination of one type or other. I wouldn’t wish being trans on anyone, it is not fun and it is definitely not a choice or lifestyle.

Why was I born this way?

I like to think that there is some purpose in life and for me I think I have found my reason why I was born trans… to educate.

I like to think God made me trans to teach other people love and understanding; that we are being judged by how we treat other people. How we treat people with physical disabilities and how we treat people who disabilities are not visible.

I also like giving workshops presentations, I like making a difference, I like making this world a safer place and I like making life easier for the next generation.

I was with some friends waiting for our reservation at a restaurant in Hartford one when we were going to see a play at the Hartford Stage. As I was standing there a woman who was coming out of the restaurant stopped and said to me, you probably don’t remember me but I was in your workshop at the NASW (National Association of Social Workers) conference and because of your workshop I was able to help a client when she came out to me as transgender.

I am a guest lecturer for a friend’s class on multicultural education at local colleges and after the class he sends me some of the student journals.

When it was announced that we would have a guest speaker for our next class I originally thought nothing of it. I’ve had a good experience with guest speakers in the TCPCG program so far and I was excited to hear what the guest lecturer would say. When I walked into class on Wednesday I remember seeing the back of a tall woman standing in front of our class, thinking she was our guest, and proceeded to sit down and open up my computer. About 5 minutes later the guest came forward and she said that we were going to start the lecture. Once the guest lecturer starting talking and I began to look at her a bit more in detail, I realized something very interesting - our guest speaker was a transexual [sic].

Now being an educated grad student I was fully aware of was exactly a transsexual was and that the transexual community is growing every day, however, as far as I know, this was my first time meeting one. The weird thing however was that it didn’t seem like I was meeting a transexual, but rather just another women - a guest lecturer. Once you get past the deep voice and the 6’2” figure, there was nothing weird or different here, just another woman. When the lecture started I was expecting to learn all about life as a transsexual, and while she did touch on this a little, she was focused more on the big picture. The picture being that there are thousands of transexuals and people dreaming of being a different gender all around us, and often times they either go unnoticed or are looked as weirdly or differently. I think the message she was trying to tell us is that although on the outside we may look a little strange, it is really who they are on the inside that matters.