“Growing up in a region means that you don’t have a life of your own. All of your decisions are made by your family, relatives, school. People just think that they can point out any step that you take that they might not like, which makes the process of self-discovery so much harder that you have to lie to your own self and just make the easiest choice” – said an 18-year-old transgender boy that started questioning his sexuality at the age of just 12-13 and for 2 years now, he has realized that he doesn’t feel comfortable in his own body.
“I always liked being alone and if I ever managed to make some friends, it was always with boys. I only worse dresses on very few occasions and I always protested it, I didn’t feel comfortable. In my adolescent years I had my first crush on a girl. Probably because I was always on my own, I didn’t feel any guilt or find it unnatural. I started researching things on the internet and soon I was convinced that I was a lesbian. When my breasts grew significantly and I could clearly see the resembling signs with the girls around me, I felt discomfort for the first time; however, I still didn’t think that I was a boy at that time” – says the 12th grade student that hasn’t chosen a name for himself yet – “I don’t get it, why the name matters, everyone has known me by this name for 18 years, why would I change it now? I grew up with this name, I have memories, most of which are positive, that’s why my name isn’t a boy’s or a girl’s name, it’s just my name.”
A family that became a burden
Illustration: Geralt / Pixabay
“The gatherings of the relatives have always been important in our family. Since I was a kid, everyone would always call me things like “princess”; when I became an adolescent everyone kept telling me that soon I would be getting married – every time I got very angry. That’s when I became more resistant against my family. Until then, I always wore pants and suddenly they decided that I should be more feminine. My mom would come home and bring a new dress and I still wouldn’t wear it. I had a much better relationship with my dad – he was teaching me how to drive, took me to his work, but even that was a fake relationship” – says the teenage boy as he describes how little by little he realized how distant his family members were at the time – “I constantly had new questions about my identity that I couldn’t tell anyone. I became more estranged with my family, I spent most of my teenage years locked in my room. I think that period made me realize how big of a distance there was between us. My mom and my dad almost never talked, my brother was never home, and the parents only had one things to say: we had to study and be polite. I think that understanding those details made it easier to accept myself without a fight.
A new stage of self-discovery that began with a friendship
Illustration: Valentin Galmand / Dribbble
“I was 15 when I became friends with one of my classmates. We liked the same TV show and it helped us become closer to each other. I never felt that he liked me romantically, and I think if I had, I wouldn’t be able to be friends with him. Even at school we were known more as brothers than as friends. I told him that I liked girls and he took it well. We talked about our crushes, I shared all of my thoughts with him and he always gave me good advice. Thanks to those talks, I was able to slowly find the answers to all of my questions, I decided on many things and also realized that I was avoiding many things out of fear – I didn’t want to go through the trouble of coming out to all of my relatives again.” – says the boy as he’s telling us about his self-discovery process which lead to him coming out to his friend and the small friend group, saying that he’s a boy.
First Love
Illustration: ELEANOR DOUGHTY
“I met her at the football club. We were close and texted each other every day. At that time, I had so many questions that it was hard to think about anything else, but after frequent interactions I realized that I was feeling just fine. She was the first one to tell me that she liked me and soon we were in a relationship. We saw each other every day. She visited me at my house and my family was also pleased with the fact that I was friends with a girl. Soon I realized that I was in love with her. I hadn’t told her yet that I was a boy, and when I finally did she replied that it changed nothing. However, a few times she addressed me as “girl” and we had an argument about it. Then she told me that she couldn’t perceive me as a boy, so we broke up” – the boy recalls the first love, the breakup of which soon lead to a coming out with the mom – “I was feeling really down after the breakup, I didn’t want to go outside and I wasn’t talking to my only friend anymore as well. My mom kept badgering me with her questions and once as I was fed up with them, I told her that I was a boy. She cried and told me not to tell my dad because he would kill us both. She found a psychologist for me that on the first session already knew everything about my identity. She told me that many teenagers go through such phases and soon I would realize that I was a girl. So I went there for months, just sat and listened. I talked to her too. I didn’t really care what she would say, but I didn’t want my mom to go through the trouble of searching for new ways to “save” me.
Survival
Illustration: iStock / Getty Images
At the time that he was in therapy he resumed the relationships with his friends. He needed someone to talk to other than his mom’s and psychologist’s “attempts to change him”. However, he realized that he had nothing in common with those people anymore.
“At first, resuming those relationships was a weight off my shoulders; I could speak freely and I was thinking that I was so lucky to have healthy friends. During one of the conversations they said that even though they viewed me as their brother, they wouldn’t be around other queer people. They jokingly used many homophobic slurs, which I hadn’t noticed before, which they didn’t stop doing even after I had asked them to. Everything added up and slowly we drifted apart. I only have contact with one of them now, but even he doesn’t really try to explain anything to anyone – you can’t just go against everyone, it’s hard, you can just lose respect for them” – he talks about breaking up with his friends, and that studying in the future is not even a choice for him anymore – “my family wants me to study. Everyone around me is making plans and the only thing I can think about is escaping. I don’t have the time to study now, I need to survive. I will probably apply to universities in Tbilisi and move there, but I won’t study. I’ll work and get some money to escape this country. This place is destroying me; why should I stay here?! I know that I can find a place where I feel comfortable. I only have one goal in mind: I must be happy, and I know that I can achieve that!”
Main photo: Natalie Krick / The New Yorker
