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By Caleb Garetson
Girls chitter-chatter about this and that while boys shout obscene things to each other. Girls flick their wrists and giggle while boys pump their fists and burst out a laugh. Girls are girls in one designated locker room/bathroom while boys are boys in theirs. This segregation by body also regulates the emotions, social actions, and very identity of people cast into these roles. However, let us say you were born into one role, cast to play and behave one way, yet you knew, without having a vocabulary to describe or explain it, that you would be better in the other role; you naturally acted like your opposite. For Charlie and numerous other kids in Aurora, this is the experience of being trans.
I spoke with Charle (known as CJ by most), who was assigned female at birth and now identifies as male, about discovery, identity, and a journey into tearing down old borders and letting true expression bloom. "I don't wanna be one of those guys, but I knew I was not like most kids," CJ said, followed by a chuckle about his first interaction with gender growing up and the complete disregard he had for it. “I was so young, not questioning it until middle school since, before then, there were not such glaring, clear distinctions.”
However, then the locker rooms came, those echoing walls of strict gender division where, inside, confinement could be described as the sight of other kids, other girls. That world never had such a strenuous power before, but now, it raised, in Charlie, revolting feelings of anxiety, panic, and fear. It was this, at the time, unexplainable dread that started his path to discovery. It is most likely that this experience is one every trans person has had since most kids are around the same age as Charlie was (11-17) when they first began to understand the disconnect they have with their gender. The second largest group is younger (10 or below) according to the Washington post-KFF poll conducted in 2022.
Due to the lack of resources, he had to sort out his identity and navigate his gender confusion on his own with only the help of a few very close friends, as many trans youths end up having to do. Charle's soul sank into a deep depression over this sudden loss, pitfall with his identity, as most trans kids do, which is why they rank the highest in rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide, with one out of 5 kids going through with the act according to the Trevor Project.
Why are there so few resources and seemingly little guidance for Trans-kids during this critical stage of their development? To answer these questions, I talked to Mrs. Dwyer, the high school's mental health professional. She spoke about the penetrating social stigma that persists in society with being trans (just look at Florida). This, undoubtedly, casts a regrettable cloak of shame on young people struggling with their gender identity. So they do not come in and find the help that is out there.
What makes it worse, as Mrs. Dwyer pointed out, is that most therapists do not have formal training, understanding, and working with kids of the LGBTQA+ community, especially with transgender kids. She does attend conventions and services to better educate herself. Nevertheless, none of this is mandatory for therapists, meaning a therapist who works primarily with children can ignore the unique struggles LGBTQA+ teens face. This is a reality that Charlie and many others in the community are aware of all too well; a similar one exists with families, too.
Charlie has come out to his parents, but he explains that he "Was absolutely terrified. I had heard countless horror stories about kids being kicked out or beaten by their parents.” Unfortunately, these are stories based on more truth than fiction. The University of Chicago found that LGBTQ+ teens were twice as likely to be evicted or have to run away from their parental home due to coming out and were twice as likely to die on the street than non-LGBTQ+ homeless people. Fortunatelyfor Charlie, his parents accepted and fully supported him, a blessing he reassured me he does not take for granted. That being said, it was still difficult, as it is for most parents with a trans child, to understand them fully.
When asking Mrs. Dwyer about this seemingly universal confusion, she said, "By the time the kid finally comes out, they have had time to explore and understand, but for the parents, it is all news and needs time to process.'' She also mentioned how this riff is the center of frustrations for most of the trans-kids she sees in her office.
So, with all this tension and uncertainty, trans kids discover themselves in shadows and often find their place of safety among strangers, people who never knew about their old selves. For Charlie, this was summer camp. There, he was not what he had been but was able to act as the person he is.Around the 7th grade, Charlie had a pretty good idea about his gender but never got to live within it. Agreeing on the name Charlie with a close friend, he got that chance at summer camp. Upon being referred to as Charlie, being one of the guys for the first time, it "Was the most liberated I ever felt," he said with awe and glee over reminiscing about that fateful moment. From then on, he knew who he was; From then on, he was he.
Since then, he has been living much more comfortably in his skin, as most people do when they are authentic. Of course, there are still troubles. The most pressing being how to be trans. There have been two ways, traditionally, transgender people have expressed themselves; the first way is called passing. This is when a person dresses as a stereotype of the gender they prefer. So, if you want to represent your identity as female, you may wear a standard dress or other traditional female clothing. This is all fine for some; however, some, like CJ and myself, see a few issues with it since what is traditional for men and women changes and is flexible that trans people, doing this, end up in the same rigid gender boxes they were trying to break out of in the first place.
However, trans people may be passive in their actions., For Charlie, he said this passiveness 'breaks my heart the most." One he admitted to being guilty of because of all the anxiety and depression that he and many other trans kids go through: not trying to express and represent themselves fully, wandering as a desert with a small oasis, as dust with little hope of being more.
On a personal note, I hope this article has painted a more robust and colorful picture of trans life for you and inscribed in you a passion, quiet yet intense, stirred within the pit of your heart, a call to journey outside what and who you know to understand and connect with them
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