I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my feelings of isolation and loneliness, and I’ve come to a realization that I wanted to share. Throughout high school I was really struggling to comprehend the feelings I was having towards my body and who I was as a person. I didn’t really express those issues to anyone close to me, and now that I’m a bit older I’m realizing that I started to isolate myself a lot earlier than I had ever considered. I thought I felt isolated living on my own in Victoria BC simply because I struggled to reach out and connect with others and because my family lived across the country. However, it goes a lot deeper than that. My dysphoria and the internalized shame that I was feeling towards myself when I was younger was a massive contributing factor to the loneliness, isolation, and depression that I currently experience as an adult, and it started as soon as I realized that something about me was different than other teenagers. Not different as in having obscure interests or having strange personality traits (though I also certainly did have many of those) but different in the sense that I did not feel comfortable and at home in my own body or sexuality and with the way that I was able, or rather unable, to express who I was with others. So as soon as I became aware of the complexities of gender and sexuality (as early as puberty and my teenage years) I was starting to isolate myself. This is because I felt like it was necessary to hide who I was, because to be different in our society is to be deviant, and I felt an increasingly intense amount of internalized guilt and shame.

But really all I was doing was hiding from myself and denying those who I interacted with an authentic relationship with me based on who I actually am as a person. What I’ve realized is that I’ve been doing this for almost half my life, and as I’ve gotten older it’s started to take a massive toll on my mental health. I struggle with depression and anxiety among various other mental health issues. I have difficulties trusting and loving others because I struggle to trust and love myself. I was hiding my authentic being from the world and from my relationships, and I’ve come to the realization that I was actually running away from myself and how I feel about who I am as a person. Being trans is difficult in our society because we teach our children that being trans is wrong and that difference is something to be disdained, and to be honest I fed into that logic as a teen.

I’ve come to realize that the reason I moved away from my family and my friends to a province where I knew no one was because I wanted to distance myself. I wanted to be able to explore who I was without exposing anyone I cared about to that process, but I also think that I wanted to subconsciously run away from who I was. I think moving to this province gave me the opportunity to reflect on who I am as a person, and to be more honest with myself about my feelings and how I traverse the world, but now I face the issue of not knowing how all of that fits into my relationship with my family. I’ve started to navigate that more with those who are very close to me, like my mom and dad, but I also want to know where the authentic version of me fits into our larger family dynamic. I’m sure that it will be the same loving and supportive family that I have always known. Even more so now that I am able to develop authentic relationships with my loved ones based on who I actually am as a person, rather than as a performance of someone else.

I don’t want to feel so isolated and alone anymore. I don’t want to struggle to love and accept who I am. I want to be able to connect with others, love them authentically and never deny myself or others the opportunity to explore our relationships. Hiding myself was one of the most selfish things that I ever could have done, because I eliminated the possibility that I had to create relationships with others. I felt like I was lying to everyone that I ever met, and that only further contributed to my feelings of isolation. I realize that I did this for a number of reasons: internalized shame, ensuring a sense of security from others and myself, avoiding the situation altogether, and running away from who I am. I don’t want to deny myself an authentic life anymore. I’ve decided to embrace everything that makes me who I am, because I deserve to be loved and have authentic relationships. Because of this I want to reconnect with my family and move closer to them. This means that I will likely move all the way across the country to either Ottawa or Toronto once I finish my last year at university in Gender Studies. I want to know what it feels like to interact with my family and have them really know who I am, and for them to be able to see the authentic me with their own eyes and to connect with me based on that honesty.

Note: I’m not saying that trans people are being dishonest to their family members or to anyone else in society. There is a really sinister narrative in our society that says that trans people are deceptive, and I don’t mean to feed into that narrative here. What I am saying in this article is that I have found it difficult to be honest with myself about who I am as a person, and thus before I came out as trans I was dishonest about that both with myself and others. When I was still closeted I was pretending to be someone that I wasn’t, and through that dishonesty I isolated myself and struggled to connect with others. For me to  be able to say that I am transfeminine is for me to be honest about who I am as a person.