@Willow Summer. 1993. I was 13.

Puberty hit me hard between grades 7 and 8. Fast. Ugly.

I was mistaken for my dad on the phone. Adam's apple to next week. Hair already giving away the fact I'll go bald. I hated every moment of it, way more than the other boys.

It hit so hard, in fact, that my pituitary gland had to balance my body out with estrogen, with an unexpected side effect: hard lumps under my nipples.

The doctor said it was temporary, puberty-induced gynecomastia, and that it would go away in about 6–12 months. Most boys would probably be elated and play video games. I walked out of his office numb. And that numbness bothered me. In fact, it bothered me the rest of the day.

You see, I was a kid who ideated suicide a lot, very quietly. My parents screamed and fought constantly. I was viciously abused at school for my high marks and my (unaware-to-me) queerness. I was used to the numbness of wanting to cease.

This wasn't that. This numbness pulled. At my mind. The rest of the day. And it wouldn't leave

I went to sleep bothered not to be able to figure it out, like a limb that fell asleep that won't wake up. I eventually decided to try to sleep and worry about it the next day. My brain went quiet. Until:

“Oh,” a little, calm, rational voice — my voice — said, “you have little breast buds and you don't want to lose them.

But. You're going to. And that hurts. That's the problem.”

That voice was tiny, but it split my brain like a thundercrack. I immediately knew.

I was a girl.

I cried silently in my bed for what seemed like hours. It wasn't a mistake, what this voice said. But God wouldn't fuck up this bad. Science wouldn't fuck up this bad. There has to be something.

What can I do?

What… could I do?

There's… nothing I could do.

I cried myself to sleep knowing who I was, but more trapped than I could imagine.

That's the story of discovery. I'll write more later.

@Willow Teen years: 1993–1997

My next two weeks were rough. I was trained at home by my mother to put on the act that I was always fine, but I couldn't care to. My mood even prompted my father, who was very stoic at the time, to ask if I was okay.

Eventually, I put the face back on. I was broken underneath it.

Over the next few years, I struggled to cope. I thought I was the only girl like me. Yes, I saw Ace Ventura. Yes, my mom liked to laugh at the trans women on Jerry Springer. Yes, I heard of people who had sex changes. But, the media depiction was so awful, so nefarious. I didn't make the link that those people were like me simply because these people were so caricaturized by media, intentionally demonized. I didn't feel like some evil, laughable character on TV. I just felt so alone.

But, I did manage to have moments that I'd steal for myself where I'd move through the world as a secret girl. In the hallways at school. On the bus. In my room. Walking home. No one had to know.

…until someone figured me out.

Grade 11 math class was awful, taught by a retired, Hall of Fame athlete who barely taught class and spent his time outside chainsmoking. He would answer questions with the phrase “Don't ask questions about things you don't understand.” Easily the worst teacher I ever had.

I made friends in the back of the classroom with some girls and we got along like a house on fire. Anytime the teacher left, we'd start joking and laughing. It was a lot of fun. I felt like me.

And the girls could tell.

At the end of semester, when the teacher left one class to smoke, the girls offered me a hangout. A shopping trip. For cosmetics. And clothes. And to show me how to use them. And going out for a movie. And it was all deeply sincere.

“You know… just a girl's night out. What do you think?”

I froze. I immediately replayed grade 11 in my head and realized that year, at school, that I somehow dropped my guard and stopped pretending I was a boy. And it showed. So much. The way I walked. Held my books. Talked. I was such a fool. Idiot. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I wasn't being so secret of a girl, anymore.

I refused her offer. Silently. We never talked about it, again.

The rest of the year, I changed the way I walked and wouldn't walk that way in a long, long time.

(Continued later)