Dreaming the boy to life

When I was a child, every night I fell asleep with the same prayer on my lips.

Dear God, 
Please make me a boy.

My prayers to be a boy were a constant when I was little, as regular to me as praying that the devil would not take me in my sleep. As I got older I would vary this a bit, with a few, "if it is your will" and suches, but I never woke up in the morning as a boy. As I got older I would try to modify my body, pushing and pulling at it to find the boy inside. That didn't work either. The best I could do was pretend, and when I was very good at it, I could "pass" as a boy at the playground or any new setting if I used my fake name "Sean." Rolled up sock in my underwear, wearing my brother's hand-me-downs.

In a few days I will be coming out to my closest family, and then that will be followed by me coming out to facebook and then work. If my prayers had been answered sooner, this coming out would not really be necessary. I would just be who I am, and everyone would already know me for it. 

So that isn't how it is, and this summer will mark me coming out to everyone I have in my life...daunting. I cant help but feel though, because it is happening i am answering the prayers of that little kid so long ago who wanted to wake up as a boy. We will do it now kid. Together. I hope we are brave enough together to weather the storm of what that means, but we have a lot of love and support.

I think we are ready.

Boy at birth

If we are lucky, we have stories about ourselves as kids. I didn't have a wonderful childhood, but I did not have the worst. I, at least, had parents who needed to think that we were a normal family and that's why I know the story I am going to share.

I was a surprise baby: conceived while my mother had an IUD in, and born just 14 short months after my brother was born.
Yeah...you can do the math. I was not planned.

But, my mother had so recently had a baby, that my birth was fast. I was before the age of ultrasounds, when all sexing of kids happened at the birth. When the doctor held me up to my mother, my umbilical cord was hanging between my lags, and my mother, who is nearsighted, had her glasses off. She exclaimed, "Oh, another boy!" The dr quickly corrected her but this story sticks with me. Through my life, I would present as a boy, sometimes to my pleasure, sometimes to my shame. I think it's funny that one of the main shame-bringers for my presentation was the first person to see it.

"oh! Another Boy!"
"Sorry Ma'am. It's a girl."