The Real Lives of Transgender and Nonbinary Humans

A Publish Your Purpose Anthology

Publish Your Purpose Press

• Publisher: Publish Your Purpose Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781951591793
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

We all struggle with our identities, how we show up as our authentic selves, and who we want to see when we look in the mirror.

This powerful collection of stories, told by transgender and nonbinary people of all ages and from all walks of life, is an inspiring tribute to the human spirit. They are our children, parents, siblings, neighbors, friends, and colleagues. Many have faced daunting challenges and have overcome the hardships of poverty, racism, transphobia, and alienation from their families. Some have become activists; some are entrepreneurs; others simply want to make a difference in one person's life. But wherever their journeys have taken them, they are so much more than their gender transitions. This book is a testament to the power of hope, determination, and the possibilities open to everyone when they learn to love and accept themselves for who they really are.

NiK Kacy

NiK Kacy (they/them) is a gender non-conforming fashion designer and owner of fashion company, NiK Kacy Footwear. They make high quality gender-free shoes that can be worn by anyone. They also founded the first LGBTQ+ fashion week in LA, called Equality Fashion Week. They not only wanted to give back to the LGBTQ+ community by creating visibility and showcasing queer, trans, and BIPOC talent, but they also wanted to develop a platform that provides economic development for the queer community. They hope to grow Equality Fashion Week by taking it on the road to other cities that lack access to queer talent development and fashion.

Struggling in a New Home

I was born in Hong Kong and lived there for a short period of time in my early childhood. I lived there long enough to form memories of my first family there and to learn Cantonese, my first spoken language. I spent a lot of time with my birth father’s side of the family while growing up, but things quickly changed.

My mom first brought me over to the US for a summer when I was about five years old; two years later, my parents ended up getting a divorce. I had only just begun to build a life with the family, friends, and people that I knew; suddenly that was ripped away. After the divorce, my mom and I moved permanently to New York to live with her side of the family. We moved into a triplex with my maternal grandparents and my aunt and uncle. With this distance between us, my birth father dropped out of my life. We would exchange letters every now and then, but he wasn’t physically present throughout my growing up years.

Now I was in a foreign country with my mom’s family, who were strangers and who didn’t speak Cantonese, torn from the only home I had known, and I couldn’t even communicate with anyone. I had to learn two new languages when I moved to New York: English, obviously, but also Mandarin, to speak with my mom’s side of the family.

At school, I was the Asian kid who didn’t speak the language, and I was bullied constantly and cruelly because of it. It was horrible, being made fun of day in and day out, and I wondered why this was happening to me. I was only seven years old at the time, forced to endure the other kids’ cruelty. The Asian culture mentality teaches you to be the best at something and be strong, so it was weak to be bullied. I remember being in the bathroom in the middle of this circle of kids who were pushing me and calling me names like “chink” while making fun of my eyes. I couldn’t respond because I didn’t speak English and I had no idea what to do to defend myself. I just remember feeling like I was at the mercy of everyone there, begging them to stop but having no one there to help me.

My mom wasn’t around a lot, and by the time I was seven years old, I was questioning why I was born. Why did my parents get together, have me, and then leave me? Why was I forced to suffer and go through all of this pain? I felt unwanted by my family and by the kids around me. I felt alone and isolated. I was forced to try and fend for myself when I was in school.

Finally I realized I had to become a bully in order to survive. It was eat or be eaten, and I was tired of always being a victim, someone to pick on and make fun of. In third grade, about two years after starting grade school in New York, I chopped off my hair and became a total tomboy. I did everything that the boys were doing. I became one of the best baseball players in the yard. Nobody would fuck with me because I was not gonna take it.

It was gradual but, as my English improved, I began to make more and more friends and hung out with the “popular” kids, sitting with the pretty girls at lunch and playing ball with the cool boys during recess. Walking home from school every day with my “pack,” nobody bothered me anymore.

One time, during recess in the yard, this kid named Nelson was swinging this wiffle bat and it hit me. I grabbed the bat and started hitting him with it. Granted, it was a lightweight, plastic wiffle bat, so it didn’t really hurt him, but we were both called into the principal’s office afterwards. I was actually very close to the principal because she always helped me out when I was struggling.

I didn’t end up getting in trouble but Nelson did, because he was the one who started it. But I spoke up on his behalf, saying that it was an accident and that we were good. From that point on, we actually ended up becoming friends. That was a pivotal moment, when I acknowledged to myself that I was not born a bully. I thought I had to be a bully in order to survive, but what I learned was that just because you’re the victim does not mean you need to become a bully to help yourself.

Early Identity: Culture, Gender, and Family Dynamics

When I was around eight or nine years old, I remember I was with my little cousin. My mom and I were giving him a bath and I saw that his body was different than mine. I was surprised and I thought, Well, why don’t I have one of those? That was one of the first times I realized I was different. When I saw how different our bodies were, I knew that his body was the one I was meant to have. And that made me realize I was different, not just in body and gender but in a way that you can’t explain because you’ve never heard anybody talk about it before. There is no reference for what that difference is, when your insides don’t match your outsides, like you’re in the wrong body. In addition, he was treated much better than I was, like he was the golden child. I had to do all of the chores. I washed the dishes, served the food, and cleaned the house while he just got to play. In my head, I had thought we were the same. I was a boy just like him, so why was I being treated differently?

My cousin, born male, was going to carry the family name, but I don’t know how much of a role culture played in how differently they treated us, on top of the differences between our genders. The irony was that while I hated my life, my little cousin wanted to be just like me. He came to look up to me and wanted to follow me wherever I went and do whatever I did. When I did the dishes, he would come “assist” me, or if I set the table, he would help out. Nobody required him to do any of that, but he chose to do the work. For me, it was never a choice.

Throughout the years, I became resigned to my fate as a girl. When puberty hit and my boobs started showing up, I was mortified. I hated them and, even worse was the fact that I was the most well-endowed in my family. My mom used to joke that she wished she could have them and I would reply, “Please, take them.” When I got my first period, I wanted to die. I couldn’t understand why my body was cursed to be all the things I dreaded most. As my body developed, so did my resentment towards being treated differently because I’m a girl and there wasn’t anything I could do to change that. I had to accept the gender role that was being placed on me, even if I didn’t conform to what a girl should wear or do. I remember every time my mom put me in a dress, I would have the worst tantrums. At the time, all I knew was that I hated dresses but I couldn’t clearly communicate why. When you look at pictures of me as a child in a dress, there’s rarely a smile. Something inside me knew, even as a little child, that it didn’t feel right.

I also was struggling with two facets of Asian culture that I experienced in my family. Asian culture emphasizes discipline and also belittling, especially kids, for any imperfections. Growing up, I was constantly being told I was fat and that created much insecurity and self-hatred. I wasn’t pretty enough and family members would constantly compare me to my mom. Here she was, this beautiful woman, and there I was, this tomboy who looked like her complete opposite. My grandma would tell me all the time how I looked like, walked like, and acted like my birth father. Even though I barely remembered anything about him, it always felt like an insult: I’m just like my no-good father who didn’t treat my mom right.

I could never win in my family’s eyes. I couldn’t play or exercise a lot because I was forced to study, but I was still always blamed for being fat. And yet, if I didn’t finish my plate at the table, I wasn’t allowed to leave. I never did enough and I was never good enough.

So I tried to overcompensate. I performed exceedingly well in school. I threw myself into extracurricular activities and tried to have as many friends as possible. I tried to prove to my family and the world that I was good enough, but even after the accolades, achievements, and friends, I still felt empty and unworthy. I didn’t feel good enough for my family or those around me. I didn’t even feel good enough for myself.

More Hardship: A Break-in

My struggles continued in school and at home. To top it off, when I was in sixth grade, my family’s home was robbed. It was an average day and someone knocked on the door asking for my uncle, claiming he was delivering a refrigerator. My heart sank the moment that I opened the door because when he looked at me, he seemed surprised to find a kid. He looked to the left and right to see if there was anyone around, and I knew that that was not a normal reaction.

His hand slid into the top of the box and pulled out a machete. He pushed me inside, forced me against the wall, duct taped my mouth, and put the knife against my neck. I still have a scar from that knife wound to this day. Two other guys came in. One put a gun to my head and asked who was upstairs. I remember thinking to myself, You dumbasses. You duct taped my mouth; how am I supposed to answer?!

I did try to answer a few times before they finally just pushed me up the stairs. My grandmother was upstairs, yelling through the door, asking me what was happening and if I was okay. We were in a triplex and nobody was home on the first or second floor. When we got toward the final landing, she realized what was happening and I still remember her face of shock and fear. My grandfather was in the back of that apartment, where there were two bedrooms at the end of the hallway—my grandparents and my mom’s. He was with my little baby cousin, holding her. The robbers muscled their way in and tied us all up, my grandmother, my grandfather, and me. They pushed us all into my mom’s room and turned over the whole house. I could tell that my grandparents were nervous because they were breathing heavily but luckily, I was the only one who got hurt. The men took all of my mom and grandma’s jewelry, and once they had turned over the house, they ran away. Looking back, it was fortunate I looked so boyish. I always wonder how things would’ve been different if I had been dressed femininely. What would have happened to me, and would the robbers have done anything worse?

To this day, we still don’t really know who the men were and how they knew that the only people who would be home were a kid and two older people. We questioned my uncle after the incident but he was kind of an asshole and blamed me for opening the door in the first place. Although our questions were never answered, the incident left more than a visible scar on me. I’m now more cautious about my surroundings and I’m very guarded about personal safety and who is around me. From an early age, I learned what it meant to be a crime victim, which shaped my perspective of the world growing up.

I continued to struggle as I made my way through middle and high school. After our home invasion, my grandfather’s health took a turn and eventually he passed from complications with his breathing. We moved in with my mom’s sister and I was very fortunate that my mom’s fiancé (who later became my stepfather and whom I consider my “dad”) stepped in and offered to pay for my schooling at a private school. My dad was this Irish-German New Yorker who was from Brooklyn and had a thick New York accent. He met my mom when she was working at my uncle’s restaurant in New York City. They dated for a few years and were engaged for a very long time. I spent most of my youth being kind of a brat to him because to me, nobody was good enough for my mom. But he loved my mom a lot and cared for me and my grandma unconditionally. I am very blessed to have had a dad like him.

The home invasion had left me traumatized and the loss of my grandfather made me feel like I needed to work even harder to be a better version of myself. I r...

Table of contents

• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Dear Reader
• Our Stories
• 1 - NiK Kacy
• 2 - Denise Bowker
• 3 - Tony Ferraiolo
• 4 - Samantha Lux
• 5 - Gavriel Legynd
• 6 - Kai Berzinskas
• 7 - Braxton T. Fleming
• 8 - Ashley T. Brundage
• 9 - Rhodes Perry
• 10 - Brooke Cooper
• 11 - Rex E. Wilde
• 12 - Brandi Lai
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• About Publish Your Purpose Press