My story

I was born in Munich, then we moved to Tenerife (yeah, the spanish island) when I was 10 and when I was 15, we came here. That's that part of me. But not very interesting, so:

Even though I knew that something was different about me from the time I was 4 or 5 years old (I always wanted to "pee like daddy" - standing), it took me until my 13 year on planet Earth to name the thing: transsexuality. I saw a report about a transman on german TV and it kinda hit me like a brick - it was like "wow, that guy's just like you". I had known transsexuality existed, but everytime I heard the word, I thought of badly shaven dudes in dresses with too much make up and crazy wigs - I guess I was wrong. So I started to read up stuff online and the more I read, the more I felt that this was, in fact, my problem.

I'd never been a "girl" in the classic meaning. When I was 7 years old, I had my hair cut boy-style, I play soccer (which is, like, the men's sport in europe) since I was 5, I never even owned a Barbie or any other doll, I always wore boy's clothes. You may say, I'm a cliché.

After months of fighting with myself, I told my mother about it, who was all "yeah, we'll stand by you", "you'll still be our child" blah blah, but then managed to completely ignore my coming-out ( her and my dad, in fact). She still called me by my old name - which, in hindsight, wasn't so bad, because I changed my name like three or four times for myself - she still treated me like a daughter. And because I'm a frickin' coward, I let her... until May 2008. I had already written a second letter for her and carried it around with me. This one day in May, I sat in school and I had a sudden flash of courage which made me run out of school, take the next bus home and show the letter to her. I cried a lot, I gotta admit and again, my mother said: "Don't worry, we'll take care of it." Guess what happened? Since then, we haven't spoken about it anymore. But thank goodness, the last year in school sucked for me (I actually managed to flunk), so I was already seeing a therapist at that point...

I've been in therapy since the end of March, which makes it very likely that I can start hormone therapy sometime in spring 2009 (yay for me). Almost all my friends know already, so my very conservative family (aunts, uncles, my american half sister, cousins etc.) are the only problem left... and my parents, who still refuse to do anything, including calling me by my new name. Don't get me wrong, they're great parents and I love them, but that one important thing in my life, they can't deal with.

I turn 18 in exactly 10 days, so from then on, things are gonna change a lot for me since I won't have to get my parents' consent anymore.