Adam's Point of View

I had to get home as fast as possible. I dreaded this time of the month coming around. It was the worst thing I could possibly have, and one of many things holding me back from being who I really am physically and mentally. Being a female to male transgender wasn't the easiest thing to live with; especially when you are not likely to be accepted by everyone around you. A few years ago I was kicked out of New Market High School (where I met Eli) only because someone found out I was a transgender. It wasn't the easiest thing to live with because once one person found out, the whole school found out. You would think people in this day and age would learn to accept that not everyone is straight or exactly like them. But ignorance is bliss, as they say.

I was born Grace Chelsea Appleton. When I was a little girl, I went by Gracie. I would always get down and dirty in the mud with my guy friends, or I would play with cars; I was obsessed with them. I have known since a very young age that I was born in the wrong body. It was hard for me to grow up as everyone thought I should, as a girl. I always tried to dress like a boy or have a really short haircut to prove my true inner feelings. Anything boyish I could do, I did it. My friends were never girls when I was younger, strictly guys.

When I was in grade school, there was nothing but speculation that I was a girl. Everyone just thought of me as another boy, the way it should have been. And most importantly, how I wanted it to be. Then middle school hit. It was one of the toughest few years that I had to endure. Keeping my physical identity as a girl a secret was a nerve wracking thing to do. I couldn't be caught, or I would face major consequences by my peers.

My parents did not accept me until I sat them down and talked to them about it right before I entered middle school. Until that day, they were just in denial. I got my mother to be comfortable with it, she understood as much as a person could that wasn't in my position. But my father still to this day does not accept me for who I am, and he told me he never will. He thought that it was all in my head, that I had the CHOICE to be who I am today. Which in fact, I did not have the choice to choose. I was made who I am, but my inner self was misplaced in a cage: a girl's body.

My parents divorced a few years ago because of how bad it got between my father and me. My mother couldn't take seeing my father humiliate and torment me because I acted like a boy. Behind closed doors and my mother's back, he even went as far as to beat me. He thought that knocking some sense into me, in the literal sense, would help me realize that my whole life I was living was a joke. It's been five years since I've talked with my father. The last time we exchanged words was when I was packing up my stuff to move into the apartment my mom had gotten. His last words to me were, "You should be well aware that you will go to hell, you useless, disgusting excuse for a human being. You have no worth of living."

Those words have been branded into my brain, and they refuse to leave. After that day, I turned to cutting and burning myself. Self torture felt like the right thing to do; it was an outlet that I could let out my frustrations with. No one knew what I was going through, and not many ever will.

In middle school, gym was the most worrying subject on my mind. I was worried that if I were to go into the boys' locker room to change for gym, that I would get caught and that the boys would do something to me. So every day of gym class I would change in one of the bathroom stalls. And when we had swim unit, I would always have a note saying I couldn't swim due to a medical reason. I went almost the whole three years of middle school without being caught. But one day, on the last month of school, I got my period. I was changing into the school-issued uniforms consisting of a cerulean blue shirt with our school logo on the front, and bright yellow jersey shorts with the same emblem on the side. I was just walking out of the stall that I had changed in for the last two and a half years, when someone shouted, "Hey everyone, Torres is on his period!" I turned bright red and tried running out of the room, but people started to catch on. They knew that by my facial expressions that I really was on my period. The guys in the locker room blocked all of the exits so I could not get out. Phrases like, "Wow, you really are on your period.", "Freak!", and "What the hell are you?" filled the room. I feared for my safety and my reputation at New Market. Before this happened, I was known as Adam Torres, the cool guy who liked comics and got along with everyone. But after that incident, I was known as Adam the Trans Freak.

That day, I went to school just like every day, except I went home with three bruised rips, a sprained wrist, and a nasty black eye. The guys that hazed me weren't found and I did not tell on them. I thought if I just keep my mouth shut, I wouldn't have to deal with them anymore. Which I knew wouldn't be true. Everywhere I have gone and people knew of me, there was always that one person or even group of people who thought of me as a hideous, nasty freak. When all I was, was a guy stuck in this cage that wouldn't completely let me be me. I was trapped with no escape route; no comfort but from four people: Eli, my mother, step-dad, and my step-brother Drew.

My mom and step-dad had asked me what happened when I came home, but I just brushed them off saying I got hurt in gym doing something. I knew that they found my excuse suspicious; I'm pretty sure they knew I was hazed. My principal and all of my teachers had known of my secret, as well as the entire school by the next day. I was called down to the principal's office to get questioned about what happened. They had called my parents in, telling them that I was hazed in the locker room by a group of unknown boys. Turned out that Eli had been in the locker room right at the time the group of guys had got to me, and had told the principal. Thankfully he had spared the embarrassing details, but by the time the story got around, the principal could piece just about everything together.

My parents were called into the office with me to talk about the troubles that went on. And, basically, my principal kicked me out of New Market for "being a disruption for false accusations and impersonation of a young man." I was asked to leave that day, but my mother didn't go down without a fight. She, along with my family, fought the school board and PTA to keep me in school. But one day, I had to call it off myself. Yeah, it hurt my pride, but I really didn't want to go through anymore pain and suffering. Nor did I want my family to either, just because I was trying to be myself. I thanked them for all of their help, but asked them to just let me transfer to Degrassi, the school where Drew had been going since grade seven.

So I left New Market and started my freshman and sophomore years at Degrassi. I was glad to be with Drew, and even more glad to have a fresh start. No one knew me, I knew no one, except for Drew. And that's how I liked it.

But now I'm actually comfortable. Eli is back with me and I made friends with Clare Edwards.