Celebrating International Transgender Day of Visibility

Today, in honour of International Transgender Day of Visibility, I asked my son Jules to share his story of coming out as trans. It’s been quite a journey for both of us so far, with lots of love and support for him.

It was early 2018, around this time of year, and I had realised that I didn’t like being referred to as my dead name or as a female. After a couple of weeks of pondering about said feelings, I started reading crap fanfics about gay guys and little love stories about them. I eventually came out to my mum as genderfluid and that I would prefer using he/him/they/them pronouns. I had already known that I liked most genders (I still don't know what my sexuality is!) and had told both of my parents that I was pansexual. I told my dad when he was joking around saying stuff about me getting a boyfriend, and I said, “or a girlfriend”, then I came out, at the start he didnt know what a pansexual was. After I explained, he said, “As long as they don't hurt you then I'm fine with whomever you go out with.” and that was the end of that. Coming out to my mum was a lot easier than I thought, my mum had been a social worker for a couple of years by then. At times I thought I was aromantic but I realised that I was the opposite, panromantic, and that I had never really fallen in love with either a real person and/or someone who I had been in close contact with.

Later into 2018, I realised that I was transgender and just wanted to be recognised as a male. I later told my friends and my mum, I lost some of my friends (even though I wasn't the reason, we just drifted apart).

In early 2019, I started going to a fortnightly social group for lgbti+ teens and young adults (Alphabet Crew). I continued going to the social group until Covid-19 hit our area. We had to go into quarantine. The group was held in Albury but the people who ran the group worked over the border in Wodonga. Soon, we started having zoom sessions where we played different Jackbox games. At the start of Term 2 in 2019, I came out socially to my school. The teachers started using my correct pronouns and using my preferred name, Jules. I had been called “Jules” since I was a kid so it wasn't a big change for me. I have just started thinking about changing my name to something new, like Timothy.

I started going to the gender clinic to see a paediatrician and a psychiatrist about starting testosterone, or simply known as “T”.

Jules with his Mum at the Wagga Mardi Gras 2019

In July, 2020, I started having testosterone injections. I didn't see much change after the first injection. But after the second one, slowly I started growing a moustache and my voice started cracking. I’ve now had four doses of testosterone, and my next one is booked in two months time. I’ll need ongoing injections for the rest of my life, and I plan to have chest surgery after I turn 18. I’m still deciding on my male name, I’m mostly using Jules at the moment, and am testing how I feel about a couple of others. I’m going to change my name legally so I can graduate with it when I finish year 12 next year.

The difference between sex and gender:

A great way to show people and get them to understand is something called the Gender Unicorn.

In greek mythology, it was said that drunk Apollo sometimes made humans in the wrong sex, thus making trans-people a thing in Ancient Greece. Whilst in Native America, they had people with two genders called Two-spirited.