For most people, their birthday is cause for celebration. I mean, why wouldn't you commemorate the day you came into this glorious world?
Because you came in wrong.
I've always hated my birthday. It's coming up again and it seems to every year.
You see, on that day I'm reminded that I wasn't born female.
I take my birthdays off. I shutdown. I go into my cave. I hide from the world because everyone wants to remind me and they do it with a smile.
It hurts, but when you are still in the closet it really hurts.
Friends didn't understand why I couldn't be found that day. My aggressive outbursts came from left field. To them, it made no sense at all. I've lost friends over things I've said and done in my rage on my birthdays. That's another reason I hide away. To protect them.
Then one day I started taking hormones. The change inside me was almost immediate and euphoric.
We have a term "Testosterone Poisoning". It's used to describe the feeling of being controlled by a hormone that wasn't supposed to ever reach twenty times the level of an average female. It's not something you can understand until it goes away. What you're left with is who you really are.
That didn't mean my birthday was forgiven, but why shouldn't I have a day to celebrate myself as others do?
We call it my Re-birthday!
A friend asked, "Shouldn't that be when you got your name changed?"
"That's more like high school graduation in my mind," I replied.
For me, the day I started taking hormones was the day I started to take back control of myself and my body. I started to take back control of my life. It was my choice. No one forced me. No one or anything made a choice for me that day.
I owned it. I was reborn.
That day I celebrate and it seems to come every year.
Please be wary of this when you are dealing with a transgender person. As with all people, we are unique and I guarantee my perspective is not shared by all. But it might be by some, and you won't know until you ask, and please ask.
It might mean the world to them.