To Hide or Acknowledge My Past
August 8,2019
As always, I’m writing this from my perspective and am in no way a professional just sharing me personal experience.
Let me start by discussing for a moment dead naming. Dead naming means to use someone previous name and or pronouns. As I share my previous name for this article it’s just to help relate to my previous gender. Dead naming someone can lead to extreme self-harm. PLEASE respect a person’s pronouns and name they’ve chosen to use its more important than you realize.
A few nights ago, while attending a trans group meeting the discussion was being directed by how we would respond to questions asked in a forum. One of the questions was what to do about your previous gender prior to changing. Should one try to completely erase the life they were living.
Many of us wish to eliminate all are previous names and gender references once we transition. Depending on a person’s feelings about their current life and the past we each have different feelings and thoughts about what this means.
I was born Paul Joseph in January of 1969 as a male according to the doctors. I was the first born from my mother. My biological father stepped out of my life shortly after my birth. My mom remarried and I was adopted by my dad who had a daughter and a son who were both older than me. My new sister was a few years older and my brother just a couple of months older. I grew up with very loving and educational parents and grandparents. I followed my Dad and grandpa’s around as they worked on anything always trying to help. I shared a bedroom with my brother and played cars, games, sports, bikes with him. The thought of getting to use tools and work on the car or house made me excited. I enjoyed playing ball with my brother and enjoyed playing with cars. I also enjoyed playing with barbies and dolls with my sister. As I grew up, I enjoyed watching racing and loved to work on my bike and my tree house. I liked working on cars or just about anything with tools. I enjoyed the cars and learning about the maintenance. Because I grew up as a traditional male my knowledge of many male things were ingrained in my brain and body. As I fought through the feelings of being a girl my thoughts were but I’m a guy. I fought back and forth as a teenager with racing or dresses with little understanding. I grew up trying and learning many different things and gained a super knowledge of many things a vast majority of them being male things. Fighting through the many days of boy or girl with myself and society because the doctors said I was a male at birth. After several battles of why I felt like a girl the reality has set in. I am a girl and because I’ve acknowledged the fact and transitioned the question is what to do with all my previous knowledge gained as a male. I don’t know if there is a perfect vision of what I should be as a woman. I see no reason to hide the things or the accomplishments achieved while living as Paul. Paul took many great pictures and while I wish my childhood pictures were of me in a dress instead of a shirt and tie the reality is Kimberly wasn’t out of the closet and was hiding. I learned many different talents many of which I still use to this day. I was able to become a father to my daughter although internally I wanted to be the one giving birth. Because gender isn’t sex it stems from the brain and my lack of understanding about gender lead me to hide my true feelings. I wouldn’t change the fact of having a beautiful daughter. Why I hide some of my male things is because of my need to be recognized as the girl I am as Kimberly. Thinking back as far can remember there was a need to hide my male pictures because of wanting to be my true self. As I’ve gone forward and fully acknowledged my true gender as a female there’s still a love for most things I enjoyed before. I still like collecting tools oh and dresses. I still like racing. I still like fixing things with tools. I still think my pictures as a child were cute. I understand my actions may sometimes flow more toward the masculine stuff like talking cars and trucks. I’m learning many things about feelings that I suppressed to be able to cry and emotionally talk. The blessings of having gained so much in my life prior to and since my transition has me grateful for each step of my life. I don’t like to hear my previous name or gender because it hurts. This doesn’t mean I’m ashamed of any part of my past.
Love and respect each other
Kimberly
To Hide or Acknowledge My Past gender