About

Hi, I’m not Aiden.  You can call me Not Aiden, Your Highness, or “Oi!  You!”

When I was four I told my mother I wanted to audition for the Vienna Boys’ Choir.  She told me I didn’t speak German.  I assumed that meant being a girl right now didn’t automatically disqualify me from being a boy in the future and started trying to find someone who would teach me German.

At age nine I moved across the state.  On the first day at my new school the teacher asked if possibly my name was spelled incorrectly on her roll sheet.  I told her it didn’t matter because I went by a nickname anyway and for the next two years everyone knew me as the sissy boy with a surprisingly good right hook.

Then middle school came.  During the transition the administration found out about that whole being a girl thing and quickly tried to rectify the situation.  I ignored them and started wearing my gym clothes under my regular clothes so I didn’t have to use the girls’ locker room.  It would’ve been fine, but puberty decided that would be a great time to torture me.

I switched schools the week after I started my period.  The idea was to give me space to start over.  Instead I used it as a way to let my old friends continue thinking I was a guy.  At my new school I adopted a tomboy persona, switching from the tight shirts and flared jeans that had marked me as a young gay male to baggy jeans and oversized sweaters.  I wore tight sports bras to keep my chest flat and traded my rollerblades for a skateboard.

By high school I was known as the tough chick who beat the boys at everything.  I’d stopped swishing when I walked, trained myself to speak in a monotone, and learnt to stare down anyone who bothered me.  I still couldn’t throw or catch, but that didn’t much matter to the skater crowd I hung out with.  I opted out of PE, instead choosing to join JROTC where I wouldn’t be expected to don a swimsuit or deal with the locker room.

It was an ok existence.  Not great, but as good as I thought it could be, given the circumstances.  At school I was the class tomboy, at home the depressed older daughter, and every other weekend I’d meet up with my old friends to be another gay teen with annoying parents.  My classmates thought I was weird, my parents thought I needed a shrink, my old friends though I had a glandular problem.  It could’ve been worse.

That was when we moved again.  By now I was about to graduate high school and was the only one of my friends who had never had a date.  I figured the only way I was ever going to get laid was if I broke down and tried the girl thing.  So when I registered at the local community college I styled my hair, borrowed some clothes from my young sister’s closet, and tried a bit of makeup.  Then I went to wash my face because I looked like a drag queen on acid.  Either way, my parents were relieved.

A year later I heard about a friend of a friend of a friend who “became a man.”  I was intrigued, but figured it was only the sort of thing you could do if you fancied women and promptly put the idea out of my head.  Then a friend told me about a former classmate who was in a documentary that had made it to the Sundance Film Festival.  A documentary called Transgeneration.  Small things like this continued to happen for about another year.  I’d hear about a transperson, find out they were straight, and move on thinking you couldn’t be a gay transman.

Then I found a website.  On this website was the story of a gay transman.  He’d started off liking women, but he liked men at the end and that’s all that mattered to me.  I decided to start looking into this transition thing.  Started off by digging out my old clothes and getting a haircut.  Came out to a few close friends who all shrugged and said they’d figured it was something like that.  By the end of the year I’d changed my name (the first time), started testosterone, and gotten disowned by my parents (I maintain they should’ve seen it coming).

It’s been years since I first came out.  Since then I’ve lived in seven states and four countries (and travelled to many more), changed my name a second time, and decided to live predominantly stealth.  I keep this blog because I remember what it was like for me when I thought you could only be trans if you were straight.  I also remember coming out and thinking I had to be a macho guy because even the gay transguys were at least somewhat butch.  If I can keep a couple of guys coming out now from thinking that then the risk of someone finding this and recognising me is worth it.