My parents paid for my top surgery this summer, and they have been helping financially (and in other ways) with my transition from “female” to male and my transition from student to independent adult, so it was understood that a birthday present from this year was not necessary as I’ve essentially been receiving amazing presents from them all year.

But being parents, they still wanted to offer something to me on my special day. So my mother sent out an email to her close friends telling them something along the lines of how this was a very important day for me, my first birthday as the reborn me. My first birthday as Sebastian, as a fully-realized (well, fully-realized in terms of gender at least) man. She explained the present situation and I think asked them to essentially be my birthday present. So i received a lot of really kind emails and messages from people who are not super present in my life any more, but have been really important either in earlier parts of my life or indirectly or really important to my mother and/or father.

I posted one of them on here.

And someone asked in and wrote what “reborn” meant to me. And truth be told, I had come out as “not totally sure but definitely not a girl” and adopted the name Sebastian among friends just before my birthday last year. I had a birthday party with my roommates and friends and got cards addressed to Sebastian and even a paper crown that said Birthday Prince (I still have that - it was probably the best thing I’ve ever received). But a year ago, I was not sure where I stood in terms of my gender identity, I had not even fully committed to a social transition, let alone any medical steps. And I had not yet been accepted as Sebastian, as a man, by my parents, and had not even told my extended family. Most of my cards and phone calls were for Sarah.

I was still figuring out who I was and who Sebastian was and if we were the same. And I was not anywhere near presenting myself as Sebastian to all of the people who loved me and whom I loved and I’m not sure they would have been ready to accept me as such even if I had.

So I think this is my first birthday as the reborn me. Reborn is a simple way of saying a whole lot of things. I think of my coming out and transitioning as letting this part of me out that had been buried within me since I was very young. I lived a lot of my life with part of me not only hidden from the world, but also hidden from me. I was disconnected, separate from a pretty important part of myself.

Every day that I lived as “not a girl” or as “maybe Sebastian” or as someone who “preferred male pronouns but would roll with anything” I found a little bit more of that part of me. I was reintroduced to my boyness. To the man in me, if you will. And perhaps to those of you who have not struggled with gender identity, this won’t make sense. How can yr gender be a chunk of who you are? For most people it seems like nothing more than a fact. But I think it is a lot more than that. And it definitely becomes more when you have to hide it. Because in hiding my male part, in being separate from it, I ended up hiding a lot more of me. I ended up not knowing a lot of me.

And so each day I found out a little bit more. Each letter or card or phone call I received to Sebastian, each male pronoun that was used, each time an XS shirt from the men’s side of the store fit, each time I was a boyfriend or a brother, it was like I was getting to know the part of me I hadn’t seen since I was 12, or maybe not even since I was I was 7.

And it wasn’t until I got “in touch” with my whole self, if you will, that I realized the weight of being so disconnected from part of me. When I was 16, I started taking Wellbutrin for dysthymia (I kind of mild, persistent depression) and executive functioning (focus/attention/etc) difficulties. Last year, I added a small dose of an SSRI for anxiety that I had been experiencing for years and had gotten more acute. Two weeks ago (maybe 3) I went off of them - initially it was accidental, but now I’m under the supervision of a doc so it is safe. For the first time in 6 and a half years, I am not taking anything for depression or anxiety. And I haven’t experienced any out-of-the-ordinary anxiety or dysthymia, and certainly nothing more acute like panic or a bout of depression.

A lot of things have changed in my life, and I’m older and my brain has developed more, so it would probably be inaccurate (and at least not provable) to claim that living as a man has single-handedly removed my anxiety and depression.

But I know that living as a man has made me happier and more comfortable. And undoubtedly is one of the main reasons I was able to successfully stop taking my pills.

So what does it mean to me to be reborn? In this context?

It means letting this part of myself out from hiding, and getting to know it, and letting the rest of the world get to know it. It’s about being whole again. I can’t tell you the last time I was truly whole. Was it before my gender identity developed? Or was it when my living as a boygirl was not yet challenged? By the time I was 2 and a half, I was in Montessori school and told to line up with the girls. And at some point before the age of 5, I was scolded by my teacher for trying to stand to pee. And by the time I was 7, I was at Catholic school and on dress uniform days I had to wear a jumper (by the time I was 12, I had to wear a skirt on those days). And by the time I was 9, I had to correct strangers when they read me as a boy. And when I was 13, I grew out my hair and got a purse. I cut it shortly after, and the purse was often left at home. When I was 15, I started wearing makeup, and at debate tournaments I had to wear a skirt suit (with panty hose!). When I was 16, I had my last boyfriend, but me being attracted to women, meant people labeled me as a lesbian. And at about that time, I started trying to live as comfortably as I could. But unfortunately, living as a woman meant that the closest I got wasn’t very close at all. And I existed in this weird place, where I didn’t understand why I wasn’t comfortable, because I thought I had it all figured it out. I didn’t understand why I hated that wearing a button down shirt made me look dykey. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t imagine being part of a lesbian wedding, when all I wanted was to someday settle down with a woman and have a classic ceremony and eventually start a family. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t picture myself growing older - there was no woman in my future. For a very long time, I thought it meant I was going to die before I entered adulthood. I thought it was some sort of omen.

As a child, I apparently told my mom something like she would never see my 20th birthday. She never told me, but despite her rationality and reason, she often worried that one of us would die before 2007. And my premonition if you will sort of came true a few years later. We didn’t make it to Sarah’s 23rd birthday. Sarah didn’t make it. But Sebastian did. Part of me that had seen 22 birthdays before it made it, and part of me - the part that wasn’t really me, but people thought was - didn’t, and that part of me that hadn’t had a birthday in two decades finally made it to his own day of celebration.

Dar Williams - Farewell to the Old Me 

Posted 1 year ago with Notes // Comments