Pick-A-Day

March 2024
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A Boy Like Me – Personal ruminations about the T in GLBT – and me.

Last week I finished reading A Boy Like Me, which is a young adult novel focusing on the story of Peyton, a boy who was born a girl.

It’s a story focusing on the trials and tribulations of being a masculine acting girl, who hates her birth name, and wants to be a guy – but isn’t. And he has a girl who he wants to be his girlfriend. Although the story is interesting, I didn’t actually find the internal motivation of Peyton to be all that strong – there was angst, but some how it seemed less internally turbulent than I expected. Peyton has a therapist who teases out the FTM aspects of Peyton’s inner-compass, but some how the inner-angst is never really communicated to the reader – at least not this reader.

I guess I’m saying that I have very mixed feelings about the book. Maybe it speaks better to the struggling FTM teenager. Since I’m not that guy, I will withhold any more serious criticism.

But it – along with an old college friend finding me on Facebook – brought me back to thinking about my attitudes toward transgender issues.

The fact is that when I was at UWyo, I thought the T in GLBT went a step too far.

But that’s because I wasn’t comfortable with myself – I wasn’t comfortable with the G in GLBT, never mind the L, the B, or the T. Coming to terms with the G took me a couple of years – it wasn’t until I was in Indiana that I came out (even if others knew before I came out – we are talking about my internal experiences here) and became comfortable with this.

Once comfortable, I was fine: I’ve been close with at least three people who are best described as transgender. If I’d met them as a freshman at UW, I would have turned and run away as fast as I could. But now it doesn’t turn my head – unless he’s exceptionally cute.

There’s a growth pattern here – an inner evolution for me as I’ve come to realize that I want everybody to be themselves – even if that means changing.

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