the funny thing is when my mom was together with my dad --like as a thing and he would run to the pay phone across the street from where he lived whenever his pager went off that she was calling him-- his dad asked her is she was going to give him a grandson and my mom being the person that she is told me that she laughed and said maybe
the funny thing is when i was born and the midwife announced that i was a girl my nan who had mistook my umbilical cord for a ***** leaned over and asked the midwife if they were sure
the funny thing is my grandfather’s mother she always thought that i was a boy and yes i know that she had alzheimers and was not all there but now i feel like she was able to see through my dresses and long hair to the boy that i would one day be
the funny thing is i was often mistaken for a boy as a child and when that happened there was always a little burst of warmth because yes i was a boy i looked like a boy i felt like a boy but no no no silly girl they all would say
the funny thing is when i first met my father’s father my grandfather if you will i was a lesbian and in texas that isn’t a widely accepted thing and i was told a lot during my two week visit that i just hadn’t found the right man yet and so now that i am a man i wonder what they would tell me now
the funny thing is i don’t have bottom dysphoria have a ****** does not bother me i like being able to comfortably ride a bike and read ****** novels in public without it being obvious that that is what i am doing
the funny thing is my grandfather’s mother who we all called papa lucy died before i realized that i wasn’t a girl i had that terrifying revelation at seven and though my memory is foggy through much of my childhood she passed a year or two prior to that and no i do not mean it is funny that she died because that is terrible and i loved her with all my heart but it is funny that she saw who it would take me nine years to be and i didn’t get to reintroduce myself to her and tell her she was right
the funny thing is now that i am a boy i am near-constantly misgendered and it seems that no amount of slouching or wearing a binder under it feels like my ribs are cracking with every breath and wearing pronoun buttons on my sweatshirt and bright rainbow beanie is enough to make people see otherwise
but ****** i am a boy and my nan thought i was a boy and my papa lucy knew i was a boy and i used to get mistaken for a boy before i grew hips and **** and despite all those things i am still a boy and i always have been and i always will be and the really not funny thing about that is that people seem so eager to tell me i am wrong and try to force me back into the box of daughter and woman and mother and sister and no i will not be those things and it is not my fault that i live in this world where they do not know what a body other than theirs means and how terrifying it is to realize you are not the girl you were raised as at such a young age you do not have words to describe how you feel and they do not know and they will not know until they shut their mouths and open their minds
so please do before any more of my transgender brothers and sisters have to die for your ignorance and hate and fear because there is nothing funny about that