i was born into erickson’s fifth stage of life
jumping right into the identity versus identity confusion
because everybody else thought they knew who
and what i was
and since i lacked the control of my tongue and vocal cords
to say otherwise
i was given a female name and gender

and that is what i grew up in
always feeling just a little bit wrong
especially at seven years old
when it really hit me that maybe i was broken
because i didn’t feel like a girl
but there were no words that i knew of
to describe and explain what i was

and that is what i grew up in
feeling perpetually caught in between
what others saw me as
and what i felt
what i knew to be true about myself

but how do you tell your parents that they
that the doctors
were wrong in giving you the female gender?

i grew up in that confusion
terrified when my body turned against me
at twelve or thirteen
and became fertile in preparation of the
life that i was not going to give it

and it took me nine years
from seven to sixteen
to find a word for what i was
and that just felt like a thousand years
to the child i used to be

and it very nearly killed me too
it probably would have
but i’ve always been stubborn about things
i felt i was right about
and i knew without a doubt
that i was correct on this account

and now here i am
stood before you
never knowing what those other stages of life felt like
because i was birthed right into the thick of things
and even if i could
i wouldn’t want to go back
because it took me so long
of feeling broken and wrong
to realize that sometimes people are incorrect
and that is not their fault
but neither is it mine for correcting them
and i am not going to apologize for that
because i shouldn’t have to apologize
for being transgender