Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin Page A

summer job. Because she had no choice in an institution, she presented as male, but everybody thought of her as female. Although she had lost a lot of weight, she was quite chubby.
    I still had my boobs.
    Her body was curvy. The other students liked her, and she was feeling very good about herself.
    I was happy.
    A lot of boys were hitting on her, as if they somehow understood that she was indeed a girl.
    I was the most popular girl on campus. I started home visits. I went home every weekend, Friday to Sunday. It seemed like everything was going good for me. I always wanted to go home, but I knew in reality home wasn’t good for me. The only reason I wanted to go home was that was all I knew — that was my home.
    In May, a new resident arrived. His name was Victor, Victor from Brooklyn.
    There was an event going on and I was looking at him, going,
Wow, he’s cute.
I really liked him. I would go up to him and talk to him and find a reason to be next to him. Our cottages were next to each other, and I remember looking at him through the window. I would look at him and smile, and he would smile back at me. I would skip school and go to the gym just to be around him, just to talk to him. I wanted to be his girlfriend. It didn’t seem odd or quirky; it was natural. I was confident. I don’t know where that came from because I didn’t have a lot of confidence at the time.
    Although they never had a physical relationship, Victor knew that Mariah was interested.
    Well, one time he approached me. He said, “I’m told that you’re really good at head.” I was freaked out. I was excited. I was like, “Oh, my God!”
    He said, “Well, why don’t you do that to me?”
    I said, “I would, but I have to go to work right now. When I come back, I will do it.”
    I remember walking with my work group and thinking, “Oh, my God, he wants to . . . you know . . . with me.” I had butterflies in my stomach.
    When I came back, I waited and waited for him. When I found him, I asked him if he wanted to do it, but he said, “I was joking.”
    And yet Mariah felt that they shared a strong connection. By the end of the summer, Victor was released from MercyFirst.
    It could have happened if he had stayed there longer, and if I had made a move. But I was really nervous at the time. I wasn’t how I am now. I was very shy. He was an older guy. He was seventeen or eighteen, and I was fourteen. I always felt that he was out of my league ’cause he was this really cute guy and I was this ugly, fat thing. Any girl could have had him.
    After Victor left, a Mariah Carey album was playing. There was this song, “We Belong Together.” Music never did it for me before, but when “We Belong Together” came on, I thought,
Oh, my God! Mariah Carey gets it.
That song talked to me. I love Mariah Carey. I’m a big fan.
    Mariah Carey is so beautiful, and I remember thinking,
I want to look like that.
I went into my room and it suddenly clicked to me,
Frank, you’re bisexual.
    I’m bisexual? It was like the wind blew in and hit me that I’m bisexual. I had a really good friend on staff at that time. Her name was Ruth. I went to see her.
    “Miss Ruth, I think I’m bisexual, but don’t tell anybody — I’m still new to it.” See, I wasn’t the type to be in the closet. I always told people who I was.
    Once I was released from MercyFirst and moved home, I started acting more like a girl. I started losing weight. I started dancing. I wanted a straight guy. I fantasized that I was out with a sexy guy.
    When I turned fifteen, I stopped taking my medication and started having panic attacks. I got into another fight with my grandma. I became very aggressive and severely depressed. Basically I was out of control — again.
    I also got into a fight with some kid and broke a beer bottle on his head. He needed stitches. I got charged. I went to a juvenile detention center, then back to MercyFirst.
    There was a staff woman there I fell in love with. Her