The Fifth Column: How Was High School?
I apologize for not answering questions from my question box in a very timely manner. Lately, I have been rather unmotivated when it comes to my writing (not for lack of material, I assure you) and have decided to make an effort to overturn these unenthusiastic feelings and start churning out more witty paragraphs of information about myself and my experiences.
Garrett Hoffman is blogging his transition at transformgarrett.blogspot.com. You can read the rest of his posts here.
I was asked the questions “How was high school? Were people supportive?” High school was an interesting time for me. I was not out as trans. In fact, I didn’t even know that I was trans at that point…at least I had no language for it nor did I realize I had the option to transition from female to male. I came out as a lesbian at the VERY end of my high school experience and only to VERY few people.
I spent most of my time playing sports and getting into trouble. I was challenged by few classes in high school and while I’m sure I complained about it plenty then, I am now glad I had the time to make mistakes while young enough to blame them on inexperience, naivete and the immaturity of my frontal lobe. Throughout this time all I pretty much wanted to do was to grow up. I knew there were bigger and better things to be and be had and I, much more so than my peers it seemed, could not wait to get out of there.
When I did come out as a lesbian the people I told were very supportive. This was probably because I was very selective about who got to know that information. It was mostly confined to my rugby team…all of whom were either gay themselves or gay friendly (after all, you pretty much can’t be a homophobe while playing a sport where half the people are homos). I imagine if I came out at Minnetonka High School I might have gotten a lot of crap from my classmates although it’s not like I wasn’t gossiped about behind my back. The sexual orientation of the sweatpants-wearing ponytail-sporting high school basketball player is always in question.
In summary, high school wasn’t bad but it wasn’t great either. I imagine I would have had a much tougher go had I been out as trans or had I realized I was trans back then. I love seeing people coming out younger and younger because it forces people to break down their prejudices at an earlier and earlier age. There were only a few out GLBT people in my high school. Had there been more I may have felt safer and been more apt to come out knowing there was a community there to support me.
Related posts:
Recent Comments