A/N: New story I made. I'll be posting more chapters for it soon but this is all for it so far. It's published and will be yet another Camila/You story. Only, this touches base on a couple personal things for me. I hope you enjoy the new book.
Trans•lu•cent
I walk up to the podium, holding my speech in one hand. After I had gotten up to it, I set the paper down in front of me on the wooden surface. I took a deep breath before starting to speak, "Ever since I was a child, I've always had this feeling that I wasn't the same as the other little girls playing on the playground."
I paused a bit, looking into the crowd seeing my classmates and friends. "I wanted to run. I wanted to play on the field, chasing after a ball up and down the grassy land that I deemed as Heaven itself. I wanted to get my clothes dirty, my hair messy, and just leave all expectations that a girl had to live up to. I didn't want to be proper or posh with my tea parties and dolls like my parents wanted me to be. I didn't want to play dress up of 'Family' with the local boys in my neighborhood or brother. I didn't want to be the perfect daughter my parents wished for and tried to force me into the roll of."
I glanced down at my paper to make sure I was following it correctly before speaking again. "The word "daughter", when referred to myself, just put a bitter taste in my mouth. It gave me an unpleasant feeling that started in the pit of my stomach and then spread throughout my whole body. Whenever my parents would say "this is my daughter" or "here's my daughter" or just something related to me being their daughter, I reacted with a whole body cringe."
I took another look up, locking eyes with a certain person in the crowd. "Now, don't get me wrong here. I have nothing against women. Honest. I love women. I support them all the way and I fight for equal rights, and I'll forever continue to do that. For the rest of my life. I'm just... not a woman."
My mouth pressed into a thin line as I read the next sentence off the page that I wrote. "Sure, when I was born, the doctors saw my vagina and then practically slapped the word "female" across my forehead but that's just that. They saw my private parts and corresponded that with what gender I related to internally. Of course they would, and who was to stop them? Not me because I could barely babble a real word through my mouth, not my parents because they wanted a girl, and not my brother because he just went along with whatever society had already engraved into his mind. And... he just went along with whatever our parents did. To put it in simpler terms."
I then launched into my explanation of gender in the US government. "In the U.S. government system there's only two genders, according to them, female and male. So, the white coats had to assign me to one of them, and they deemed that decision by whatever my nether regions were, whatever parts I would have concealed behind the material of my underwear."
My mind went back to the memory of my coming out experience. "I remember the first day I decided to come out to my family. I was in seventh grade, my older brother being in ninth because our two year age gap. I was hoping just about what everybody hoped when coming out to their family: that everything went well."
I took a quick pause for more affect. "It didn't. My parents couldn't grasp the concept of their "little girl" no longer wanting to be a girl anymore. They didn't get that I was never a girl to begin with, that I was a residing in a female body. They nearly about kicked me out then, but thankfully, and luckily for me, my brother stood up for me. He managed to convince my parents to let my stay. He'd always been the golden child anyways, so of course they'd listen to him. Sure, my parents loved me but I was never the center f the spotlight for them. And ever since coming out, they seemed to lose every and any sort of interest in me at all. The people I called mother and father basically told me I was no longer a child of theirs. They went on to ignoring me for the next upcoming years. You'd think that it'd be hard to avoid and ignore a person you lived with, but apparently it really wasn't."
I stopped again, locking eyes with another pair of specific eyes. "My brother, however, was a completely different story. He was always there for me and supported me. He helped me along with my transition, with getting my name legally changed, my testosterone, my everything. He was by everything. I may have lost my parents that day but I formed an unbreakable bond with my brother too. From that day on, we were practically inseparable."
I glanced down at my sheet before having a quick one over the crowd. "I am forever grateful for him, and I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have him. The only reason why I'm not dead yet or taken over by the wants of my parents is because of him. So, I want to give a huge thank you to you. Thank you for being there for me. You helped make me the person I am today, the graduate I am today."
