If I was Your Man: A story of a Transgender

Chapter One: Growing Up With Charlene

My friend, Charlene always had a hard time growing up in the hood. Let me tell what life was like with her as a kid in a poor neighborhood. Life wasn't always easy, but we made the best of it. This is her story.

Charlene was a tough girl growing up in Detroit, Michigan. She was raised by her mother just like me. I'm Sam by the way, Charlene's best friend. I remember when we were about 10 years old, we were a lot different from other girls. We both liked girls and we always dressed like boys. We always were acting all hard and tough, so nobody would mess with us. I guess you can say we were pretty much acting like roughnecks. We walked and talked like the boys do. When we got home, we had to put that aside because if our mothers caught us acting that way, we knew we were gonna catch a beat down. When we were about thirteen, We used to sit outside and listen to music on the steps. We would watch the girls pass by and they would tell us that we were cute. They thought we were boys at first, but when I spoke up, they were like, "You're a girl?! Ewwww!" and they run off. Me and Charlene would laugh like crazy but we knew that they actually like us. They just didn't want to admit it. That was some good times.

When we were 15 years old, we used to work at the grocery store. On our days off from work I liked to buy snacks and Charlene used to buy magazines like playboy and men's health. She bought so many of them so when we got home, we would go into her room and sit on the bed. Charlene would pull out the magazines and open them up. She would tear pictures of men out of the magazine and stand in front of her mirror. She would put the picture in front of her and imagine she was a man just like like the picture. She also would read the men's health magazines to help build her muscular body image. So Charlene started working out and building muscles. The next day we would go to school, the girls would tease Charlene for looking like a guy and the boys made it worse. They threatened to beat her up for looking like a boy. All through high school, Charlene would get harassed and teased by boys and girls at school. They felt offended by her and it would make her so mad. One time she got into a fight because a boy calls her a faggot. She couldn't take it anymore and she beat him up. When her mother came to school to pick her up, she was furious. She bought her home and whooped her ass. She was grounded for two weeks.

As for me, I'm a butch and I was raised by my mother also. I was also teased and picked on by the other kids in school. Charlene always had my back when it came to bullies. My mother and I always fought a lot just like Charlene and her mother. We never saw eye to eye. I hated the way my mother treated me. She belittles me and beats me everytime I don't wear what she wanted me to wear. I was more of a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl. My mother didn't approve of that and neither did Charlene's mother. They didn't approve of our friendship either because of our lifestyles. We didn't stop being friends though, because she was the only one that understood me and I understood her.

Charlene and I hung out all the time and we always had fun. I remember when we were 17 years old and Charlene wanted to do something wild like go to a gay club. She got the hook up by her cousin Dessy a.k.a. Desiree, who is a D.J. at the club and she got us fake I.D's. Then Dessy took us to the mall to find some clothes that will make us look older and cooler. So we waited until our mothers were asleep and snuck out the house around 11p. m. I was ready to have some real fun. So we rode in Dessy's car and she took us into the club. The music was loud, girls were either drinking, smoking, or dancing, and the dance floor was packed with people. So Charlene and I ordered a drink from the bar and went out to the dance floor. The next thing we know, we're approached by two beautiful women. They were fine as hell and we danced with each other. I decided to smoke some weed for a bit. Charlene and I got so high and the girls took us to the their place. We had more drinks and we ended up getting drunk. We passed out and woke up the next morning.

I was like "Oh Shit! We gotta get home! Our Moms are going to kill us!" I had a major headache and so did Charlene. So the girls offered to give us a ride home and when we got home, our moms were waiting for us. I went in the house and my mom gave me the worst ass-whooping of my life. She grounded me for a month and I couldn't leave the house except for school and work. As for Charlene, her mom whooped her and told her not to hang out with me anymore. She was grounded for a month. Looking back on it, we pretty much laughed about it.

When we were 18, we graduated from high school and decided to leave home for good. Our parents wanted us to go to college and have real careers here in Detroit, but that's not what we wanted. So we decided to move to California. All I had was $500 dollars and Charlene had $400 dollars. Our mothers hated that we made that choice.

Then we sat down with our mothers and told them that we were gay and they were so furious. They kept saying, "You're going to hell for this! Don't ever set foot in the house again!" We packed our bags and left home that same day, then Charlene drove to the airport and bought us plane tickets to California.

At the time, I could almost imagine my mother sitting on her chair crying out, "What have I done? Was it my fault that she's gay?" The sad part is that our mothers will never understand our pain and how we feel. It was no use to sit around and try to explain. I actually cried and tears fell down my face. So we took our bags and got on the plane. We sat in our seats and I remember looking out the window and saying, "Goodbye Detroit!" and wiped the tears from my face. Soon as we took off in the air, I realized that for the first time in my life I felt really happy and free.