I feel sorry for this person. It could have been me 20 years ago.
as a child, the outside world saw me as a girl, even though I tried to make myself look as ‘male’ as possible.
What does it mean to "be seen as a girl"? Repressive stereotypes. Every human adult female, once they realize this is what's going on, is infuriated
my parents tried to give me one of my sister’s old Barbie dolls but it held my interest for less than a day. I preferred to play football, or mess around on a guitar or with a drum kit. As I got older, I had really short hair, liked wearing boys’ clothes and always hung out with ‘the lads’ in my street.
Yay, stereotypes
I was seven years old when I first told my mum that I “felt different”
You were different. It's OK to be different. Everyone is an individual.
and that I didn’t think I was supposed to be a girl
What is "a girl" in the context of this statement?
Simply liking boys’ things wasn’t really what made me a boy, though.
What was it then?
It seemed like a huge fuss for them to make over something as trivial as what they thought boys and girls were supposed to wear.
Uniform rules are stupid and should be revised. Biological sex should not be linked to trouser color.
I couldn’t pretend to be someone I wasn’t and that’s why, aged 14, I started chest binding... I’m 21 now but my lower two ribs are still really sensitive
"I met pro-trans cheerleaders on the internet and got hooked me up with dangerous devices that I used to self harm and which caused permanent physical damage."
I didn’t have any older trans people in my life to tell me I was overdoing it.
Nope, you put your trust into strangers on the internet.
I was fortunate my mental health wasn’t as badly affected as others in a similar situation to mine. I didn’t self-harm or try to take my own life but my frustration came out through violent anger.
"I bought into a lie that I could change sex. Reality didn't match that lie, as people continued to see me as female, since I am in fact female. This cognitive dissonance led to frustration which led to anger. Also, as anger is the only appropriate masculine emotion, being angry and aggressive made me feel validated"
they kept speaking to me as though I were gay, even though I repeatedly said I wasn’t. In the end, the mentor gave me a sticker which was supposed to make me feel empowered saying “SOME PEOPLE ARE GAY. GET OVER IT”
I am physically female and have stated I am attracted to other females and even though I have not come out as trans, I am upset that people believe that I am a female who is attracted to other females.
they’d all figured I was a trans male anyway. “It was pretty obvious you were male,” she said, to my absolute relief. “We were just waiting for you to officially tell us.”
Some of my friends believed gender stereotypes determine your sex which was really validating to me!