My Personal Journey with Being Transgender

It's so very meaningful to me be understood simply as a women, without an asterisk. I feel most centered, and present when my gender isn't something people need a moments' thought about.

Would you please not share my transgender journey so people can first know me simply as Katie. My transgender journey isn't some deep dark secret, but it's not the totality of who I am either. Unless knowing about me would help someone with their own struggles, would you please let me share about my own gender on my own terms?

A part of me wishes I could cast a spell so everyone forgets I'm trans - including me. I love the place I'm at - happy in meaningful relationships, successful with my career, and joyful about life. I remember how I got here. Navigating through feeling rejected, defective, and utterly alone. Struggling when I'd notice a grain of truth in somebody's caricature of us and second-guessing my own validity. And then I realize how much my topsy turvy experiences of gender. are seeds of every quality I value in myself. If I can help anybody feel less alone or more hopeful, it's worth being quietly out.

Hey Everyone,

I’d like to share with you how I experience gender and what being transgender means to me. I’ve been flipping gender roles my entire life - literally toddlerhood (according to family) to today - except graduate school when I lived six years consistently as a woman. I’m planning to return to living as Katie next semester.

I chose “Katie” (“Kevin Todd,” “KT”) when escaping to playgrounds in first grade with hidden girls’ clothes to change into. The earliest critical voices wedged in my mind are peers' ridicule and my first grade teacher’s scolding after she announced a boys-versus-girls competition, hurried us, and me unthinkingly following my friends to the girls’ side of the room. I’ve struggled decades making sense of myself, so please know I would never expect anybody else to understand me so easily, especially when you’ve known me as “Kevin.” Though I’d very much appreciate if you’d start calling me “Katie” and using feminine pronouns by next semester?

To me, presently appearing gender neutral gives me a chance to be who I am outside a masculine gender box while also not feeling confined to a feminine gender box. I love being girly girl - embarrassingly so - but part may be having “fawned” under the authority of the gatekeeper model when I had to prove myself deserving of medical interventions. I passed with stellar “grades” whenever I’d sit before a gender clinic board of psychologists and psychiatrists, peppering me with questions (kind of like comps, but way more personal and intimidating). The last few years, I’ve been focusing less on changing my outside, and more on personal growth inside.

I originally transitioned as my first semester of graduate school ended. I was incredibly happy living authentically but not everybody shared my joy. Some professors in my Psychology department felt it’d be disreputable if someone so “disordered” as me was able to earn a Ph.D. in our field. I made lots of mistakes too, not always handling situations with grace and even today I struggle to fully process my emotions. I feel like I let a choir of critical voices constrict my heart into numbness (e.g., family, academia). My head chose salvaging my dream of being a professor. But honestly, I detransitioned out of a loss of faith in myself.

Derailed by critical voices and self-doubt, I arrived at CSUMB feeling so little control of my circumstances and so much of a need to get on track, I feel like I was standoffish and controlling sometimes. I’m very sorry and I’m trying to become a better version of myself.

On a lighter note, I’m Katie so much of the time and, if you’d like, I’m happy to get together. If you’re curious, I have so many bizarrely fun observations and stories I so rarely get to share. Like I’ve been both a teacher and a student in multiple gender roles. And my first publication was an essay in an anthology of queer youth, and it’s among the most banned books of the last few decades! How edgy am I? Not really. But I love having a place in decades of startling evolution of our trans and broader queer communities. Anyway, I appreciate you taking some time to learn a little more about me.

Best wishes,
Katie

I'm happy guest speaking, especially when I have perspectives and expertise helpful to share, like bridging my field of Psychology with my lived experience being transgender. I love having nuanced in-depth discussions fostering curiosity with topics like how Psychology of Gender connects with being transgender (e.g., theories of gender, mental health), history of our efforts to change hearts & minds (e.g., gender dysphoria vs gender identity disorder), struggles with faith, philosophical questions like how we can know our gender identities, and practical questions like improving health care. I also volunteer with speaker's panels through wonderful local organizations, like Triangle Speakers (Diversity Center of Santa Cruz) and Rainbow Speakers (Monterey) introducing LGBTQ+ experiences through personal stories and Q&A,

Sample Topics

• Applying Inclusive Health Care Principles to Enhance Physical and Mental Health Care of Transgender Persons
• Moving Beyond Judgment: Fostering Curiosity in the Psychological Study and Treatment of Transgender Persons
• Gender-Inclusive Policies in Practice: Helping stakeholders make decisions balancing cost and sense of belonging surrounding disagreement over transgender bathroom policies through research and sharing my personal experience.