My Personal Journey with Being Transgender

It's so very meaningful to me when people intuitively understand me as a woman (gender schema). Would you please not make how I'm trans among the first things you share with people who don't know me well? Please let them connect with me as a person first so my journey with gender doesn't overshadow everything about me.

Even so, among reasons I detransitioned after grad school was feeling rejected and utterly alone. So if somebody shares with you their own struggles with gender, and sharing my journey could help them feel less isolated, please make an exception and share my story. I choose being out at school so I can be present with empathy and information for students and colleagues.

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 being a guest speaker, especially when I can help provide depth of understanding with my background and experiences, like connecting Psychology with being transgender (e.g., theories of gender, mental health), sharing history of our efforts to change hearts & minds (e.g., gender dysphoria vs gender identity disorder), and philosophical questions like an ontology of gender (e.g., "what is a woman?") and struggles with faith. I personally especially like discussing with people in depth, with enough time and space so everybody feels comfortable asking anything.

I'm part of Triangle Speakers (Diversity Center of Santa Cruz) and Rainbow Speakers (Monterey) too. We briefly share our stories as a panel introducing audiences to a diversity of LGBTQ+ persons and have Q&A. They're wonderful groups, especially when you would like to have a broad orientation to queer experiences.

Sample Guest Speaking Roles & Commentary

• 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 Restrooms: Sharing my personal experience with the trans & bathroom issue, addressing concerns of CSU administration during negotiations with CFA, about ways to improve the sense of belonging of transgender and nonbinary faculty, staff, and students.

My door is always open to you, for thoughtful conversation, practical advice, or just talking. Not for therapy, but to share your struggles with somebody who's been through a lot too - spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally. I love talking with students who wrestle with deeply personal struggles and eternal profound questions.

I know some people see me through political, religious, and scientific caricatures. If you object to me as "transgender ideology," I'm at a loss to respond because, to me, it's just so bizarre. Being transgender is a deeply personal journey - not really something for others to judge. Nevertheless, I appreciate your apprehension about taking a class with me. Please know, you are welcome. Professionally, I consider it my role to meet every student where they are. Personally, I feel a core value to approach everyone with curiosity, not judgement.

I love you with all my heart, soul, & mind regardless of your ethnicity, gender, sexuality, identity, religion, politics, abilities, or anything else. No exceptions. I mean it. Sometimes I struggle keeping my heart open to those who disguise in ‘religion’ or ‘science’ their disgust for people like me or who disguise as ‘justice’ their hunt for what they see as ‘monsters’ like me. But struggle isn’t hate, or even apathy.

We can learn together whether we share something in common or reach across divides.

I’m here to be with you.