Planting the Seeds of Destruction

How Selective Mutism, Internet Addiction, and a Desperate Need for Belonging Steered Me Down the Path to Transition

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Matthew 7:13-14

When I was a little girl, I stopped talking. I don’t know exactly when, I can’t even remember there being a period before when I did talk. Apparently there was though. One time my mom, then an elementary school music teacher, had some other music teachers over to the house and I sang for them. Doesn’t sound like something a shy or anxious child would do, so I always feel a little odd when my mom tells me that story. It feels completely foreign. Most of that period of my childhood is gone from my memory. All I know is I suddenly stopped talking, at first even to my parents, then only to my immediate family and a cousin. Eventually I was able to whisper to a couple close friends.

I had selective mutism. I’ve always hated that name. It makes it sound like I was choosing not to talk, like I was just being selective about who I spoke to. But I physically could not make myself speak in almost every situation. At recess boys would continuously steal my prized Pikachu plushie and tell me they wouldn’t give it back unless I asked, and either a teacher would intervene if one was around to see or eventually they’d get bored and give it back. One time a girl a year younger than me even threatened to hit me if I didn’t speak. She followed through with her threat.

I started school right at the turn of the millennium. My family first got dial-up internet when I was in second grade and the first website I visited was britneyspears.com. The first time I was really able to communicate with most of my peers, other than writing notes, was through MSN messenger. Then I got really involved in Neopets message boards and guilds. I remember I had to print a permission slip for my parents to sign and mail in so I could access the boards. Being a mute kid, I heavily relied on the internet to build my communication skills as well as find a sense of belonging I didn’t get from my peers I couldn’t speak to. It was a world I could escape to where I didn’t have to be the mute kid, I could just be me. Or anybody else. I had entered through a wide gate and found myself in a vast and fertile field.

From then on I spent almost all of my free time on the internet. I used the Neopets guides to learn basic HTML so I could make guild layouts and CSS to use in the message boards. Then I graduated to making elaborate Piczo sites with different sections I designed myself, including a page where my friends and classmates could vote on a music video of the week to be embedded at the top. Rich Girl by Gwen Stefani won three weeks in a row. I had a few really hardcore Habbo years where I roleplayed as an Arithmancy Professor at a Hogwarts someone had built using “furni”, in-game furniture bought with credits users could decorate their hotel rooms with. Naturally when I came across Tumblr, what was to become the central hub of weird kids who are too online, I fit right in. The soil had been tilled.

One day I was scrolling through my “dash” and I came across a photo of a shirtless man. What made me stop scrolling for a few seconds was the caption. It said he was a female-to-male transgender man. He had gotten “top surgery”, the cutesy gender-affirming name for a double mastectomy, the removal of breasts. Covering his scars were tattoos so you’d never know he’d had surgery. He was an attractive guy too, alternative looking, you know the type. Tumblr’s type. So also my type. I remember thinking to myself, “Wow! I didn’t even know you could do that…” and then I continued scrolling. And just like that the first seed was planted.

I’m not sure how long it was after that FTM and other trans related content started popping up all over YouTube. But I don’t think it was a slow infiltration. I saw that photo on Tumblr and quickly forgot about it, and then all of a sudden I was watching hours of transitioning videos on Youtube. Like they just sprung up out of nowhere. Or I triggered the algorithm somehow. Or I just happened to be the perfect type of person to fall down that rabbit hole. There was even a reality show with a bunch of transsexuals (this was before that term was offensive) living in a home together for a summer so they could share their transition experiences and (re)educate the public on trans people. They even brought in an FTM to show off his phalloplasty, and the result was actually impressive (of course they wouldn’t bring in a botched result for TV!). Yet another seed planted selling the unobtainable as obtainable.

I think what really sealed the deal for me was one FTM YouTuber I really looked up to. For the record, I don’t blame him or any other trans content creator. They have every right to tell their story, and I’m happy that they’re happy with their transition, and I’m happy for all those they’ve helped. I’m just trying to unravel how I was able to get sucked in to something that wasn’t right for me. I don’t think he makes content anymore, but please don’t seek him out to send hate.

This YouTuber had also been mute and made a video about discovering he was trans when another student asked if he was a boy, and finally he was able to speak and say yes. Everything fell together for him when he was able to transition, so I guess I thought transitioning must have been the thing I’d been searching for that would finally make everything make sense. It didn’t matter I had already been talking again for a decade, it must have been related to my need to transition! It fixed all his problems, right? And up until then I had never come across someone else who had so many similar thoughts and feelings as me, let alone someone who also had been mute! This must have been the missing piece all along.

The soil had been tilled. The seeds had been planted. Now they were starting to sprout. I watered them by slowly coming out to my close friends and family. I came out to my mom through an email while she was at work and linked some of that Youtuber’s videos. I came out to my close friends by sending them If I Were A Boy by Beyonce. My next step was to come out at school (I was in high school at 20 because I dropped out and went back at 19 to finish, a story for another day). Luckily the stage was already being set.

I was sitting in class one day when I overheard the kids behind me talking. They had just had another class together where the teacher had an FTM come in to do a presentation and Q&A. They were laughing and making transphobic jokes about him. I had never spoken to these kids in my life, but I got really hurt by it and got up and went to sit at the other side of the class (so dramatic, I know). I sat fuming and brewing a plan. They probably had no idea what had just happened, and they had no idea what was to come.

Later that evening I came out as transgender on Facebook. I wish I could find the post now, but my Facebook account is long deleted. But I remember it started about how transgender people are hurting a lot and just want and deserve basic respect. How calling somebody who is already struggling things like “it” just makes you cruel (still true). And then towards the end I came out as transgender. And I definitely remember ending it with “and if anyone has a problem with it they can suck my perfect surgically created dick” (See, how male!) I didn’t even have a surgically created dick yet, and thank God I grew out of wanting one. But the seeds had been planted, and my mind had been the perfect environment for their growth. Because now it was time for harvest. And come to think of it, I’m not sure if I even had any of those kids on Facebook.