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Through my eyes: Living as a woman of transgender experience

Written by Corey Rae 

IN the hopes of humanizing our community to the general public, I’ve made it my career to help bridge that percentage gap and help society better understand transgender individuals.

The questions I often hear are about the inner workings of the medical transition. As a woman of transgender experience, I’ve seen firsthand how the world has changed, both socially and medically, over the past 15 years. I’m Corey Rae, and before I was an activist, actress, model, speaker, and writer, as well as the world’s first transgender prom queen, I was a kid going through a self-discovery that takes most people a lifetime.

I’ve expressed my femininity since before I can remember. At the age of 2 years, I asked my mom for a Cinderella dress and Barbies, which she gave me, no questions asked.

I’ve pretty much always known that I was different than those around me, but I never had a word to describe how I truly felt.

My journey begins

 

In 2006, when I was around the age of 12, I was flicking through a People magazine on career day when I read the word transgender and a quote from a transgender teenage boy saying, “I feel trapped in the wrong body.”

Until that moment, I thought I was the only person in the entire world who felt the way I did: trapped.

Soon after, I showed my mom the article and told her I wanted to become a girl. She not only accepted me but also worked to help me transition with the utmost unconditional love and support.

Back then, we were using Ask Jeeves instead of Google, and if you typed the word “transgender” in a Word doc, it would appear underlined in red because it was not a recognized word. It goes without saying that there wasn’t much information out there, especially for trans children and teens.

Fast-forward to the fall of my junior year of high school. Still presenting as male and suppressing myself began to weigh on me and affect my mental health.

In November, my mom asked if I wanted to start wearing her clothes, and I, of course, said yes. During this time, she had read a New York Times article that led her to a few medical specialists who kept referring her to other specialists. After a month or two of me wearing her clothes, my mom found Dr. Margie Nichols, Ph.D., of the Institute for Personal Growth in New Jersey.

After my first session, Margie recommended that I start socially transitioning at a slow pace. As I was quite young to transition, especially back in 2009, and already wearing more androgynous clothes, Margie recommended that my first step toward a medical transition begin with a visit to an endocrinologist. She said they would probably start me on hormone blockers as soon as possible to stop whatever early stages of puberty I was going through.

Dr. Wylie Hembree was a very old but wise endocrinologist in New York City who wrote the book on transgender transition. After our consultation, during which he put me on hormone blockers and made me aware of the side effects, we agreed to begin frequent check-ins.

At first, I felt nothing, but within a few months, I had rampant mood swings, greasy hair, and oily skin. I also started having bad acne breakouts on my chest and back. I was essentially going through puberty, just when all my peers were finishing it.

By April, I had grown my hair to shoulder length and was wearing mascara, bras, nail polish, and hand-me-down female clothes. In May, I decided to make a dream of mine come true and run for prom queen. I won, becoming the world’s first girl of transgender experience to do so.

Taking hormones 

Almost a year from when I began using hormone blockers, it was time to take the next step in my medical transition. At the time, a person had to live as their “preferred” gender in order to take hormones, which is no longer a requirement.

In February of 2011, I had my first injection of estrogen at Dr. Hembree’s Upper West Side office. Soon, my moods were swinging more than ever, my hair was even greasier, and my breasts started to develop.

It was painful at first, but my breasts never grew to much more than a small A cup. Over the years, I’ve noticed the incredible effects that estrogen has had on my body. My breasts get bigger when I eat and workout more, and my hair is shinier. Estrogen keeps my skin soft and softens the appearance of my facial structure and body shape.

Recently, I started taking estrogen under my tongue instead of swallowing it (under the supervision of my doctor). As a result, I have noticed a big change in my breast development, as well as positive changes in my mood and energy levels.

At home, I was uncomfortable giving myself the shot, but I knew I had to so that I could be the person on the outside that I felt on the inside. So, I continued to give myself the weekly dose I needed in my thigh when I went off to study at Hofstra University, NY.

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