Second shot Vs. Almost 3 years…. My TVersary is the end of this month :)

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GPO Jason Robert Ballard

1) When did you realize the term transgender referred to you?

I have two small stories and in neither of them it finally clicks. When I was 13-14 I found a website called “SoYouWantTo…” and there was an article called “So you want to change your sex…” And I read it all, two or three times checking behind my back to make sure my mother didn’t walk in. It was horribly inaccurate now that I’m looking back on it… And I remember feeling ashamed, like I didn’t want to be a transsexual.

Then when I was in 9th grade I used to sit with the upper classmen during a study hall and one morning they were talking about how they thought it might be possible for a person to have the soul of a boy but be inside of a girls body. They didn’t know the name but they were clearly, looking back, talking to me and telling me it would be okay. 

I was Jason only online until my mother found out and we went over the options for me to be happy, and what I might be… then I finally accepted that I was Trans… But I didn’t forgive myself for it until much much later. 

Doing some none Trans* related sales to raise money for The Self Made Men. 

I’ve got a bunch of lots just like this one going up with items like Pokemon, 101 Dalmatians, Space Jam, Disney Princesses, Little Mermaid, Lion King, Bugs Life, Casper, and Rugrats.

My eBay page is - Listed here 

And again, everything sold is going toward The Self Made Men, which is a Trans* organization. 

Dear closeted or partially closeted GLB individuals.

I wanted to kind of line things up a little and give you a common ground between Trans* people or at least my experienced of being transsexual. There is this thing I like to call “the pretend game”… It’s that moment when you’re unsure how to speak about yourself. When you’re not sure if the people surrounding you are aware of something that you are, or how they will react. You are then forced to modify your conversation, maybe saying the pronouns of the opposite sex, when your significant other is of the same sex. Maybe not talking or sharing anything about yourself at all. For Trans* it runs a bit broader than just who you’re with and who you like. It runs through your baby pictures, the sports you played in high school, what is on your drivers license. Scars. Injections. Thoughts or comments you would make about injections, binders, and packing.

Self monitoring, however is just the beginning of the pretend game. Because I find that as soon as a cisgender person “finds out” is when the pretend game really starts. It usually starts with questions - “Do you have a penis?” “How do you have sex” “Have you had any surgeries?” And sadly, I’ve noticed typically in male cisgender audiences that these questions and concerns are really just them figuring out if you’re still in the man club. Five seconds ago, because he thought you had been born that way you were in, now we’re questioning you. Typically they can’t help it I suppose but as soon as they know you don’t have a penis, that you were socialized young as a female, that is when the pretend game starts. 

It starts with jokes. You’ll say something about having sex, or refer to something as your penis. Someone will say something about you being one of the only guys in the room, or about you knowing something a guy should know, or about you being straight (if you are) and they will laugh… Like, “well…. sort of haha”. To correlate this to the GLB community, I know that one of my bisexual friends gets “humorous” feedback from her friends about it being a phase, about her just being a slut, or that bisexuality isn’t even real. (That always gets me… Not real…) These are probably the most hurtful things to ever say to someone. Please, give me the ignorant people on youtube who outwardly hate me over someone who is my friend who can’t respect me enough to not play pretend. 

I find that as soon as I know someone is playing the pretend game with me, I have no interest in being around them. However, as we all know, I’m in a position in the community where going stealth is no longer an option. I identify as trans because I have the confidence to out wit the pretend game and hand them back something educational, rather than anger and frustration. But I also identify as trans openly because I don’t want to be blind sided by who knows and who doesn’t and having to self monitor.