By Anders Zhou and Michael Herrera
ELIJAH THORNBURG
Whenever Elijah Thornburg, a senior at Castilleja High School, enters public restrooms, he feels nervous.
And it’s not the abhorrent smell or the fear of stepping in a puddle of urine that gets his heart beating — it’s the fact that he never knows what the reaction of an occupant might be if they know he is transgender.
As a young child, Thornburg resented the fact that people assumed he would act like a girl. “I never liked that people expected me to wear dresses or expected me to wear pink. You know, very trivial things, but they’re very real to a young child’s reality.”
Thornburg also fit the description of the stereotypical tomboy: he wore basketball shorts and spent his time with male friends. As he hit puberty and entered middle school, he started to become self-conscious that he was different from what others expected of him.
The self-consciousness reached its peak in seventh grade when Thornburg decided to try his best to conform to others concepts of who he should be. But he found that the dresses and makeup weren’t for him.
“People perceived me the way that I guess I wanted them to at the moment, but it just felt like I was lying to myself and lying to everyone around me, and it felt like I was just putting on a very good costume,” he says.
Within a few months, Thornburg came to the realization that he did not identify as female. After he cut his hair and began wearing more masculine clothes, Thornburg finally felt comfortable in his own skin. “I didn’t even notice beforehand that it’s not really common to be scared of looking in the mirror because that’s what I’d learned to ever since going through female puberty, but then when I started to do things with what I was wearing that made me look more male, I realized ‘wait a second, I can actually look myself in the mirror.’”
Thornburg came out to his entire junior class during orientation. Despite some individuals who were less accepting, the response from Thornburg’s community was generally positive. This included the school faculty, which had no reservations about letting him stay despite the fact that the school is an all-girls institution.
But while those who knew him embraced him fully, when confronting strangers in public restrooms, his confidence would go down the drain.
Going into a women’s restroom and having the occupants pull their children away from Thornburg due to his outward male appearance was horrifying. But the fear of a confrontation with a transphobic man was much worse. “I was kind of like, ‘Okay, I either have to put myself into a situation where someone else feels threatened, or … in a situation where I’m threatened.’”
“I think it’s really easy to sort of [villify] a group of people that you know nothing about. And when transgender people are sort of this foreign entity that has no personal connection [with you] it’s easy to say, ‘well that must be wrong and it feels weird to me,’” says Thornburg. “But what if somebody that you held as an infant, that you saw grow up, that you know [will] always care for you [said], ‘this is me’?”
Ultimately, Thornburg realizes that people want to be loving. Barriers are built from fear and emotional distance, but when the issue — being transgender in his case — is something that becomes personal enough to an individual, things begin to change.
Thornburg welcomes questions and discussions. Furthering communication is an important step to cultivating an understanding about every individual’s self worth.
“Number one,” says Thornburg: “we are every bit as human as everybody else.”
HAYDEN*
Being transgender, however, isn’t limited to switching between two genders like Elijah. Aragon student Hayden identifies as gender non-binary, meaning that they don’t identify in either gender category, and because of this, Hayden prefers being referred to as “they” instead of “he” or “she.”
In addition, Hayden is asexual — meaning that they don’t feel sexual attraction towards anyone.
Hayden often faces apathy when they express who they are. “There are some people where I’ve told them, but I feel like they just kind of try to casually pretend that I’m more [female and heterosexual] than I am.”
Even worse, some discredit Hayden’s identity. Hayden often has had tell others that no, it’s not that ‘they haven’t met the right guy yet.’ They explain, “there is kind of the idea that I’m too young to know my sexuality. I’ve definitely gotten that before.”
For Hayden, the experience of being misunderstood is quite acute in one specific aspect. “My parents, they try, but … I haven’t explicitly come out. Like they know I’m not straight … [but], from what I’ve seen from them, their ideas are more ‘there is straight, there is gay’ as opposed to the whole spectrum of things that there can be.”
A general step toward fostering acceptance for the asexual and non-binary community could come in the form of understanding it better.
“Education,” says Hayden, “is probably the main way that we can fight a lot of the issues that we have.”
*Hayden’s name was changed to respect their privacy
YVES MENSHIKOVA
Aragon alum Yves Menshikova identifies as pansexual. Pansexuality deals with the concept that one can love whomever they want without being attracted to any specific gender.
However, Menshikova’s gender identity is a little more complicated.
“I tend to avoid labeling [my gender] as much as possible,” says Menshikova, “but the closest description is somewhere between bigender and genderfluid.”
While gender fluidity emphasizes the idea that gender exists on a spectrum, rather than two polar opposites of masculine and feminine, bigenderism stresses that an individual may express two different genders with equal strength. Like Hayden, Menshikova prefers gender neutral pronouns.
As Menshikova started discovering their sexuality, they turned to friends, GSA, and the internet to understand themself. “It wasn’t even really articles, just hearing about people’s experiences through tumblr built a bigger sense of familiarity for me. Kind of like, ‘Wow, I think I sometimes feel this way too. How odd.’”
Menshikova’s journey to the discovery of their identity rested on the support of their close friends and peers. At first, they were excited to finally come to terms with their sexuality. But before high school, Menshikova had only ever been attracted to males, so they worried that perhaps they were just confused.“There was an overwhelming fear that I was doing everything wrong, that if I hadn’t known from the start [about my sexuality] then I was a fake.”
Throughout their years at Aragon, Menshikova struggled with their identity. Even after achieving acceptance from their peers, themself, and eventually their parents, Menshikova is still wary about coming out to new people.
“I have been in environments,” says Menshikova, “where someone literally says ‘I hate homosexuals and I want to kill them.’ And [I] make a mental note like ‘well, guess what — I’m not going to tell you.’”
“Even in environments where I feel more or less safe, coming out to people or telling them my pronouns gets my heart racing every time. It’s always a gamble.”
Menshikova realizes that there isn’t a manual for being a trans, queer, or non-binary individual, but it’s important to communicate with those who may be going through a similar ordeal. They conclude, “If talking to me about my experiences helps someone realize something about themselves, then that would mean the world to me.”
