A young 20-year-old transgender man, Zach testifies to the violence there is to be born in a body that is not his in Trans-Uniques in their genre, Thursday October 6 at 9:10 p.m. on M6.
You were born a girl without ever feeling like a girl.
ZACH: Never. For me, I’ve always been a boy. Growing up, my mom always let me be that “tomboy” who preferred soccer, didn’t dress like a girl, and always chose a boy avatar for console games. It was during adolescence, with puberty, that the malaise arrived. When breasts started growing, I didn’t understand. Why didn’t my chest stay flat like the other boys? It was endlessly spinning in my head.
Do you then discuss this questioning with your mother?
No. She captures a problem because I spend my life, from CM2 to the end of college, summer and winter, in an extra-large sweater. Never a bra of course, but never a T-shirt either, even at the beach, even for sleeping. She thinks it’s related to my tomboy side, it doesn’t go any further.
When do you realize you are transgender?
At 15, when he came across a video from a youtuber telling his story. Suddenly, I understood: I was going through the same thing. I was mistakenly born into a girl’s body, but I was a boy. This video is the magic wand that changed my life.
When do you start talking about it?
At the time, I was in ninth grade in a boarding school. I begin to talk about it gradually, to my friends, to a few teachers. At the same time, I embarked on intensive research on transidentity and transition. After nine months, I was ready to tell my mother.
How did she react?
In fact, I wrote her a long text message which she read next to me. When she finished it, she hugged me. The first thing she asked me was, “How can I help you feel better?” And we ordered binders together (compressive bras, editor’s note) so that I could finally put on T-shirts!
Are you immediately considering a transition, hormonal and surgical?
Yes. I thought about it for nine months. I went to see a psychiatrist, an endocrinologist… The journey is long, so long that I had to go through the private sector to start taking testosterone. Today, after the hysterectomy, I only have one phalloplasty left for which I am on the waiting list.
You also obtained the change of first name on your identity card…
Yes, which means that I have never had to experience complicated situations, in class or for a job interview.
Why are you testifying?
Less for young people, who are very aware of transidentity via networks or the Internet, than for their parents. I want to tell them that having a transgender child is not an end but a beginning. Accompany them.
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