Putting On My Big Girl Pants & Facing The Facts

We need to leave the kids alone and I'm so happy I am not a teenager in 2024.

Around the age of 16-18 when I was a late teen, I sort of dressed like a boy. It was a time where the indie sleaze/swag era ended and being a hipster was the thing. I recall in my last year of high school skipping school to go downtown and visit thrift stores for the first time. It felt so liberating to time travel within these stores: browsing old records and discovering new music, buying vintage band T-shirts and swapping them with friends, buying steel toe boots from the army surplus and oversized leather biker coats. One of my favourite stores on the Plateau in Montreal was a store called MEOW. I ended up working there when I was 19-21. Tourists and locals came strolling in to spend whatever money they had left to spend. In the Summer, outside the sun was hot as hell, and it smelled sweet but musty. Every time the door opened you could get a good whiff of the concrete jungle going on in the outside world, but inside the store, MEOW was a time warp. A Punk themed 1970’s pinball machine was a work of art looking like it belonged in Le Louvre. Maybe it was once owned by Joey Ramone, who knows... My boss would play Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on The Wild Side’ played on an old record player spinning the past into the present in the background. The weirdest clothes probably worn by Debbie Harry and Madonna with studs, rips and fishnets decorated the walls and ceiling, and T-shirts with band names I’ve never heard of before filled up all the empty spaces. We sold American Apparel T-shirts and had vintage prints for customers to choose from and we would print them on the T’s with a heat press. Super old school.

It is so unclear to me why I was so socially awkward, especially when I was 16-18 years old, but I really was. I think two things were going on simultaneously: I was uncomfortable in my body going through late puberty, and the world was my oyster: there was nothing in life I couldn’t achieve but I didn't know what to do with my life either. Firstly, during this time more boys were into me probably because I didn’t look like a little girl anymore. Throughout my adolescence I was more “under developed” than the other girls. My step sister used to tease me too, making fun of my flat chest. (Not so funny now when I look back). My mom once made this sly comment about my thighs growing. I remember perverts in the streets shouting at me whistling “nice ass.” All the creepy and uncomfortable things began happening to me around this age so I wanted to cover up. Also, I started working out and running to feel healthier and release some steam and I am so grateful I made this decision.

Mini Me

I wanted to bring all of this up in an article because I thought it was important to talk about my personal experiences with coming of age and raise a few of my concerns. What I see going on in the world right now with trans kids and teens is really concerning to me, especially as a woman who aspires to be a mom someday. It baffles me that teens are encouraged to transition into the opposite sex just because they have feelings; feelings such as distress and confusion about their body and sex, feeling a disconnection between their biological gender or thinking that they will be able to further express themselves if they change sex. Doctors go along with this too: if they see signs of depression or anxiety, and if the teenager says they are the opposite sex, this is now the end all be all to proceed with such a dangerous transformation. But my question is simple and straightforward - don’t most, if not all, teens feel weird at some point in their adolescence? Don’t most, if not all, teens feel uncomfortable in their bodies at some point? With all the over sexualization constantly occurring in our modern media like film, tv, music, even books, boys and girls have so much to worry about and they constantly feel so much pressure. Why do we have to tell them that they have gender dysphoria or it is because they are not the sex they were born as? It just seems stupid and harmful for nothing. Common sense just doesn't seem to be a thing anymore. We live in an alternate universe where if a 9 year old child says the sky is pink and never blue this is one hundred percent truth, and you cannot say otherwise even if you have facts to prove otherwise. Facts are meaningless, science doesn't matter, it's all about one's personal perception that has to be declared as the ultimate truth. Why do we have to ‘fix’ the kids or teen and not fix the way media is presented to the youth instead?

How scary would it be for a 16-18 year old me to be told that I was a boy, and not a girl because I had anxiety and felt unsure about myself? I would have been the perfect candidate to participate in the transition cult: I was moody and pierced my eyebrow, I wore heavy eye liner and oversized mens T-shirts, flannels, and mens biker coats, I began moshing at metal concerts and listened to Tool religiously, and I started drinking beer underage. If you don’t see angsty tom-boy written all over that description, I don’t know what to tell you, but that was me for a while. Bonding with other girls was difficult for me as well because I never felt like I had anything in common with them. Even while going through that, I never once thought I was a boy. But I’d place so many bets that if I were me in 2024, perverts and predators would be all over me encouraging me to transition. This is what happened to me: I naturally rode the wave and just went through my feelings and I turned out alright eventually and rediscovered my identity.

It doesn't have to be really deep or philosophical. Some things are just simple and it just is what it is. The so-called TERF’s and transphobes are being accused of bullying the trans community because we are retaliating and trying to promote concepts that go back to the basics. Teenagers are weird, they always have been and they always will be weird. About 0.5-1% of the population truly has gender dysphoria and the rest, well, it's a social and cultural epidemic and trend. Similar to the cutting/anorexia wave that happened in the 90s/early 2000s. I fell victim to this too when I was an even younger teen aged 12-13 so I can empathize. To be completely honest, I am not here to bully the trans community and I don't believe anyone actually is. Stating facts and truth is not bullying. For example, I, as a biological woman, do not want to see a biological man in the public washroom or changing room. Also, I do not want to see a man flailing around with tampons and bras because it's cute as per my article To The Late Night Double Feature Picture Show or Double Standard Complete Shit Show. It's not cute. It's dumb. When I have children, if I have a little girl I do not want a naked man walking around her if she goes to a public swimming pool and uses the restroom. Same for if I have a little boy. I would not want a naked woman walking around him. This is simple common sense… why are we even debating this?

Ultimately, the truth is no matter what, you are born male or female. Some boys have more feminine traits but are still boys, some girls have more masculine traits but are still girls. If you transition, ex, you are a man who transitioned into a woman. That is what you are, a transwoman - but you are still a man. Most of all, we need to leave the kids and teens alone. Let them be weird, let them get over it. I put on my big girl pants a long time ago and accepted the facts - you all should too.