âHow do you explain what it feels like to have been recategorized as a human being? That one day you were a normal person living your life, and the next day you were seen as abnormal?
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The Race To Be Myself
âFor those who are born different and feel they donât belong in this world, it is because you were brought here to help create a new one.
âOf course, growing up I knew I looked and behaved differently from many of my peers, but my family, my community, and my country accepted me as I was and never made me feel like an outsider. The beauty of my childhood was that I never felt othered or unwantedâthis is the source of my strength. I have never questioned who I am.
âI have never been in a âcloset.â I have never understood the whole Western âcoming out of the closetâ thing. I never hid who I was or felt I had to. Everyone in my world seemed to know. I didnât go around yelling that I was into girls but, if I had to address it, I would. If some boy tried me, Iâd say it straight out, âIâm into girls. Maybe me and your sister can talk. And if you like your dick, let us not speak of this again.
âSome of the calls were congratulations from family and friends, but many of the calls were from journalists and other media personalities. They all wanted to know if I was really born a girl. I can only imagine what my motherâs heart was feeling in those moments. This woman who had given birth to me and changed my nappies and taught me so much about kindness, and humility, and strength.
TWELVE: How Were You Shaped by Your Sufferings?
âPeople who are permanently damaged by trauma seek to assimilate what happened into their existing models. People who grow try to accommodate what happened in order to create new models. The person who assimilates says, I survived brain cancer and Iâm going to keep on chugging. The person who accommodates says, No, this changes who I
am...Iâm a cancer survivor. This changes how I want to spend my days. The act of
remaking our models involves reconsidering the fundamentals: In what ways is the world
safe and unsafe? Do things sometimes happen to me that I donât deserve? Who am I? What is my place in the world? Whatâs my story? Where do I really want to go? What kind of God allows this to happen?