My Secret Life as a Teenage Boy

Gender exploration is a unique journey and a basic human right

selfie of transgender non-binary writer Evoë Thorne

I like to joke that my gender transition is the slowest, most ambivalent gender transition in history, but I know that’s not true. Everyone’s gender story is unique.

As a teenager in the 80s I grew up with drag queens who dressed like 1950s housewives and butch dykes who might have chosen to live as men if that had been an option when they were younger. I reveled in the gender ambiguity I saw in the media, pop stars like Annie Lennox, David Bowie, and Prince blurring the traditional social conventions around gender presentation. Classical literature normalized the idea of gender swapping. Modern women wore tailored suits with sharp angles and huge shoulder pads to the office. I was female by default, and it took me years to realize that I could reject the gender binary too.

Now, at 50, I consider myself transgender and non-binary. Usually I say queer or genderqueer, which basically means that my gender is complicated and actually, none of your business. It’s been a long journey that differs from the socio-medical model of gender dysphoria. Rather than flinching away from a gender that feels wrong, I have gradually gravitated toward a gender that brings me joy.

I’ve heard many people say that they knew their gender did not match what they were assigned at birth when they were three or four years old. My childhood was oddly ungendered, full of Toughskin jeans, Tonka trucks, and playing in the woods. I knew that people had different kinds of genitals, but I just never identified as a boy and accepted the role of being a girl because I didn’t know I had other options. My mother taught me that women could do anything, even though she chose very traditional female roles.

In my twenties and thirties I gave birth to five children and loved my body’s ability to support and nourish life. I tried my hand at burlesque because I thought that the caricature of femininity might help me gain more insight. I learned to play the role of femme fatale at parties and social events. Although I enjoyed the attention, in the stillness of my heart, I felt genderless.

I got curious about how other people have chosen to live in a gender different from what they were assigned at birth. I asked questions and they all told me to experiment. Transition is a journey not a destination. My personal path has felt more like peeling away layers of dead skin to emerge raw, vulnerable, and bigger than I was before. Or like shattering and reforming, dropping pieces that were never mine or do not fit me anymore, re-sculpting myself in a new image.

I legally changed my name to something more distinctive and androgenous than the generationally ubiquitous “Heather.” I changed my pronouns from she/her to she/they and then more recently, they/them. I got more comfortable asserting my preferences in social and professional settings. When my state changed the laws around gender markers on ID, I was first in line to change my “F” to an “X.”

My hair got shorter and shorter until I simply shaved it all off one New Year’s Eve. Some friends threw a masquerade ball for their wedding reception, and I gleefully rented a tux. I still wore dresses occasionally, yet I found it viscerally uncomfortable to put on the feminine lingerie I had once enjoyed. Getting dressed in the mornings could be challenging. Do I feel masculine or feminine today? With a closet full of clothes, none of them felt right. I bought jock-strap style underwear that made me go wet instantly. I stuffed a small flaccid prosthetic penis into the front. Rubbing that bulge against the kitchen counters made me gasp and shiver, as though the slight friction caused nerve endings to flare.

I dressed as a man and went out to dinner with my partner. No one looked twice and my initial fear gave way to a floaty sense of erotic freedom. I fucked him with a strap-on, high on the power and tenderness that suffused my body with each thrust. Over time I learned to change my sexual energy in the bedroom, to become male at will. Or maybe gender simply stopped mattering when we made love, a mishmash of projection and reception that melted into toe-curling orgasms.

I tried wearing chest binders, but they felt restrictive, hard to breathe, and my breasts were too big to hide even when bound. I sought out breast reduction surgery (my version of top surgery). I liked having breasts, but I was tired of unwanted sexual attention, back pain, and not being able to wear button-down shirts. I wanted to be able to express myself as any gender. Unexpectedly, smaller breasts evoked feminine body happiness.

I lost weight and my curves and jiggles went away. For the first time since being a teenager, I experienced the sleek physical delight of looking the way I imagined myself. I began lifting weights, pushing myself toward an inner and outer strength that was grounding and empowering.

Then perimenopause (and the pandemic) struck. I felt like I was at war with my body. Painful sex, frequent UTIs, brain fog, irritability, and weight gain became my new personal hell. So much of the ground I had gained in my gender identity was ripped away in the tumultuous tide of changing hormones. My sex life ground almost to a halt. We clung to our weekly dates, desperately trying to figure out how to increase desire and maximize pleasure. My doctor recommended oral estrogen, but I didn’t want to take it. I swallowed handfuls of supplements and used vaginal moisturizers. I grieved the loss of myself.

A year and a half ago, our youngest child came out as trans. Watching him define gender in a way that is fluid and inimitable has inspired me. When he began taking testosterone, I interrogated his naturopathic endocrinologist. The stalemate of indecision I had always struggled with when I thought of hormone treatment crumbled in the face of new possibility. I started on a dose that is marginally higher than what might be prescribed for menopause and much less than what is typically used to transition.

That first injection felt momentous, my hands slightly shaking as I watched the little needle slide into my belly fat. Some of the effects I felt within days, some have taken longer to manifest. I experienced fewer migraines, more ability to focus, greater energy, and better emotional stability. My partner started joking about me becoming a teenage boy. My voice dropped a little, cracking at awkward moments. I had peach fuzz on my upper lip, back acne, and I was sweatier.

Sex stopped hurting. Desire spread in me like a pressure on the roof of my mouth, an ache I needed to fill. I had to relearn self-pleasure because I couldn’t masturbate the same ways anymore. My clitoris went from being an innie (always tucked under the hood) to being an outie (extending just past the outer lips of the vulva). Where I could once bring myself to orgasm in a minute or two, my body now forced me to slow down and enjoy the exquisite sensation before climax.

My previously withering sex life became lush and abundant. I felt freer and more open with my partner than ever before. Erotism became my main hobby, seeking two to three orgasms a day. I worried about my lust becoming obsessive. When I expressed concern to my doctor he smiled and asked if it was getting in the way of my job or relationships. I thought about it and said no. “Then just enjoy it,” he replied. My partner told me to ride the wave of desire, and like any teenage boy, I would eventually make friends with my sexual energy and find a balance I could live with.

Embracing these changes has made my life so much richer. The thing that is overlooked in all the current political discourse about transgender people is how individual a process it is. Taking one gender-affirming step is not a commitment to a specific chain of action. Hundreds of times I have wondered if taking additional steps to medically transition would feel more authentic to my sense of gender, but I love my breasts and I don’t need my own penis. I experience so much pleasure with the equipment I have that it seems unnecessary. My gender is intrinsic and individual, not on the binary. Taking testosterone has not made me more male. It’s made me more me. I think David Bowie would approve.

Evoë Thorne is a sex therapist who works with LGBTQIA+ clients at Lysios Counseling. They live in Washington State with their partner and children. Evoë enjoys writing, photography (WholeSexLife), travel, and naming houseplants.