Marisol Leyva

Growing up in a Cuban family in the Bronx, I didn't know what transgender was. Especially in the Latin community, a boy is a boy and a girl is a girl. But ever since I was little, I felt like I was born in the wrong body. I don't like to share what my name was before, because I would say that I've always been Marizol. I wanted to be girly. I would play in my sister's clothes, or put a T-shirt over my head and pretend it was hair, and my dad would be like, "Take that off. You're not supposed to be wearing that."

High school was horrible. I went dressed like a boy, but people still bullied me: "Why do you talk like a girl? Why do you walk like a girl?" I failed gym class because I wouldn't go into the boys' locker room. I thought being gay was where I was going to fit in, so I lived a gay lifestyle for maybe two years. I dated JR on and off during that time, a very masculine, older guy who looked like Usher. He was checking me out at a Mardi Gras party, and he was so laid back and easy to talk to. He wanted to lock me down. But I was battling with my identity, and something was still missing. I wanted somebody who saw me as a girl.

When I was 16, I met Lulu on MySpace (that was the big thing at the time). She was a little older than me and just fabulous — she had jet black, voluminous hair, and she dressed in little shorts like a Harajuku Girl. We met up for pizza in Greenwich Village, and she told me she identified as transgender. She said that meant, basically, when someone is born in the wrong body and feels like the opposite sex of what they're born as. (Lulu was assigned male at birth.) In that moment, I realized, "That's what I am too." It answered so many of the questions I had as a little girl. After that, I started meeting a bunch of transgender women. It was like, "Wow, so we do exist. I thought I was the only one."

That's when everything started to change for me. Outside of school, with my friends, I started dressing a little more feminine, wearing a little eyeliner, mascara, tighter jeans. New people I met would mistake me for a butch lesbian. I took that as a compliment, because it meant they saw me as female. My dad didn't understand. He was like, "I accept you being gay. But gay men don't dress like this." I said, "But this is who I am." I didn't have that moment where I sat my family down and told them I was a transgender woman. I was scared of their reaction — I'd heard stories that some kids got rejected and disowned. But my sister, Selenis, always knew. I'm adopted, and from the time I was a baby, she's always been my second mother. I remember when I told her about Lulu, she sat me down at her house and asked me, "Do you wanna be a woman?" I wasn't ready to say yes.

I didn't want to go through all the bullying, so I dropped out of high school in my junior year. Two months later, I began to dress as Marizol 24/7. I got a long, chocolate-brown wig and my nails done. I didn't do hormones at that point — money was an issue (they can get [to be] up to $400 a month for the shots), and I wanted to be sure first. Hormones are a big decision, and I was scared. Luckily, puberty didn't hit me so hard. I didn't get that much facial hair. But when you first start your transition, you don't fully look female. Before hormones, my jaw was still strong. At first, I got looked at like a crazy person walking around the Bronx. People on the street would say things like, ''That's a n---a. That's a man." It hurt, but I held my head up high. As trans women, we always have that worry in the back of our head that we're going to be spooked (called out for being trans) in the streets. You can wake up one day and feel beautiful, but then there are days when you're like, "Oh my god, my arms are too big."

I was scared to leave my parents' house as a full-blown woman, so I would go to my friends' houses and get dressed there. I would sleep at a friend's place half the time. It got to the point where my family and I didn't speak to each other because they still thought of me as the other person, and I didn't want to be dressed as Marizol around them. When I told JR I was transgender, and I was really going to start doing something about it, he said he didn't want to be with Marizol, he wanted to be with the person he met. I said I was still that person, that the only difference would be a physical change. He said if he wanted to date a girl, he would date a "regular" girl.

I was in a really dark place. I remember asking myself, "Why can't I have just been born a girl?" I was drinking, doing drugs, and got kicked out of my house. I spent some time at the Ali Forney Center, an LGBTQ youth homeless shelter in New York. That's where everything became clear. I got to learn from other transgender people, and I had an amazing counselor who helped me get Medicaid assistance for my hormone therapy, which I will be doing forever. I finally felt free.

Selenis had been like a mediator, telling my family who I really was and that I was getting my life together. I don't know what I would have done without her. I hadn't seen or talked to my parents much in about two years when Selenis said, "Come over for Christmas Eve." It was weird, but I was finally ready to show myself. I'd gained so much confidence being in the real world, and learning about myself and other people like me.

It was overwhelming — aunts, uncles and cousins were there. But I missed my family, and I wanted them to see how beautiful I looked. For so many years, I felt like I was in a shell. And that Christmas Eve, I didn't feel like I was in a shell anymore. I wore a fitted, black and silver sequin dress and Jeffrey Campbell boots that were so poppin'. My parents were just so amazed that I looked like a female. I think before, when I was dressing like a feminine boy, they worried that people were going to pick on me. That night, they saw me for me. And they saw that I'm still the person who my family raised. My dad sat me down and said, "You're my daughter. I love you." Selenis just ran to me, and we all hugged it out. It was beautiful, because I wanted to hear that word — daughter. That was the moment he accepted me for who I am. One of my brothers and my younger sister are still coming around; they don't speak to me. But everyone takes their own time with the transition, and I've tried to respect that.

Things still aren't easy. I think all transgender people have the thought, Am I safe to walk outside? Am I gonna come back home? I would love to make it as a model or a chef — those are my passions — but I have been unemployed for so long. I applied for a prep cook position and the interview went really smoothly, but two weeks later, I called the manager back and she told me my look was "too strong for a work environment." Right now I'm getting government assistance and finishing my senior year of high school online. After that, I'm going to go to college and major in culinary arts. I'm meeting with photographers, putting my modeling portfolio together.

Dating is hard — some guys think I'm a genetic girl and when I tell them I'm not, they're not down with it. A lot of guys want to be with you sexually but don't want a relationship because they're scared of how people are going to look at them. They think other people will think they're gay. A lot of the time, when we trans women find someone who does accept us, we think they're the only ones who will, and we have to hold on to them. I was in an abusive relationship — emotionally, physically, verbally — because I felt like I wasn't going to get someone else. Certain men think it's OK to put their hands on a trans woman because we were (physically) born a guy. I finally woke up and realized I wasn't safe, and I needed to get out. I learned that if you feel like you need to hold on to somebody because you think you won't be able to find anyone else, that's a red flag. There's somebody else out there for you. As I get older, I believe this is my destiny. I refused to be someone that I wasn't, and I'm happier now.

This story was originally published as "Living LGBTQ: What If You're Not Out?" in the fall 2015 issue of Cosmo for Latinas.

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