Life of a Trans Man Lesbian: Part 1
The untold story of my gender journey
Before we dive in: Rey and the Archive exists because of paid subscribers. Your support helps me write, research, show up, and build the kind of queer community I wish I had growing up. If you value art, queer joy, resources, and community stories, consider subscribing for $5/month. It really does make a difference and keeps this work going. That’s the price of an iced coffee on a hot summer day.
🔒 Up next for paid subscribers: I’ll be picking up where I left off in this series, Life of a Trans Man Lesbian, diving deeper into my gender journey and how it intersects with my lesbian identity.
This series follows last week’s post, “Can Trans Men Be Lesbians?”.
Before I had the words to describe my gender, the lesbian community held me. It nurtured me. From the moment my Hispanic mother branded me as a lesbian when I was 15 years old, I shrugged my shoulders in resignation and just ran with it. In her mind, I had to be a lesbian because I showed no active interest in boys and hadn’t been in a relationship yet.
I didn’t know it then, but her assumption shifted the course of my life. That label followed me for years, tied to an idea of womanhood I never fully claimed. I kept identifying as a lesbian, even as I began to question that womanhood entirely.