Thomas Page
My name is Thomas, and I’m a transgender man. I grew up in a small farm town in Massachusetts in the United States.
From the time that I was very little – around four or five years old – I knew that I was different. It didn’t bother me too much at first. I figured I was just one of the guys. Time passed, and I realized how different I was from other people. It wasn’t just my feeling that I was a boy, when everyone was calling me a girl. My perspective was different.
When I got to college at UMass Amherst, I met someone like me. He was my RA (Resident Assistant) in my Freshman year. I will never forget the day that he took me somewhere to be alone on campus so that he could confess something to me. He said, “Some of the other residents are very uncomfortable, but I want to address you personally as my friend. I am a transgender person. I will be going on hormones and changing my name.” I looked at my friend hard for a minute. Then I said back, “So you are just like me.“
I realized that hiding wouldn’t work, (…)
Thus began a relationship where I had a big brother. For Trans guys, this is important. He always was on to me to be respectful of every woman that I meet. His explanation was that women are warriors, and we are nothing without them. Our feminist sisters have truly paved this way. We are nothing without them.
Years passed, and I moved to Los Angeles. I came here with intentions of pursuing music and sound-design but I found something else. I ended up in the office at the now, Los Angeles LGBT Center, with a woman named Drian Juarez. At the time, I was still not an out Trans man. I heard her story, and it blew me away. A person who has been out there and who has been shot in the face and survived… She stirred something inside of me. I realized that hiding wouldn’t work, and that I could not be that way, as my sisters suffer.
So several years ago, I started a group called the Transgender Rights Movement.
The focus at the time was to keep all of the Service-Providers for Trans people in constant contact, so that we could help one another. It then became a huge space where community activists, allies, and Providers can talk to one another and have a real community. It has helped us all to achieve some solidarity. I owe the work that I do to my sisters.
Every day that I wake up and I work on something, I know that my Trans sisters have paved my way. I have so much respect for them all. All that I can hope, as a brother, is to give the same thing back to my sisters, and to my little brothers coming up behind me.
To you guys, I say, “You have this beautiful perspective. You know what it feels like to be in a woman’s body, and so, you can treat everyone else the way that you would like to be treated”.
Thomas Page