For most of us, a doctor assigned us a gender after taking one look at what was or was not present below the waist. With that assigned gender came pink or blue, Barbie or G.I. Joe. It’s not uncommon to rebel against that assignment–to find girls who’d rather shoot hoops than don heels or men with no interest in sports at all.
For some, however, the gender assigned at birth becomes a prison caging one’s true self, a mismatch between what others see and what they know in their heart.
“When I was four or five I would put on my mom’s heels and be in front of the mirror,” said Alii Dy, who was born male but made the transition to become a woman when she was 18. “I felt like I was trapped in the wrong body.”
Though her mother was not initially supportive, the two now have a close relationship and her mother accepts Dy, 26, as her daughter. Dy–a hairstylist and model–has since graduated from runways in her room to runways at Long Beach’s Pride Festival, where she has modeled in fashion shows. For her, the annual event is a time to fully be herself and feel accepted.
“At work or around other people I try not to be as open because not everyone is as accepting to me; not everyone knows that I’m transgender,” she said. “Gay Pride is a time to be yourself and have the spotlight on you for once.”
Dy has experienced prejudice and name-calling because of her identity–even from those close to her. “It hurts my feelings,” said Dy of each time she is made fun of or referred to as a man. “I think everyone wants to live a normal life, especially in the transgender community. We don’t want to get name-called, or get hurt or killed,” she expressed, “If people see me and my boyfriend together, I just want to be a normal couple–a real girl and a real man.”
“I think one of the biggest [challenges] is just general education of everybody,” said Aiden Aizumi, an activist within the local transgender community. “There’s still a lot of missing pieces of information that people are basing off stereotypes.”
What Aizumi wants people to know is that being transgender was not a choice. Obviously, at some point transgender people had to make a shift, but many feel as though it has always been there and the transformation is just like making all the pieces match up and helping everything work the way it should. Aizumi has attended every Pride Festival in Long Beach since 2006 and the event stands out because of its diversity in gender and race.
“It’s always been a place of joined celebration,” he said. “A place where everybody can celebrate with their community or their family, celebrate who you are and your experience.”
Like Dy, Aizumi knows how it feels to be discriminated against for being transgender. The year after he had surgery to remove his breasts, Aizumi had the courage to take off his shirt at the 2008 Long Beach Pride Festival. Another festival-goer responded negatively to seeing Aisumi’s scars from surgery, using the official name of the festival–Long Beach Lesbian & Gay Pride–as an excuse to exclude other identities.
“It was the first time I had ever experienced anything like that. It caught me off guard because I’d met other transgender people at Pride,” said Aizumi. “I never took the name of Pride to necessarily mean it was excluding certain groups.”
Kelly McCormick facilitates a transgender support group for The Center Long Beach. She asserts that while individuals who identify as transgender share some things in common, each individual’s journey can vary tremendously from person to person. And despite prejudice and inequalities the transgender community continues to face, she sees improvement.
“I am constantly surprised at how aware the general public is of transgenderism and issues affecting it,” said McCormick, “There still is unfortunately a lot of misinformation surrounding this issue. That just means that there is more work to be done.”
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