CAM

I am a pansexual trans-masculine/FTM first generation Filipino American Catholic-raised freshman undergraduate Neuroscience student at UTD. I aspire to become a Physicians Assistant specialized in Endocrinology to aid transgender patients in their medical transition. I am someone who was raised Catholic, but is currently questioning my religion and beliefs as a process of deepening my personalized faith journey. I am a Filipino American who wishes to know more about my family’s culture. I am an activist; however, I wish to become more articulate and vocal in aiding others and bringing about awareness to certain human rights issues. I am an only child. I am almost constantly listening to music. I am a Queen/Beatles/Bowie fan. I am someone who will listen. I am humorous. I am kind. I am open-minded. I am accepting. I am in love. I am questioning. I am learning. I am growing. I am understanding. I am a boy. I am valid. I am human.

The primary thing most people use to identify themselves, ever since birth, is their name. I’ve always struggled with my name. Even as a kid, I was looking for nicknames to be called by, anything but my birthname. Recently, I’ve been considering a legal name change. I was born with a feminine name, one very similar to my mother’s, one she loves so dearly. Unfortunately, I did not feel a strong connection to this name. In college, I decided to start fresh and ask everyone to call me Cam. Cam is not only a shortened version of the gender neutral name Cameron, but it is also my mother’s initials. When I came out to my parents as transgender, they told me they would’ve named me Christopher had I been born male. Now, I am not yet sure what I want to legally change my name to, whether it be Cameron or Christopher, or something completely different. This whole name change process is a matter of experimentation to see which name you feel most you in. And I am excited to finally find The One.

My entire life has been a constant struggle of understanding myself, growing into myself, and learning to love and embrace who I am. From pre-school up until I graduated high school, I attended catholic private school in which it was extremely difficult to really understand myself because I knew I was different, especially in the LGBTQ+ sense, but I didn’t see any representation of people like me in my little bubble.

My sexual and gender identities have changed several times over the years. I first came out my sophomore year as homosexual, then bisexual, then pansexual. Soon after, I came out as genderfluid, then non-binary, then, most recently, trans-masculine/FTM. Coming out several times does not mean I am uncertain or finicky about my identity. It does not mean “it’s just a phase.” Coming out several times allows you to experiment with labels until you find the ones that feel the most you, similar to changing your name.

Identity is important to me because when you remove all the labels ridded with stigmas, when youremove the boundaries between straight and gay, cisgender and trans*, white and POC, religious and non-religious, abled and disabled, when you boil it all down to the basics, identity is who you are. It is the purest, most genuine, most human parts of you that make you the unique individual that you are.

Through coming out and finally accepting myself, I understand that I will loose some people along the way. People will “disagree with my lifestyle.” People will spend their own energy trying to make me feel bad about myself. But in the end, it is ultimately my own opinion about myself that matters. It is nobody else’s job to give me self-love but my own. And I am blessed to be born the way I am. I am blessed to be able view and experience the world in my own unique ways. As trans activist Miles McKenna once said, “I would rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.”

My biggest inspiration, Chella Man, has emphasized several times to “be your own representation.” In other words, if you do not see someone in the media who has similar experiences as your own, be that person, that representation, for someone else. And that’s exactly what I am here to do.

Just this past week, I finally came out as FTM transgender to my roommate, my girlfriend, and my parents. Just until recently, I had been carry the immense weight of internalized transphobia. And it was not until I finally confessed this internalized transphobia to my roommate, that I finally released this burden on my mind and body. This is the most liberated I have ever felt in my entire life. I am seriously one of the luckiest people on earth to have been blessed with such a loving support system. My parents’ response to my coming out especially hit me the hardest. They said some of the most powerful things that I believe everyone needs to hear, especially those who are still closeted.

My heavily science-focused dad went into detail about the hormonal processes in a toddler that cause them to be transgender. He ended his endocrinology lecture with, “That is the most natural thing that can happen to the human body. It is totally normal.” My mother, on the other hand, the parent I was most afraid to come out to, said words that I will carry with myself for the rest of my life. She said, “I just want you to walk around with pride. I want you to hold your head up high and let the other people know that you are an individual who needs to be respected. I don’t want you to have to worry about people judging you, people who don’t understand you, or people who will bring you down. You should be proud of yourself and who you are.”