“Pantyhose Didn’t Make Me Trans” — A Story of Knowing

I saw a post today — one I’ve seen versions of before — but this one hit like a gut punch. It read:

“The only time my parents brought up sexuality was when my stepdad said, ‘If you turn out gay, I promise you they’ll never find your body.’ So no, maybe I don’t think all education about gender and sexuality should come from parents.”

Let me tell you something: I heard shit like that growing up too.

I was a child in the 1980s — the era of Reagan, D.A.R.E., and backhanded “boys will be boys” cruelty disguised as parenting. And some of my earliest memories — I’m talking four years old — were filled with a sense of knowing. Not confusion. Knowing.

I would try on my mother’s pantyhose and heels when no one was looking. Not because I was being silly or rebellious or “playing dress-up,” but because something in me ached for the softness, the femininity, the alignment I felt when I looked in the mirror.

I didn’t have the words back then. I didn’t know what transgender was. But I knew that when I walked through the house in heels that were five sizes too big, my spine straightened. I knew when I sat on the edge of the bed pulling the pantyhose up over my legs, I felt right in a way I couldn’t explain.

I played with Barbies. I also played with Star Wars figures and G.I. Joes. I read comic books, obsessed over the X-Men, and wanted to be She-Ra and Storm in equal measure.

But Barbie didn’t make me trans. Pantyhose didn’t make me trans.

I was trans. I am trans. Always have been. Always will be.

What did make a lasting mark — and not in the way parents hope — was being caught in those early moments of self-expression and being told I was “sick in the head.” Being punished. Shamed. Treated like a deviant for doing something that made me feel human.

That’s what carved deep, generational scars.

🧠 Parents, Listen: Your Kids Know Who They Are

We tell kids they're too young to know themselves — while simultaneously holding them responsible for everything they say, do, or feel. That contradiction is not only harmful, it’s dangerous.

I knew myself at four. But instead of being affirmed, I was told I was broken. That I’d grow out of it. That if I didn’t, I’d be ruined, damned, disowned, or dead.

You know what that teaches a child?

Not to be honest.
Not to be authentic.
Not to trust themselves.

And that trauma lingers. It festers. It eats away at your sense of worth until you either collapse under the weight of erasure or claw your way back toward the truth, one painful step at a time.

📚 Education Saves Lives. Silence Kills.

So when I see people saying “Let parents teach their kids about gender and sexuality,” I want to scream.

Because I was taught.
I was taught that being gay or trans was a death sentence.
I was taught that who I was inside made me evil, disgusting, unworthy of love.
I was taught to hide.

And too many queer and trans kids are still being taught that. In 2025. In rural America. In religious households. In schools where their identities are erased from the curriculum and criminalized in the policy handbook.

That’s why education can’t only come from parents.

Because some parents don’t want us to exist.

And some of us — most of us — never got the chance to be kids and be ourselves at the same time.

🧚‍♀️ What I Know Now

I’m a 49-year-old transgender woman. I’m also an amputee. A survivor. A parent. A writer. And yes, I still remember what it felt like to walk around the living room in my mom’s shoes, heart pounding, hoping I wouldn’t get caught — yet wishing more than anything that someone would just look at me and see me.

So let me say this, clearly:

Your trans kid doesn’t need to be “made” trans by a book, a Barbie, or a rainbow sticker in a classroom.

They already are.

And if you won’t listen to them — if you shame them, silence them, erase them — the world becomes a more dangerous place for them to exist.

But if you listen?

If you lean in with love instead of fear?

You might just give them the chance to become everything they were meant to be.

And trust me — that is so much more beautiful than anything you could’ve imagined.

With fierce tenderness and defiant truth,
Maya Fisher
🏳️‍⚧️📚✊
Author of Reborn in Shadows
TikTok: @authormaya.fisher