Born Trans, Born Whole: Rejecting the Myth of the Mistake

Born This Way: Embracing My Truth and My Character’s

I’ve been thinking a lot recently—about myself, about my writing, and about how the struggles of the character I’ve created mirror my own.

For the longest time, I wished I had been born a cisgender woman. It was my deepest desire, my unspoken prayer. Growing up, I longed for it with every fiber of my being, and so, when I created my character, she reflected that wish—she was cisgender too.

When I finally accepted that I was Trans, I knew my character had to change with me. She became Trans as well, but at first, I still couldn’t fully shake that wish. I justified her being Trans as something caused by external interference—the work of the big bad in my story, manipulating fate to avoid prophecy. Even when I expanded her timeline into multiple rebirths, I wrote her original birth as that of a cisgender girl. Because, in my mind, that was how she was supposed to begin.

But recently, I’ve started asking myself—why?

Why did I always wish to be born cis? Why did I feel the need to write my character as cis in her first life?

And I’ve come to realize that a huge part of it wasn’t just personal—it was societal.

Rejecting the Myth of the “Mistake”

Society tells us, again and again, that being Trans is a mistake. That we’re only Trans because something “went wrong.” That we transition because we were born incorrectly, as if our existence is an error to be corrected.

But that’s a lie.

Being Trans is not a mistake. Being Trans is not something to be fixed or explained away. It is simply a part of who I am.

I am not Trans because I transitioned. I transitioned because I am Trans.

And that realization led me to make a change in my writing—one that feels so necessary, so right.

My character was never meant to be born cis in her first life. She has always been Trans.

By rewriting her story, I am rejecting the idea that being Trans is something that happens to us, something external that interrupts an otherwise “correct” existence. Being Trans is not an accident of fate, and it is not a punishment. It is just who we are.

Earned Scars, Earned Identity

I have fought my battles. I have earned my scars.

Society has tried to break me, to silence me, to make me believe that I am wrong for simply existing as I am. I have carried the weight of shame that was never mine to bear. I have endured rejection, fear, dysphoria, and the suffocating expectation to be something I am not.

But through every battle, every wound, every scar—I have earned the right to be myself.

No one else gets to tell me who I am. No one else gets to define me.

Only I know the weight of my struggles. Only I know the depth of my truth. And with everything I have endured, I refuse to let anyone take that truth from me.

Born Trans, Born Whole

People are born male, female, nonbinary, intersex, left-handed, right-handed, ambidextrous, left-footed, right-footed. Some of us are born Trans.

It is that simple.

And yet, growing up, I wasn’t okay with it. I couldn’t be. Because society taught me not to be. Because society told me that my identity was something to grieve, something to fight against, something to change.

If I had been encouraged and supported from the beginning, if I had been given the space to discover my true self without fear, would I have suffered as much? Would I have endured the debilitating dysphoria that led to alcoholism and a desire to end it all?

I don’t know. But I do know that I no longer wish to be born cis. Because that wish was never about me. It was about a world that didn’t understand me.

I refuse to carry that misunderstanding any longer. And I refuse to let my writing perpetuate it.

People need to realize—there is nothing wrong with being born Trans.