Rita's Time

I met a woman named Rita a few weeks ago. She was stunning, not in an average sense, she just exuded radiance and confidence. Her name was Rita. We began to chat, and I offered to buy her coffee. Over lattes she began to tell me more about herself. I had previously explained to her the purpose of my blog and she agreed to this mini interview.

Tina Marie (TM): Where you born a woman?
Rita(R): Inside, yes, outside no. I have been living as a woman for 7 years. I was born a male, but always felt like a female.
TM: Tell me more about that, about “feeling” like a female.
R: I was never comfortable in my body. I remember being 8 years old and watching my mother change clothes, I kept wondering when my breasts were going to grow in like hers. I understood that males were not supposed to have them, I was taught the differences between males and females, but still, I waited. I guess it wasn’t even waiting, it was hoping.
TM: Did you ever tell anyone? Like your family, did you ever tell them that you felt like you shouldn’t be in your male body?
R: No! Are you crazy? They (my parents) suspected that I was gay, and at that thought they told me was how God punished people who liked others that are the same sex as them. They left it at that. I just thought in my head that God would have to be okay with me because technically I wasn’t really suppose to come out a boy to begin with, so it wasn’t as if I liked the same sex, to me.
TM: When did you decide that you wanted to live your life, officially, as a female?
R: Decide? (hmph) Well I knew right away, but when did I get the guts to do it? (laughs) Well the only way I could was by going away for school. I left home immediately at 18, right after high school. I got into a Cal State and moved away. I started school as a woman; it was like being born all over again. It wasn’t easy; I definitely had mixed reactions from people. Most people were afraid to even come talk to me so they didn’t bring it up.
TM: Did your family know you were living as a woman?
R: No, but they found out.
TM: How? What happened?
R: A daughter of a family friend saw me at a coffee shop, of all places, told her family and they told mine. I didn’t even know when or which coffee shop, what day, nothing. I always look back and try to remember, but can’t.
TM: How did your parents react?
R: I haven’t talked to my parents for over 5 years. They told me they’d rather I had died than do “this”. They cut me off, I was forced to drop out of college, and here I am, surviving, without their support.
TM: Do you regret the way you did it? Do you think if you had told them…that they would have had more time to process it?
R: They had all of my life to deal with it! That’s bullshit. They knew from the moment they had me. Like I said, they already thought I was gay and that scared the crap out of them.
TM: Do you think that you had to choose between becoming a woman and keeping your family?
R: I don’t think that there was a lot of choice on my part, it’s just who I am, I didn’t get to choose my family exiling me either, but I can say with certainty that I would have probably committed suicide if I had continued life as a male. I have no regrets because the choices I made kept me alive.

Within those seven years, Rita was hospitalized twice, beaten within inches of her life. One of the beatings took place in broad daylight on a busy street of North Hollywood. She suffered loss, heart ache, and pain, but now lives the life she knew she was meant to.
Rita could probably write a book about all she has been through, but the portion you read will give you a glimpse of what people go through just to love their life as they always imagined. Rita’s family was willing to give up their own child because of their fears. Their fear of being judged by others, their fear of the unknown, and their fear that it was their “fault”, these fears had them lose a child. Awareness, understanding, and love, it’s all we need to help peace together our lives.