“Dakota! Come on, you’re going to be late!” I flinched as my mother’s shrill voice travelled up the stairs and into my room for the fifth time in as many minutes. It had reached the ear piercing pitch that can only mean two things: either there’s a pack of rabid wolves chasing down Mrs Mimblewaith, our mangy, but adorable cat, or I better listen if I don’t want to go through the rest of my life trying to figure out how to sit without an ass. Sighing, I glanced in the mirror one last time, smoothed down my shirt, tousled my hair, and grabbed my messenger bag.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go in? Have a chat with the dean? Maybe your principal?” my mother asked as we pulled up to James Madison High. My new school. I’d been to 14 different schools since I started kindergarten when I was four and a half. That’s seven elementary schools, three junior highs, and now four high schools. I knew the drill, my mom knew I knew the drill; she’s just also my mom. We didn’t have a normal mother-son relationship, when you move across the country (or sometimes out of it) about once a year you don’t have much of a chance to make close friends, so my mom became my friend instead. Just the two of us out to see the world. Unfortunately, she’s also still my mom and sometimes that mom side takes over. Like now.

“I’ll be fine, mom. You already talked to the entire staff last week. Besides, if this is really going to be where I’m stuck for two whole years I don’t want them thinking I need my mommy to hold my hand and lead me into class,” I said as I grabbed my bag and started to make a quick exit. I’d purposely gotten there before most people would be showing up and I didn’t want to lose my chance to scope out the areas near my classes. Two minutes later I was standing on the steps staring up at the main building. Alone. It looked much bigger now that I had to actually walk into it. “Please God or Allah or Jehovah or Buddha or whoever, please don’t let this be like last time” I prayed silently before taking a deep breath and opening the door.

I’m not usually a religious person, actually I border on atheist. Considering what happened at my last school though…I thought it couldn’t hurt to be on the safe side. What happened at my last school? Well, in order for you to really understand that you have to know two things. First, as you’ve probably gathered, I’ve never stayed at one school for more than a year. My mom’s what you could call a “free spirit”; she does whatever she wants, whenever she wants. If that means packing us up and moving to Ghana for six months then, hey, it’s a good learning experience for me. Second, I wasn’t born as Dakota. Well, I mean, I was. My name’s been Dakota my whole life, but I wasn’t always Dakota, son of Meredith. Up until two years ago I was Dakota, daughter of Meredith.

How? Pretty simple actually. I’m transgendered, when I was born the doctor -- more of a tribal midwife actually; my mom was visiting with some friends on a Native American reservation and insisted on a “traditional birthing experience.” The women on the reservation still think she’s crazy – slapped my bum and proudly proclaimed me a girl. I was fine with that, at least until I turned twelve and figured out that little girls are expected to grow up into women. It took me another year to learn about transsexuals and then a year after that to work up the courage to tell my mom. Now, sixteen (almost seventeen!) years after that doctor/midwife got my gender wrong I’ve managed to correct it. Mostly.

That’s why there were problems at my last school. After I came out to my mom she agreed to let me go on hormone blockers to stop my body from becoming any more feminine, we also moved to a new state so I could transition without having to deal with the taunting from everyone. At least, that was the idea and for the second half of my freshman year it worked. Then at the end of that year mom decided she wanted to visit with her sister, my aunt Beatrice. Because she’s my mom she couldn’t just visit for a couple of weeks in the summer, she had to throw all of our things into boxes, throw the boxes into the back of our van and move us to Harlingen, Texas. That’s right, Texas. Land of football, cowboys, and dear old President Bush. You can see where I’m going with this.

Now, a scrawny freshman guy is normal. A short freshman with a pretty boy face, high voice, and no real muscle doesn’t turn any heads. Especially not in the emo, jpop loving city I’d just lived in. A scrawny sophomore though…that’s a little more unusual. I still think I could have gotten away with it. If only I hadn’t been forced to go to the same school as my meathead cousin.

My cousin Butch – yes, Butch. I told you my aunt lived in Texas. – and I have never really gotten along. He’s only six months older than I am and my earliest memory involves him pushing me down and stealing my birthday cake when I was three. He also took my goodie bag, scared all the other kids away from my piñata, and tore the head off the teddy bear a friend of my mom’s had sent me all the way from England. My ever so lovely Aunt Beatrice’s reaction to all of this? “Oh, well, you can’t blame him sweetie, little boys are rougher than little girls.” So the second I found out that not only would I have to live near Butch, but also go to the same school as him I knew there was going to be trouble.

The first problem came when we got to Texas. My mom had already told Aunt Beatrice and her family about me, I came out to the entire family and family friends we still kept in contact with when I started over at my last school so it wasn’t like it was a complete shock or anything, they’d had some time to get used to it. I also wasn’t expecting it to be like I’d always been their nephew instead of their niece, I knew there were going to be slip ups and awkward silences so both my mom and I had brought some PFLAG pamphlets and a few books to help everyone adjust. I guess after my mom – who was more upset when I told her I didn’t want to play piano anymore than when I came out as trans – I was spoiled. I thought that everyone would try to understand, or at least respect that it was my decision and there was nothing they could do about it.

Instead I got Aunt Beatrice and Uncle Jack. Aunt Beatrice spent the first week we were at her house waiting to find our own place trying to get me to wear dresses. She seemed to think that I just didn’t know how to be a girl and if I learned I’d be fine. Uncle Jack thought it was my mother’s fault for letting me “run wild with those damned foreign communists” when I was younger, he spent every dinner lecturing me on how liberals were ruining the country and if I wanted to get anywhere in life I’d “stop with this lesbian nonsense and be a proper woman.” Neither of them seemed to hear me when I said I wasn’t interested in women.

For his part, Butch seemed most confused that I wasn’t well, butch. He spent most of the summer asking me why I didn’t like football if I was a guy and trying to get me to admit that the half naked women adorning his walls were hot. If he’d stuck to that I’d have been fine. Unfortunately, I don’t have that kind of luck.

I made it through exactly a month before word got out. A month of being called “fag” and “homo” and “queer”. I could deal with that though. I’m a gay guy, I was going to school in a tiny town in Texas, it was what I expected. Besides, I had the small GSA to go to, not to mention the drama club. Then Butch found out that his girlfriend thought I was “cute”. Two weeks later my school photos from the beginning of freshman year – in which I had long hair and was wearing a pale pink blouse -- were plastered over every vertical surface on campus. That’s when the real trouble started.

I spent the first term of sophomore year begging my mom to let me go to a different school. Any school, I’d go to boarding school in Siberia if I had to. Every day people would steal my clothes during gym (I had a private office to change in, but that didn’t stop anyone) or try to grab my crotch or chest “to see what’s there”. The GSA had abandoned me the second word came out. Fags and dykes were fine, but trannies were freaks. Even the staff was against me, the principal made it clear when the photos were posted that they thought it was my fault for “lying” to everyone and they weren’t going to punish their star quarterback for telling the truth.

That Christmas I locked myself in my room and downed bottle of sleeping tabs. While I was in the hospital my mom pulled me out of school and made me an appointment with a therapist in Houston who specialized in gender issues. It would take another six months before I would be allowed to start hormones and nearly a year before I would even talk about going back to school. Even then it was only on the condition that we pick one in a nice, queer friendly area with a good GSA and stay there until I graduate.

Which is why I’m standing in the middle of a hallway in James Madison High in California. One of the best schools in one of the most liberal areas of the country. If I can’t make it here I can’t make it anywhere.