Danny Harris is a DC-based photographer, DJ, and collector of stories.
This week, People’s District is telling five stories from D.C.’s LGBT community in honor of Capital Pride. These stories were collected in collaboration with the Rainbow History Project. Read more stories from: Daaiyee, a gay Imam; Annie, a DJ who uses music to unite the LGBT community; and Dan, an Indian immigrant who only learned about homosexuality after moving to the states.
“I have always felt like a woman. I can remember the times when my father would buy me baseballs, footballs, and all of these manly things as a child, but I would always just play with my sisters dolls and dress in their clothes. That was what made me comfortable. I never thought that anything was wrong with it because I felt that I was supposed to be a woman. While I was comfortable with it, my parents struggled with it at first. It was hard on my them, but my mother sheltered me and let me know it was okay.
“People used to ask me why I chose that life, as if it were a choice. People would tell me, ‘You could have been a gay man and been more successful in life.’ My issue is that I am not a man. I have always felt comfortable in my current shell as a woman. I learned to be proud and comfortable from my mentor, Tina Teasley. She was a few years older than me and was instrumental in my life and my transition. Tina was an amazing role model and showed me that you could be transgender and successful.
“Thanks, in part, to her, I started taking hormones at 17 and then got my breasts. After that, it was all about being a woman at all costs. I would save my money for the operations and back then, all of us girls, would go to the same doctor in NE. Now that I am older, I like to say that I live a normal life. This is me.
Continues after the jump. (more…)
