Uncle Sam's Misguided Children

Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children
by Raven Usher

According to the North American Dictionary of Transgender Slang, a macho trap is “an activity or situation that a transgender embarks upon for a period of time in an attempt to deny or suppress feelings and/or desires stemming from gender dysphoria.”
I am a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. I served eight years under the banner of the eagle, globe and anchor. Honorably discharged - July, 1994. If only my old Marine Corps buddies could see me now!
I am also an early onset transsexual. I first became consciously aware that I was “different” at about age six. Those feelings came to their first major conflict when I hit puberty. That is the time in a young boy’s life when his hormones run rampant and set his desire ablaze with the urge to grow breasts and become a strong vibrant woman. Oh, ok. So that was just me.
At seventeen years old I was being pulled in two directions that could not be more blisteringly opposite. The internally driven rage to become a woman versus the externally driven push to become a man. That is a hell of a lot of pressure to heap on to a kid’s shoulders. I was fast approaching high school graduation. A host of people; friends, family, teachers, guidance counselors, television and movie heroes were relentlessly bombarding me with the idea that it was time for me to grow up and “be a man.” There were two problems with that. I did not want to be a man. And I had no idea what it meant to be a man.
Then I crossed paths with a person who claimed to have the answer. He was a Marine Corps recruiter. He came to my school in his dress blue uniform. As sexy as men in uniforms are, there is no uniform sexier than Marine Blues! I am not sure, but I think he noticed me because I was staring at him. He may have been the first adult who actually talked to me as if I was an adult. He had me hooked.
I only caught a portion of his sales pitch. Somewhere amidst his “benefits of being a Marine” speech a thought tunneled into my head. If anyone knew how to turn a boy into a man (even a boy who felt less like a boy than the other boys), it had to be the Marines. So I suppressed my feminine feelings and dove headlong into something I knew to be wrong. I joined the Marines. And thus my macho trap was sprung.
I gave in. I succumbed to the peer pressure of family, school and society. I became a victim of the expectations imposed upon what was between my legs. I turned my back on my true self and set out to become what I became. I did became a Marine. I thought I had become a man. What I truly became was miserable.
Being a Marine made that host of other people see me as the man they all dreamt I could be. It was an image that far exceeded the person it surrounded. Wearing that image as a disguise for all that time made it all the more difficult for others to accept me as woman I really am.
Had I retained the effeminate image I had in school when I lettered in dance, my transition would have been less shocking if not expected. But when a hard-as-nails, rough-and-tumble leatherneck breaks that same news the believability factor drops dramatically. That is the news of the sissy kid who was the home-ec teacher’s pet, not the only son of three who followed dad into military service.
I am proud to have served in the Marine Corps. The strength and courage the Corps instilled in me are largely responsible for making it possible for me to endure the hardships of my transition. But I also have regrets. I lost nearly a decade of my life as a woman. I made other people part of my life; a wife and kids. They too had to endure my transition and I am responsible for inflicting that pain upon them.
We play the cards we are dealt. I have had to bluff a lot. But I still come up with more winning hands than losing hands.
Blessed Be.
PS: Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children... USMC