Identity. It’s such a simple word—a mere eight letters and four syllables. But packed within this word is all manner of complexity and challenge. From our earliest moments on planet Earth, we begin to sort out what we mean to the people who matter to us the most, and then we spend years, sometimes decades, navigating how we view ourselves. And figuring this out is so compelling, so essential as we march through our lives. As Ralph Ellison said in his acclaimed novel Invisible Man, “When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.” And it’s just this sort of quest we hear about from Gia Sanchez.
Gia Sanchez is the Diversity and Title IX Officer at Bristol Community College in Fall River, Massachusetts. She lives with her wife in Providence.
While you can’t watch the news these days without hearing some religious leader or politician insisting that gender and sex are one and the same, I could have set the record straight at five years old. While I was assigned male at birth, I knew I was a girl. And I hated it.
One of my earliest memories is of my Aunt Florence tormenting me because I was wearing a baseball jersey backwards. “Look, he’s wearing a dress, he wants to be a girl!” she hollered. Afraid I’d been exposed, I argued she was wrong, but she only squawked louder. Crying, I fled the room.
As I grew older, I tried hard to be the boy everyone expected me to be. I even played football in high school. Played may be is a bit of an exaggeration – I sat on the bench and tried to keep from getting killed in practice. At night, though, I’d raid the family laundry hamper and “borrow” some of my older sister’s clothes. “This is me,” I’d muse alone in my bedroom as I admired myself wearing the pilfered goods. I’d carefully return the clothes to the hamper later in the evening, “I’m a guy, this has to stop,” I chastised myself on the way back to my room.
I continued to struggle with my gender as an adult. Marriage was going to cure me, I had thought. It didn’t and my inner turmoil worsened. I tried to assuage my longing to live as a female by occasionally dressing in women’s clothing and going to bars. My wife would have no part of it. Our relationship degenerated over time into a marital version of don’t ask don’t tell. The inevitable divorce ensued.
While hating and hiding my identity seemed to work for others, I found peace when I quit trying to be who everyone else thought I should be. Irrespective of my anatomy, I am a woman. My driver’s license is now marked with an “f.” Birth sex does not determine gender. I’m living proof.
Life still isn’t perfect but I’m very happy living as my true self. I think I’m an easier person to be around. How lucky am I? I’ve married a beautiful woman who loves me for who I am. She doesn’t just accept that I’m a woman, she celebrates my femininity. Finally, I do too.
