As a twenty-year-old who is still trying to figure out one’s self, personal identity is of great significance to me. So much so that if you were to offer me $10,000 to be stripped of my freedom to dress however I like and hold my own opinions, I would still opt to be broke and conferring with my friends over a drink or two. No doubt, growing up in an age when phrases like YOLO and Carpe Diem make up our life mantra, there is an immense pressure placed on us to be exceptional. As a result, throughout my formative years, I was exhausting tubs of Directions Hair Colour, frequenting gigs, writing Lang Leav-esque poetry and purchasing merchandise from my favourite bands to emphasise and showcase my individuality. I held the belief that if I don’t have an original identity that stands out from the rest, I’m just another one of many average beings who’s mediocre at best. However, as much as I strive to be a unique individual, I’ve realised that there have been aspects of me that were influenced by the things I consume. The tattoos that I have etched on my skin are inspired by a Roman à clef book and a song from one of my favourite bands. My then blue hair was a result of worshipping at the altar of emo vocalists such as Hayley Williams and Alex Gaskarth. My style, too, changes on a day-to-day basis depending on who’s my latest style inspiration. Whether we dare to admit it, we are all just a compilation of everything we’ve ever fixated on – it could be someone’s hair colour on Instagram, an opinionated piece from the deep web, a TV series or even a character from a book. Take my colleagues for instance. As fans of the police-centred sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine, I find that many of them adopt the main lead Jake Peralta’s way of dealing with awkward situations, which is the repetitive use of the word “cool” or “no doubt” while nodding with a plastered smile. They identify with the TV series so much that the character’s quirks get incorporated into their personal identity. The same goes for K-Pop fans, film geeks, fitness enthusiasts and so forth. After all, parts of our identity can be ascribed to our environment and the content we consume. No one’s identity is free from influence or cultivation. Our environment, upbringing, beliefs and experiences all play a part in creating our identity. Once upon a time, my friends and I taped up our webcams as a precautionary measure after watching an episode of Black Mirror where the lead character was blackmailed with footage that was obtained after his webcam got hacked. Turns out, almost everyone who watched that episode did the exact same thing. The fact is you’re not going to be the only one who feels, think or act a certain way. Even so, we try excruciatingly hard to be unique. We’d willingly trade our $1.60 Kopi bing for $6 Iced Coconut Latte (read: hipsters) and ditch our mama shop flip-flops for Gucci sliders (read: hypebeasts) because we’d much rather disappear off the face of the earth than to be seen as an average individual. Hell, we’d even force-feed ourselves the lovechild of McMuffin and Hotcakes just to ride on the McGriddles hype train and be seen as a #foodie. I once knew someone, let’s call him Ben, who embodied the average joe stereotype with his H&M clothes, Kopitiam card and his overplayed Top 30 radio hits playlist. Ben was fine with that, that is until the girl he’s interested in commented that he’s too “basic” for her liking. Hurt, he did a 180 and began to splurge on the latest clothes and sneakers and he replaced his mainstream playlist with hip-hop, trance, and underground R&B tunes. Now, his former average joe self-seems like a distant memory, but I can’t help but think that in a way, he fell victim to society’s idealistic belief of us having to be a special individual to make the most out of life.   As much as we’d want to be seen as an original, there’s a fine line between rebelling against the masses for what you stand for and deviating from the norm just because you want to be different from the rest. It’s important that we do not do the latter and end up like another Ben. It is also unrealistic for us to aspire to be known as the only Priscilla aka Pop Punk Girl With Unorthodox Views or the only Marc aka The Musically Inclined Athlete because there’s bound to be someone out there who’s an exact copy of you. Even our names, an integral part of our identity, are shared with strangers all over the world. To call yourself a 100% unique individual would be trying to convince yourself that the moon is really following you. So, don’t exhaust yourself in a bid to be known as an original. If you don’t feel the need to replace your entire wardrobe every new year or if you love your mainstream Top 30 songs because that’s just how you roll, then so be it. It’s your life and you should own it, regardless of what society expects of you. Also read, The Ugly Truth: Not Everyone Is Beautiful.

There were always thoughts of changing my face, my identity, and becoming somebody else entirely. I thought of myself as a female a lot and all through my teenage years, I wished that I would wake up in the right body one day. It took me a long time before I realised that I may be transgender.

Battling My Inner Conflicts

Looking back, I’ve always known. I just couldn’t put the words to the undercurrent of discomfort, couldn’t make sense of the thoughts and feelings I had. There were so many previous beliefs and assumptions that I had to discard before I could understand what it all meant. For one, a highly heteronormative view we all have is that your gender must be concretely tied to your sexual orientation, that a man must be sexually attracted to a woman and vice versa. However, I’ve learnt that your gender (male or female) does not have any bearing on your sexual attraction. I may be biologically a male who identifies as a female, yet still primarily attracted to women. For me, it doesn’t exclude an attraction to men as well.

“I would spend my entire life trying to suppress these feelings of being in the wrong body.”

Then, there’s religion. If I had accepted the religion I was brought up with, I would spend my entire life trying to suppress these feelings of being in the wrong body. As the Good Book says in Deuteronomy 22:5, "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God." Having brought up to internalise these beliefs as the norm, it was that much harder to accept myself and my thoughts.

Coming Out

“I confessed... to my fiancee.”

Coming out was a long and hard process. I spent a year thinking about how much harder life would be, about getting accepted by society, presenting as female, and what all of that would entail. In the end, I knew that I had to at least try to become the person I wanted to be, even if it’s an uphill struggle. I finally came out as a transgender woman four years ago, at 21. While I have been fortunate to not face much discrimination from the public, it wasn’t that easy back at home. Firstly, I was engaged to my girlfriend. She was the first person I came out to as transgender. And as difficult as it was for me to come to terms with myself, it was equally hard for her to acknowledge that her long-time boyfriend is coming out as a female. The only thing she said back then was something like, "I'll... do my best to understand." After a challenging 6 months, she accepted me as transgender. We eventually made a commitment to support each other, be it emotionally, financially, or physically – even if it meant scrutiny from others. We are now adjusting to this ‘new reality’ and also continuing with our plans to get married. For all of that, I am grateful. With her support, I came out to some of my closer friends as well.

The Hardest Hit

However, I never intended to come out to my parents, unless I had absolutely no choice. I had already been treated with scorn when I told my highly religious parents that I am an Atheist, and sat through three hours of a pastor (a friend of my mother’s) explaining to me why I ought to give God a chance. I had already been called a disgrace and the family disappointment when I left junior college to study theatre arts at LASELLE. I had already been called ‘disgusting’ when I confessed to them about being bisexual. What other painful remarks would they make if I told them I am transgender? I didn’t want to know.

"In my mother’s eyes, I was a rebellion against God. In my father’s eyes, I was a rebellion against him."

The truth came out when my mum discovered that I was taking estrogen pills. Needless to say, they didn’t take it well at all. My father constantly reminds me that my "life choices" will eventually ruin me and almost daily, my parents will remind me that because I am born a male, I will always be a male. My father also loves to say that I'd end up, in his own words, "不像人，不像鬼", which loosely translates to mean that I’d end up neither a human nor a ghost – implying that I’d never truly be female and never fully a male. They don't seem to understand that all those words are extremely hurtful, furthermore so as they come from family. And (I think) they sincerely believe that they are leading me back to the path of righteousness.

Living An Authentic Life

It was a long time and many nights of crying alone before I finally accepted the fact that my family would never be able to accept me wholeheartedly. Eventually, I stopped bothering.

“I’d just smile and agree with them instead of arguing because it’s so much easier than fighting, and far less painful.”

Today, I’m not living as female as yet because I'm not fully comfortable with the way people may respond. To strangers, I'm still entirely male. However, being transgender for me has mainly been about living the most authentic life I can under the circumstances of Singapore’s extremely anti-LGBT laws. Learning to accept my own body, and coming to terms with the fact that it will never be an idealised female form was the most difficult, but I am so much better as a person now. I am calmer and have a clearer sense of who I am. Most importantly, I feel so much more comfortable with being my true and authentic self in front of my loved ones. Life is not about pain, suffering, and renunciation, and it should never have to be seen as such. Despite all the obstacles I’ve faced and am still facing, these words from my favourite author, Ayn Rand, pushes me to live a fuller life every day: “Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.” – Clara, 24 Also read, “I Kept Hearing Voices Of People Criticising Me, And I Could No Longer Tell What Was Real”.