Beginnings of my character

    This project I am involved with, is extremely personal, we draw some of the character from our own experiences. Each character has one defining subject, mental illness, traumatic experience or something else that drove them to suicide. Ashleigh asked me to do something a bit more difficult, since we wanted for the characters to all have different experiences. She asked me to play a transgender person. Now, the challenge in this is, that I am not transgender, I am not even gender fluid but see myself and identify as cis-gender. This means that I identify with the gender that was assigned to me at birth, or otherwise called my biological gender. I am female, a woman. I have never had any trouble with this nor have I ever thought about being a man. I have no desire to be a man. So going into this character, creating this character will be a challenge.

 Transgender is an umbrella term for person whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth.

   My first fear was that I will be offending someone or the whole community if I do something wrong, if say something wrong as this character. I consider myself an ally to the trans* community and so I am worried for playing a character that identifies as trans. I have two friends in Finland who have transitioned to their true gender and I went ahead and asked their opinion on this, with some other questions followed. I have their permission to share their answers here(I have taken the freedom to translate their answers to English, since our conversations were in Finnish). 

ALAN & TEEMU

• Do you think it is okay for me(a cis-gender female) to play a trans* character?
• Weird question. I've never had to really think about that! I don't know really, I would be okay with it, since it is acting and all, but it has to be done in a respectable way. Like, make the character a person, but don't make their gender or gender expression the butt of the joke, you know?
• If it is before transitioning, in my opinion. You don't know what it is like to trans, but it is easier to relate to the feelings of self hatred and not belonging than to the feelings of what it is like to be on hormones or T, or go through the surgeries or DEAL with the shit from other people. Like, you were born a woman and you know what it's like to be a woman, so play someone who was also identified as woman from birth. Because that way you know what gender roles society has forced on you or what is expected of you. 
• When and how did you start your transition into your true gender(also, could you tell how do you identify and which pronouns do you prefer)?
• I am a man, a he. After my birth, I was assigned to female gender, so you could say I am a trans man, ftm(female to male). I have an older brother, so I have always worn his old clothes and been considered "a tomboy", so in a way I have always looked like a boy and it was only after hitting puberty, that I had to make an effort to look like a boy and hide my 'womanly shape' :D. I dressed a lot in baggy clothes, kind of 'gothic hip hop style', but in high school I learned more about trans* people and learned how to wear a binder to create more of a male shape. That was also about the time I came out to my parents, who were really supportive. I've never really had trouble with transitioning, since my friends have always been very open and supportive. 
• I am a gender queer person, leaning more towards the male gender, tho I was born a girl. Pleeease, use male pronouns when referring to me! I thought I was a girl until I was about 16, when I moved to South-Korea for an exchange year in high school. I was never super girly, like I never liked dresses, but I enjoy femininity of some level. But when I was in Korea, I went to school in an all girls high school, where everyone HAD TO wear a uniform that consisted of a skirt. Plus, Korean girls are super girly. I started to feel really uncomfortable with all this and it caused me loads of anxiety and eventually depression, since I couldn't really express my true self. I had to go home(Finland) early and start therapy, where I realized that I didn't exactly identify as a woman and my body caused me anxiousness.  After that it was easier to be myself again, since in Finland I didn't really have to be forced into a box, but I could be who I wanted
• Have you ever had face with prejudice because of your gender expression/identity?
• Some. In Finland people generally are not the most open people, but I have been lucky enough to have been raised in an (somewhat)urban area and I went to art school, full of people willing to learn and accept you as you were. A lot of my friends were part of the LGBT+ community, so I wasn't exactly special. I did have some weird looks from people and people who have tried to bring me down, but I generally don't care about them. If they are not my friends or family, I don't care about their opinion. 
• Hmm... I was bullied BEFORE I identified as anything else than a woman, but it was because I am kinda weird, antisocial and awkward. It was also because of my appearance, so I cannot really say it was because of my gender, But if I start to think about it, it might have been because I was never really comfortable with my gender assigned at birth and it kinda showed, and bullies just caught up on it and my insecurities. 
• I've had a lot of anxiety to do with my body and a lot of hatred towards my body. Can you identify with these emotions in any way?
• Yes yes. As puberty hit I just hated my chest and hips and tried to hide them all the time with hoodies and loose clothing. At some points my dysphoria was unbearable, even so that I couldn't go out or see anyone, because I wasn't comfortable with the way I looked. It was also tied into that I didn't want people to call a woman or think of me as a woman. After my top-surgery I've felt a lot better about my body, especially after starting Testosterone  and starting to build some muscle.
• I've always been kinda chubby, and my self-esteem just kept going downwards the bigger I got. So yeah, I know how you feel. 
• What is your sexuality? How did it change with your gender identity 'developing'?
• Haha, "identity developing"! That's true tho. I was attracted to men and I am still attracted to men, so I guess my sexuality changed from hetero to homo as I "developed my identity", or started to identify as a man. 
• I have always pretty much been a pan-sexual. I don't really care about gender when it comes to attractions and love, if it's the right person, gender doesn't matter :) But, I guess when I started being more gender fluid it became more important for me to tell about it to people in a way, because I wanted people to know that gender and sexuality is so much more fluid. 

  ( I did go into a bit more detail with the conversation with Alan, but I do not feel that it is necessary for me to share everything of our conversation, since it wasn't strictly connected to gender and sexuality. )

    I think I will approaching this role from the point of view of someone who sees their body as their main issue, since I have had a lot of experience with self-hatred and disgust towards my appearance and body. Perhaps I will make a separate post about my own past, experience with depression, anxiety, panic attacks, detail about my diagnosis and experience with suicide in another post, just to gather my own thoughts and be able to connect them with these issues in a written form. Right now, I want to do more research on the trans* community, history and statistics, to help me create a background for my character.