'Born in the Wrong Body'

In almost every way, Jake is a typical 16-year-old boy.

He plays drums in a band, he’s learning to drive, and he’s very close to his parents. But there is one thing that differentiates Jake from other teenage boys.

He began his life as Julia.

“I knew I was different, probably when I was like 5 because a bunch of my friends growing up were all females,” Jake said. “But they would all do things like play Barbies and play house and, you know, typical girl stuff. And they’d always say to me, ‘Okay, you’re gonna be Ken’ or ‘you’re gonna be the dad.’”

As far back as Jake can remember, he always experienced conflict regarding gender. When he was 4, he told his mother Peggy that there was a boy living inside of him. At age 11, he began to have crushes on girls and thought he might be a lesbian. But at age 13, when he met a female-to-male “transman,” he finally found someone with whom he could identify.

“I was like, you know, he’s a guy but he’s kind of like a girl,” Jake said. “So I started to talk to him a little bit and I found out he was transgendered. And I didn’t know what that was until I went home and — thank god for the Internet — I looked it all up … and I was like, ‘Wow, you know, I kind of feel like this.’”

Jake’s parents were supportive when he came out to them as transgender and allowed him to begin transitioning to male when he was 15.

“Do I wish it could be different and that your life could be a little easier? Of course,” said Jake’s mom Peggy. “As a parent, that’s what you hope for your kid. You want their life’s path to be as simple as possible. But it was what it was.”

Jake and four other young tansgender people shared their story for the MSNBC documentary “Born in the Wrong Body.” Their last names have been omitted to protect their privacy. Some have had an easier time coming to grips with their gender than others; some have opted for gender reassignment surgery, while others don’t feel it's necessary; some have been supported by their families from the beginning, while other have had to turn to “alternative families” for support. But all the young men and women featured in “Born in the Wrong Body” say they knew very early on that the gender they feel in their mind does not match the gender expressed in their physical appearance.

‘Conflict arises’
Cris Beam wrote "Transgender: Love, Family, and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers" about her experience teaching transgender teenagers in Los Angeles and becoming a foster mother to one of them.

“The trans people that I know, they all know from a really young age that they are the gender that they are inside. And then they also know that that doesn’t match the body that they were born into,” Beam said. “And when the problems come in, is when families or teachers start telling them, ‘Oh no you can’t play with that.’ Or, ‘That’s not your bathroom.’ Or, ‘You can’t wear that dress.’ And conflict arises.”

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