Chapter 1

“You’re.. You’re..”, I said surprisingly confused. “..Ashamed of me?”

“Jialou..”, Meiling said. “I want a break up..”

“Just”, I stammered. “Just.. Because I’m transgendered?”

“Jialou..”, Meiling said. “The truth is.. There’s no happiness between a woman, and a man who used to be a woman..”

“How could you say that?”, I said. “When we first started, you said you would accept me for who I am. What happened?”

“I..”, she said. “I thought I could really put up with people’s negative opinions about our love at the beginning of our relationship. Now I know, I honestly cannot endure the amount of hate I get from pedestrians when I go in public with yo-“

I slapped her, hoping that she would just shut up and stop hurting me, as I quietly cried to myself..

“Stop it, that’s enough”, I said my last words to her before walking into one destined direction, opposite of her.

I tried to put myself back together as sweat continuously fell from my collar to the ground while I wiped the tears away from my red eyes with the edge of my palm.

Those last words she said to me, explained it all.. She was, ashamed, of spending the rest of her life with me. To start a family and proudly take my picture out to show to her friends, classifying me as her “husband”.

“Jialou!”, Meiling suddenly called. “There’s a truck coming your way! Jialou!”

Just as I turned to look, it was too late..

I felt an incredible pain as I felt the shards of glass rip through my skull and torso. I did not hear anything as my ears were pounding with the sound of my heartbeat. I heard the screech and at the last moment, as the blue flash appeared before my eyes. The whoosh of the vehicle as it torn at the side of my clothes spun me around and I fell to the ground. Suddenly, blackness clouded my vision and I could feel no more..

~ Introduction ~

Hello, my name is Chen Jialou. I was born in China’s Most Beautiful Rural Area, also known as Wuyuan on June 26, 1985 to two beautiful, but unaccepting parents. I started noticing I was trapped in the wrong body of a girl when I was 4. I wasn’t sticking around with my mom in the kitchen and played with dolls like all regular female 4 year-olds would do. Instead, I liked to follow my dad around Civil War Reenactments and was constantly playing with trains and cars. I finally had enough of that and eventually managed to speak the truth to my parents about my actual uality when I was 19, but of course, they were NOT supportive of me at all. Day by day, our relationships as parents and daughter grew a huge gap. They began ignoring me every time I tried talking, and even once called me worthless and a disgrace to the family. Because of that, I wasn’t able to live with my truth self for another 4 years. It’s not until my dad passed away due to Bone Cancer, that my mom began having trouble dealing with the truth, eventually developing a brain tumor. She died 2 years later. After the funeral of both my parents, I moved to ia to live with my grandma. I felt that I was blessed, to have an understanding and helpful grandma like mine. She totally understood what was going on in my brain. Instead of criticizing me for the uality that I shouldn’t have, she constantly comforted me each day, making me feel a bit better about myself. She made me believe that I didn’t want to have this uality, I was born with it, and that it wasn’t my fault. My grandma also passed away that same year, leaving me all alone. She died in bed, constantly whispering for me to follow my dreams and to live as me. She wouldn’t stop telling me to be myself and not be ashamed of my own preferences. I cried as she repeatedly whispered those words to her death, that she wasn’t embarrassed of me. That I could freely transgender to live the life that I’d always dreamed of. Feeling the stress flowing all around my body, I began drinking. I started dropping out of school and losing the jobs that I had to come to the bar 24/7. But that, was also where I met my ex-girlfriend of 3 years. Our relationship turned out great; she was always almost too enthusiastic to meet me every day. She changed my life. Three months after the death of my grandma, after thinking very carefully about the words she told me, I underwent Reassignment Surgery. I was very guilty of going against my father’s wishes before he died, therefore, my chest was the only part of my body I had the surgery being done on. I left my ia as it was, trying my best not to become an unfilial child to my parents. My name had been Chen Bao-Yu before any of that had happened..