“It is not by hiding that we will disappear”, affirms Jacob-Elijah, on the eve of the public session of a proposed law of LR to, among other things, prohibit any medical transition for minors. This 20-year-old Parisian “knows what [il] speak “. He began his transition journey when he was a minor and without his parents’ consent, which is currently necessary to access hormonal treatment.
“I couldn’t be prescribed hormones but I got them differently,” he confides. Besides, because I am a cautious person, I was still followed by an endocrinologist who checked through regular blood tests that everything was going correctly. We must therefore understand that, when someone really wants to transition, they will go all the way to get there, regardless of the obstacles and prohibitions, because that is the only way to feel better. The risk is therefore being left to your own devices, doing things in secret. And with this law, this is what can become generalized. It will endanger the lives of adolescents and children. »
“It was the only solution, it was transition or nothing”
Since the announcement of this bill, he has campaigned for its withdrawal. He notably sent a message to the senators on his Instagram account where more than 23,000 people follow him. “These people who wrote this text do not realize the danger they are creating. Already, it is certain that they are absolutely not concerned given their proposals. We talk about the well-being of minors but the problem is taken in reverse. Instead of a law to support and better accompany children, to listen to their questions in order to know what their needs are, we want to ban everything? That does not make any sense. This proves that everything that is not done with us is done against us. »
The young man finds this desire to control “the fundamental right” of minors to “self-determine” “absurd”. “We exist before the age of 18, we do not need to be of legal age to have an identity. » He supports: “The identity that I decided to show at the age of 15 is still the one that I have now at 20 and it is not about to change. Start my transition journey? It’s the best decision of my life. »
He summarizes: “I was 16 and it was the only solution. My coming out to my loved ones went very badly, I was placed in a shelter. I was at a point where it was transition or nothing. Waiting two more years in this appearance was impossible. So I decided to take hormones. »
“I wasn’t crazy or weird”
Jacob-Elijah says he had suicidal thoughts and intense depression from the age of 9 or 10. “When puberty began to change my previously androgynous appearance, I realized that I was not being perceived the way I wanted deep down. For me, being a woman was inevitable, I was going to have to live with that my whole life. »
In this young man’s Catholic family, transidentity was “clearly not a subject” he could discuss. “I didn’t have positive representations or a place to ask my questions,” he continues. It was during the first confinement, in March 2020, that Jacob-Elijah really learned about his discomfort.
“I was already wondering about my sexual orientation. Basically, I knew who I was attracted to but not who I was, he recalls. When life stopped because of Covid-19, I was 15 and a half years old and I said to myself: “Actually, I didn’t live as myself.” I googled “boy in a girl’s body” and that’s how I knew that other people were also experiencing what I was experiencing, that it was something that existed. , that I wasn’t crazy or weird. »
“We have the right to exist”
Even with hormones, Jacob-Elijah faces many obstacles before he feels completely like himself. “I was starting to get better because I had a masculine appearance but I felt like there was always something that took me back to who I wasn’t really, especially because I couldn’t change my appearance. civil status,” he says.
So when he turned 18, he felt “shaken.” He elaborates: “I was able to have my torso operation, my change of marital status and everything went well. Yes, it’s great but why so much suffering when you’re a minor for such easy things. Yes, my age has changed but not my identity. Did we really have to wait all this time to accommodate things that had been so logical to me for years? In fact, I could have had all this sooner. » Even now, he still has the after-effects of the entire period of anxiety and insecurity that he experienced when he was younger.
It is also for these reasons that Jacob-Elijah wants to “make his story visible” on social networks. “Given what I have experienced, it is clearly important to mobilize to prevent younger people from also experiencing these traumas. Transphobes say we will influence them but on the contrary! When people come to talk to me, I always advise you to take your time, to think carefully because it’s not easy to be a trans person. But I also emphasize that even if we are considered different, we have the right to exist and do what we like. »