Trans siblings

Here I am celebrating an amazing milestone with my older twin brother Zach. The funny thing about that, is Zack used to be my name, and Zoe my current name used to be his. The reason for that is quite simple, since we were born, we’ve both come out as transgender.

If you don’t know what that means, I’ll tell you. Being transgender means you don’t identify with the gender you were assigned with at birth. In my case, I was born male, but deep inside me I’m female and I identify as such.

The same goes for Zach, he was assigned female at birth, but he never felt comfortable wearing dresses and being girly, he was always into roughhousing causing trouble, and sports, and as you can see now, he’s quite the big strong man.

I on the other hand, I’ve become quite the dainty little woman, I love wearing dresses and trying on makeup and anything girly you could imagine, but things weren't always like this for the two of us.

Even though both of us had known we were trans almost all our lives, both of us kept it a secret, and didn’t even tell the other. I think mostly we were scared, but we also really didn’t truly understand what was going on with us.

Back then, neither of us had ever heard of a trans person, it wasn’t taught in schools or talked about all that much, so we really didn’t know how normal it was, we were even afraid our parents would hate us if we told them.

So we kept to ourselves in the madder, and over time Zack and I stole clothes from the other and hid them in different spots so the other wouldn’t find them in our room, and when no one was around we’d take them out and wear them.

It was sometime after we turned fourteen that we discovered the other felt the same way. It actually happened because I wasn’t as careful about when I chose to sneak the clothes out and wear them.

That day mother was at work and father was off at the store shopping. Zack had gone out to one of his friend's house for a girly sleepover, so I thought I had the room to myself. So I pulled out my box of his dresses that I stole and got to wear them around the room.

Well as you can imagine, Zack didn’t like girly sleepovers, so he just left his friend's house and walked home. He was quiet as he entered the house so I had no idea anyone was in the house, so I continued to dance around in his dress in our bedroom.

Zack once told me he had heard me from the kitchen, and was curious about what I was doing, so he looked through the keyhole for a good minute. That’s when he realized I was just like him, so he flung the door open.

Of course, at the moment I had no idea he was like me, so I freaked out thinking my life was over because my sibling just caught me in his dress. I started apologizing and begging him not to tell our parents, but he just closed the door and locked it.

Something I should have done now that I think about it. He didn’t say anything as he ran to his hiding spot and pulled out the clothes he had stolen from me. He changed right into them and stood in front of me.

I was still slow to figure out what he was doing, so I asked why he had a box of my clothes, and he told me that he thought for the same reason I had a box of his. He then walked up and hugged me.

I still remember that hug, and I’m sure Zach does too, it was the first time either of us felt loved by someone else as our true selves. That night we agreed to swap clothes when we were alone in our bedroom.

So at that point, all his clothes were really mine, and mine were really his. We only wore our old clothes when we went out, or when our parents were around. So for the next year, each night we spent time wearing clothes that made us feel normal.

For a while that was enough for us, but after we turned fifteen and puberty crept up, it stopped being enough. That was when Zack approached me about coming out to our parents, about how we really felt, and that I was really a girl, and he was really a boy.

I wasn’t sure about it, I was still terrified of anyone finding out, but Zack was confident about it, and encouraged me to do it with him. So knowing I would regret not standing with him, I agreed to it.

Our plan was simple, we waited until our parents both had the day off. I’d put on a bra and panties along with a nice dress, and style my hair, and Zack was going to put a binder on, a standard shirt and shorts, and cut most of his hair off.

The day came and I finished my hair and got dressed, and when I stood up I saw say hesitating to cut off his hair. I knew he wanted to do it, but even as confident as he was, he was also scared.

It makes sense, this was the scariest thing we could possibly do in our entire life. So I walked up to him and hugged him from the side. I told him I couldn’t wait until he was my big brother full-time, and that I knew he’d be the best brother ever.

I took the scissors from him and asked him if he wanted me to do it. He nodded and I cut off several feet of red hair from his head. Then together we walked out into the living room and stood in front of our parents.

They looked horrified. Our mother started asking Zack why he cut all his hair, and our dad started yelling at me to take the dress off. We stood our ground and told them, that from now on, Zack was a boy and I was a girl.

They both realized we were serious and sat back down on the couch in silence. Our father didn’t really say much that night, but our mother asked tons of questions. Most of them were mundane, like how long has this gone on.

Or, why didn’t you tell us sooner? But the big question came from when she asked what she was supposed to call us now. Zach and I looked at each other, we’ve both played with names before but never settled on anything.

That's when Zack said he didn’t care that much as long as his new name was masculine sounding, then he said for all he cared he took my old name, Zachary. Our mother actually smiled at that.

She seemed to accept and process the situation very quickly. She said switching names was a great idea, at the end of the day to her, she’d still have the same amount of boys and girls, with the names she picked out.

Zach and I looked at each other and smiled agreeing to swap names. My father got up and left the house, and Zack and I spent the night talking to Mother about plans for the future and our new dynamic.

Over the next couple of years, we both started hormone replacement therapy with the permission of both our parents. That’s right, our father eventually came around once he learned about us, and understood us more.

I think it also helped that Zack could be more open about doing boyish things, and kept insisting father do them with him. I never did father-son activities with him, so for the first time, he got that by spending time with Zack.

When we turned eighteen, we both legally changed our names, and we both had the paperwork framed and put on our parent's wall. After that, we went off to college and got our degrees and our current partners.

We both fell in love with smart and pretty women, and Zacks actually already engaged to his. I still have to propose to mine, or maybe she’ll propose to me, I have no idea. Many more years later we’re both twenty-six and taking this photo.

The milestone we’re celebrating is that we both recently recovered from our final surgeries for sex reassignment. We’ve both hit our transition goals, and neither of us has been happier, for ourselves and the other.

It’s been over twelve years since we discovered the other was also trans, we’ve had many hardships, and hurdles to jump, but we’ve always been there for each other, and I know that’ll never change. I’m so glad to have my brother, and I’m happy to have a sibling who gets me like he does.