Toby, currently a Japanese senior, is one of a small number of transgender students at MSU, a number that MSU’s LBGT Resource Center Interim Director Deanna Hurlbert said she thinks likely is proportional to the 1 percent of transgender people in the global population.

Growing up in a small, conservative, Michigan town, Toby said he had never heard the word “transgender” until he was 22 years old and already was in the process of transitioning from female to male.

Last Sunday marked the International Transgender Day of Remembrance, and MSU students and faculty gathered for a candlelight vigil at the rock on Farm Lane. They spoke of the vital need to reach out and inform people about the issues that come with being transgender.

And for Toby, more than most, college has been about trying to understand and discover the very essence of who he is.

Growing up girl
While in the womb, it is believed Toby absorbed his twin and, as a result, was born with both male and female sexual organs.

Saying his parents always had wanted a girl, Toby said his parents decided to have his male sexual organs removed and raise their child as a daughter, but as he grew up, he never felt quite right.

“When I was 12 or 13, I started really daydreaming about how cool it would be if I was a guy,” he said. “I would pray every night, ‘God help me wake up a boy,’ and it didn’t often happen.”

Yet despite having these feelings for some time, Toby didn’t understand what they meant.

At 19, Toby began seeing a psychiatrist in Ann Arbor and decided he wanted to undergo gender reassignment surgery.

After countless surgeries, meetings with doctors across the country and thousands of dollars spent, Toby began the process of becoming a man.

The surgery to remove his breasts left his chest numb for four years and his hysterectomy was so painful he remained on Vicodin for months.

Years later there are still treatments he has to undergo to maintain his gender.

“After surgery I would take pain killers for the first two days and then stop even if I was still in pain,” he said. “I gave myself a weekly shot of 100 milligrams of testosterone, and I will for the rest of my life.”

Finding acceptance
Even with all the physical scars beginning to heal, the emotional ones still remained.

Coming out as transgender to his Catholic mother was difficult. Toby said she wrote to Franciscan monks asking for help.

He said she was told that because transgender and intersex people aren’t mentioned in the Bible, it was OK to leave it up to Toby to make up his mind, and God would point him in the right direction.

“I think that’s kind of nice I got a Biblical loophole,” he said. “But when I came out as being gay, that was a completely different story.”

Toby realized after his surgery that he was attracted to other men, something his mother couldn’t accept.

When he was younger, Toby’s mother often recited her unconditional love for her child — even if he was gay.

But when he finally told her the truth, he was met with dead silence.

His mom offered to take him to a psychiatrist, psychologist, neurologist — even an exorcist — to be “cured” of his sexuality.

“And I go, ‘Mom did you just say exorcist?’” Toby said. “And she said, ‘Whatever it takes.’”

New life
Looking back on his life, Toby describes it as a roller coaster.

After struggling to become the person he knew was inside, he’s finally reached a contentment with himself. His mother has accepted him — he hopes his father will come around — but the stabilizing force in his life has been the friendships he’s made at MSU.

Linguistics senior Crystal Cook began living with Toby before he transitioned to a man and said the process has brought them closer together.

They remain roommates, and after being at his side during surgery and helping him with his first few shots of testosterone, Cook said she considers Toby her best friend.

“Most of my family has met him, (and) the most awkward thing was telling my family I live with a guy,” she said. “But after meeting him, they haven’t had any problems.”

Toby said he has now reached a point where he is at peace with who he is.

He no longer worries about trying to hide who he is and has come to terms with the understanding that if people can’t accept him for who he is, they aren’t people he wants in his life.

“I don’t really see any point in trying to hide,” he said. “If someone’s going to discriminate against me because I’m transgender they’re not a person I want in my life, and if an employer doesn’t want to hire me, that’s a place I don’t want to work.”

No longer does he worry about the way he looks — if his face looks too “girly,” the fact that he has no Adam’s apple or if he’s masculine enough.

He just likes the way he is.

“You stop thinking about passing,” he said. “When you’re (transgender) you forget this wasn’t always my body.”

After speaking at the candlelight vigil Sunday, Hurlbert said transitioning from one gender to another can be difficult for people to understand, even if they are well educated and have good intentions.

“The greatest challenge on our campus for transgendered people is the lack of education and awareness,” she said. “(Transgender) students still fear of families response, fear of rejection, but more than that, I think transgender people fear violence and assault.”

For Toby, now 26 years old, he said he has been pleasantly surprised by how accepting people have been of him and his story, but the process of self discovery isn’t complete.

“For most of my childhood, I assumed that I was going to meet some tragic end before I turned 18 because I couldn’t … picture (myself) as a gender (I) didn’t belong in,” he said. “I kind of feel like, right now, I’m just beginning to figure out who I am as an adult and a person.”