No One Knew I Was Trans In College. Then I Joined A Fraternity – And It Taught Me How To Be A Man

<div><img src="https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/68dfe3c018000013c05d105f.png?cache=Qmi5Zibkrl&ops=scalefit_630_noupscale" alt="Molly (right) and me (center), with our "Little," Christien (left)." data-caption="Molly (right) and me (center), with our "Little," Christien (left)." data-credit-link-back="" data-credit="Photo Courtesy Of Aster Hwang" />Molly (right) and me (center), with our "Little," Christien (left).</div><div class="content-list-component text"><p dir="auto">My transgender tale is as old as time, opening with the devastation brought by puberty upon turning 11, as my mother gleefully delivered the horrifying news that I was finally “becoming a woman”.</p><p><span style="font-weight:400">I started going to bed every night with crippling anxiety that I was slowly turning into something I couldn’t fathom myself as, and one day I would wake up as someone I couldn’t recognise. The disconnect between my body and self-image begot disbelief, then disappointment, which then transformed into shame. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight:400">When I searched my symptoms on the Korean version of Google, I came across the concept of “ gender dysphoria” and discovered that I might be a “transgender” who would have to endure all the surgeries and social stigma that come with that identity. I hastily decided that wasn’t the right fit – I’d already lived so long as a woman “successfully”.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight:400">Besides, don’t all women feel ashamed of their bodies? I couldn’t imagine I was anything other than a closeted queer woman. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight:400">When I arrived at Brown University – the tree-hugging, activist Ivy League sibling – fresh from South Korea, I w