Pride Reflection: Donovan
My name is Donovan, I am an indigenous trans individual, a current foster youth and last but not least, an activist against discrimination in all forms. My success story will come when all foster youth can come to a place they can call home and mean it. Until then, the only story I can truthfully tell is that I've survived the foster system. I learned to work it and strive off of any opportunities given to me. I became resilient because of my traumas and experience. Resilience is often confused with strength. I'm resilient, but only because I'm too stubborn to stay down after being struck time and time again.
Being bisexual, trans, and a person of color is hard as it is. It is even harder in foster care. There is no right or wrong way to be any of these identities, but being in foster care made it feel like there was only one right way to be LGBTQ+. For years, I had to make being trans and bi digestible to my social workers, to tie myself to a strict gender binary because that’s how my case worker understood it. For a while, that forced me to appear more masculine for my trans identity to be validated. The foster care system made it really hard to have space to be myself, and it was only recently I felt comfortable to be more fluid in my gender presentation.
All the challenges of being trans and bi, there are just extra gates and hoops to jump through being in foster care. Like changing my name--this wasn’t just in my control. The state has an entire file on who you are, and they don’t give you the right for your old name to be forgotten, or your transition to be private. All of these decisions are overseen by so many state employees, who don’t always respect me for who I am.
Growing up I had wished that more people had listened to youth in foster care. Plenty of people heard us--but they did not listen. I know there are so many youth where we are begging to be represented. It’s hard being brown, bisexual and transgender in a world that simply doesn’t understand someone like me, especially coming through the foster care system. I can’t change what happened to me, but I most certainly can make room for other people like me.
