My name is Ronan, I'm 18.
I study German and Spanish in DCU,
and my pronouns are he/him.
Around 12 or 13,
I was questioning my sexuality
and through that, I came to question my gender
because I was thinking - in a relationship
I wouldn't be the girl in the relationship
like that's - I just knew
I went through a lot of different labels
and my friends were a great support in that
because I had only come out to them as questioning
and they were always super open
to try out pronouns, try out new names
whatever I wanted.
They were really great.
Then I eventually came out as trans guy
and I just immediately
felt so much more comfortable
so much more like myself.
I was in an all-girl school
which I mean, yeah, it wasn't great
as a trans guy, obviously
being in all girls school.
I asked my vice principal in my school to
just announce it to the whole year because
I was still quite shy at the time
I don't think i could have stood up in front of
a hundred people and said I'm trans; I'm like,
Now I probably could
but obviously I had just come out so
I wasn't about to do that but she...
So yeah, it was just my close friend group
and then everybody
I didn't want to be having to come into school
and have to tell a new teacher every day
and then some teachers know and some teachers not know
so I just got it all done in the one go
The one thing that they were good with
was the name
I don't know why but it just happened to be
that they were really good with switching names.
All the teachers.
One problem was the pronouns.
They just couldn't seem to get them
I don't know what it was. And they would say things like
"Good girl" and "Ladies" that that kind of thing
never stopped really
even after I talked to some teachers
and said listen this is making me really uncomfortable
could you please even just try to be more aware of the language
that you're using and that there is
gender-neutral alternatives
I gave them some suggestions of gender-neutral alternatives to use
but it never really did stop
On one hand like they were respecting my name
but then not the pronoun
so it felt like they just thought
I was just a girl who had changed her name
or just that they didn't see me as male
that they just thought like I was some girl who
they had to call a boy.
And it was really hard going into school every day
knowing that I'd be called a girl and all day every day
by every single teacher nearly
and it was really hard on me personally as well because
school really suits me as a person, I'm very academic
so it did put me off a bit and I was really sad, it was...
I liked school, so...
My school had a uniform It was a jumper and a skirt
Obviously, not very comfortable for me
So when I did come out at that meeting
The principal said you can wear the tracksuit bottoms
with the school jumper.
So, it didn't look great.
For the whole of my transition year
I wore the jumper and the tracksuit bottoms.
At the start of fifth year
my school was having a whole school inspection
I went to my principal and I said
what do you want me to do
because there's going to be inspectors here
and she said actually you can go back to the shop
where our uniforms are sold
and they already have a pair of trousers
that are in the same colour as our uniform
And I was disappointed, because I just thought,
the option was there so why didn't you give it to me before
What I was told was that if you have trousers then
everybody else is going to want them as well
And I was kind of like well why can't they all have them like
And now is there trousers in school for everyone or...?
No. No they still, they still haven't.
Obviously, friends and family who aren't trans
can't ever really properly understand what it's like.
But it's really important for the trans person
to have somebody who they can talk to
about how they're feeling
even if they can't understand, like,
that was one of the best things about my friend group
is that they were always there to listen.
You don't always have to understand how I'm feeling
or understand exactly what I'm going through
because all I need to know is
that you're there to support me and that you'll listen to me
If you don't have a supportive group of friends in school
there's always support groups.
BeLonG To and TENI have support groups
and that there is always the internet.
You can find so many people on the internet that will
support you and love you
and there's so many great communities.
Everyone should have access to a uniform that
best represents their gender.
Nobody should be made feel uncomfortable or
singled out in their uniform.
I'd also love for there to be TENI training every year
For TENI to give workshops to teachers
to teach them about their trans students
that they probably do have and don't realise
and for TENI to help teachers
create a more welcoming environment for
students who are trans
or who may be questioning their identity
and are scared to come out in school
I think that's really important that
teachers know about LGBT issues and that
LGBT issues are spoken about in the classroom
because in my school they weren't.
One thing that I would have loved was for me
to pick a teacher or for the principal to
check in on me and see how I was doing because
after I came out that was kind of it like
They sorted out the name,
they sorted out telling all the teachers
and my year and then that was it
But sometimes I did have issues and sometimes
I did want to speak to a member of staff
so I think it's really important to check in
especially if there aren't that many trans people in school.
It can feel really isolating and like you're on your own
because you pretty much are
just to check in with students see how they're doing
if there's any major issues...
That would have been really helpful for me.