A blog from colleague Cheryll, for Transgender Awareness Week: My Brother Charlie

Our colleague Cheryll has written a blog about their brother Charlie!

People who know me, know I am super proud of my brother Charlie. Over the last couple of years Charlie has grown into a wonderful man and I’ll tell anyone who will listen how amazing he is and about his trans journey. So I thought I’d write it down and share it with you all as part of #TransAwarenessWeek2020

The day my sister Amie-Leigh told me that she identified as he/him and his name was Charlie, I was shocked, I’m not going to lie! Amie had not long come out as lesbian? I saw that one coming but this one snuck up on me! After my initial shock I was like ok, so how can I help? My instincts to make things better for people kicked in and after we chatted and I asked numerous questions, probably lots of inappropriate ones. I realised I was ok with this, My brother needed me and that was all that mattered. To me he was still the same person, just a new name and a haircut.

How wrong was I?

What I wasn’t expecting was to grieve for the sister I no longer had. Sounds weird right because technically that person was still stood there, alive as ever, in front of me. But it wasn’t the same, Charlie and Amie are different. Looking back it’s painful to now see the pain behind Amie’s eyes, she smiled but she never smiled with her eyes.

Fast forward to the present day and the man I see today definitely is not the same person Amie-Leigh was. Amie was great don’t get me wrong and yes I miss her a little bit, but it doesn’t come close to the feeling of pride, love, admiration and respect I feel when I see my brother Charlie smashing his true life.

#TransGenderAwarenessWeek
#TransgenderDayOfRemembrance
#TDoR2020