“I approached the school in a new dress I was so happy about. I felt strong, confident, and absolutely terrified. I made my way to the library for a meeting. All the tables filled, yet no one joined me at mine. Teachers gathered to decide where to go for lunch. I asked if I could join. ‘We’d rather you didn’t.’ Broken, I returned to my classroom, closed the door, and cried.”
‘I was given a choice. ‘Be yourself or be a teacher. You can’t do both.’ I’d been outed by my coworker.’: Transgender teacher ‘stays positive’ despite criticism, says transition ‘doesn’t change who I am’
‘Please, when I wake up, change me into a boy.’ I’d make deals with God and wake up excited. Nothing changed.’: Transgender man finally ‘at peace,’ loves who he sees ‘looking back in the mirror’
“Growing up, there was this football field behind my house. I’d go there and lie down in the middle of the it, looking up at the sky and begging God to strike me with a lightning bolt. And just change me. Change my body. Every day I did this, and woke up sobbing. I didn’t have a word for how I felt. I knew I was attracted to women. But I also knew I felt like a boy trapped in a girl’s body.”
‘I know you’re a boy,’ she whispered, tucking me in and kissing my forehead. My eyes widened. I hid who I was and planned to never tell a soul.’
“I went home and slipped off my dress, praying I’d wake up a normal boy. What was I going to tell my mom? Would my family still love me? Am I going to be safe? I hoped to fake my death and live as a boy, nobody knowing my past.”
‘I remember one day looking at her and secretly wishing I was born a girl. When I saw myself in the mirror with a wig and nails painted I wanted to cry, it felt so ‘right’.’
“I became closer to accepting myself. That was until the night I found out I would be having a child. That moment I realized my life was no longer my own.”
‘I’ve never been with anyone with this lifestyle nor have I have been with a girl, but now that I’ve gotten to know him, I don’t want it any other way. He is the love of my life.’
“I didn’t think someone like her would be willing to love someone like me. But I was wrong.”
‘My child is transgender. But she is not the one who changed – I am.’
“Matthew became Madison only months before she started kindergarten. I am still grieving my son. Matty always wanted things that were pink and sparkled. He loved his cousin’s headbands and dress up clothes.”
‘The most frightening yet liberating moments I’ve experienced’: Transgender teen on her community’s acceptance during transition
“I never realized how much weight I was holding by keeping my identity a secret. Letting go of that weight made me feel like, for the first time, that I could breathe easy.”
