“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 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 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.”
