Sadly, I am not an intelligent one-year-old with the capability to use a computer and write, I have about 26.5 years of experience living. For the first twelve of those years, I remember feeling simply, different, from the other boys at my school even though I had many common interests there was still some disconnect there. As I grew older and began to move from childhood to my preteen years, these desires I had to be girly that I spent so much time repressing in elementary school festered up to the surface. I saw nothing overly strange about it; I thought all boys struggled with this. However, one fateful evening when I was about twelve-years-old, I walked into the living room to find my parents watching a documentary about transgender people, and they asked me “Did you ever want to be a girl?” I said that I did not, but was as if a light bulb went off in my mind. I watched the rerun later that night, and for the first time in my life not only saw other people like me but also realized that I could become a girl! I told no one about this, and growing up in a Christian environment led to almost ten years essentially in Narnia before I found acceptance in the LGBT student group at my alma mater. I graduated and the first week I moved after I moved out of my parents’ house, I got into a therapist to begin the process of transition. Slowly over those five months, I got cold feet and talked myself out if it. I was not going to repress my dysphoria, I was determined that I could live with it, if not cure myself of it. I tried through various methods of dealing with that for two years, which brings us to July 2017.

In mid-July last year, I was going through another bout of dysphoria. It was not the first one I had had, and I knew that it was not going to be the last. I did my best during that time to stay busy and manage my dysphoria through the methods that I did back then, I had a story that I added to and wrote which helped, I thought it would pass in a few days and life would return to normal. However, that is not what happened. One fateful night, I went to bed and my mind was thinking about all of this, and so my mind naturally went to “If had not moved back home, I likely would be transitioning by now.” I woke up the next day, and a freight train had hit my mind. My real self was screaming to get out, much louder than she ever had in my life. I could not focus, think, and my only motivation to function on a basic level was to hide the fact that something was horribly wrong. It felt like I was alone inside of an invisible prison, screaming but yet nobody could hear me.

This feeling was a wake-up call for me, what I had done for two years had not worked; I knew this feeling was too unbearable to feel again. All I had done for the last two years of my life was essentially shaking up a can of soda that had now exploded. My entire life had now exploded; I knew that the future I had planned for myself since resetting my life in 2015 no longer existed. I just did not know what to do, but just that I had to do something. I was born that day.

I do not remember those early days of my life. July of last year is mostly a blur of dysphoria, all I remember is how bad I felt and how much I wanted to be free. I have gone back to an old internet forum to help put back together the pieces of that time in my life. There was one moment that did stick out, in a thread I made about relating to other men. I made this post in reply to a couple posts about not being stereotypes and just being who I am: “I know all of that, but how do you do that? In other words, how do you be who God wants you to be and still feel like one of the guys when you can’t relate to them?” They all thought I was looking for advice, but those words were a desperate plea from someone who was lonely and scared, clinging to the idea of safety for comfort. One of them opened his reply to my post with “you are probably just in the wrong group of men…” I do not remember how , but I from what I was able to piece together I must have realized that the problem was not the guys I knew, I knew a wide variety of them and had this issue even when it came down to my best friends. I was the problem. I looked elsewhere and found myself making an alt Reddit account. I wrote my first post about knowing when it was time to transition, and when I read the replies, it felt like coming home. They all told their stories about moments like what I was going through, a breaking point when they realized they could no longer live as men (it was only transwomen and feminine-leaning non-binary people), and let me know gently that it was always going to be like this, if not get worse.

I was terrified, though no longer felt quite as alone. I knew the only thing to do as a Christian, pray and so that is what I did. I started regularly praying “God, give me the strength to be the man or woman that you want me to be.” I got the answer to that prayer in early August while driving out of town for a job interview. While I was being silent on the road, God told me to exit the freeway, turn around, and go home. I drove for a while almost arguing with God, saying “No, what will everyone think when I told them I said God told me to go back home when I’m supposed to be there for the interview.” Eventually I decided, “Okay God, I trust you; I’m going to do this.” I took the next exit, however, almost immediately God said to me “Good, now get back on the freeway and get where you’re supposed to be.” When I did, God revealed to me “So, how is your transition any different? You already know that I love you and nothing you could ever do will make me stop or love you less. I will love you regardless if you are a man or a woman because you are still my child whether or not you become my daughter. You are afraid of what other people would think.” It was the answer to that prayer, even though it was not exactly what I prayed for it was what I needed to hear. The next chance that I could (I had a very busy few days afterward), I researched therapists and got into one the following week to start working out the issues I needed to and to prepare myself for transitioning.

The decision that I made on I-45 that evening has cost me friends, family, possessions, male privilege, and a comfortable future. Reflecting on this past year, even though it has been very hard at times, I would not trade any of it. I have gained so many friends that have blessed me tremendously; I have found my community and my people. The last year of my life, coming out, starting hormones, and going full-time has allowed me to become true to myself. It has given me freedom; I have felt joy and peace for the first time in my life. My true friends have revealed themselves and stood by me when it has been difficult, those who were not have shown me their true colors. Those first 25.5 years of living were still me, just a girl doing her best to pretend to be a guy. I was living according to the box that other people had made for me. The last year, I have refused to do that and allowed myself to be me. I do not know where I would be without that random thought seeping into my head, or if I chose not to make that post. Those things gave me my life, even though I was born into pain, the last year I have grown out of it into the woman I am proud to be today.