Noelle Chesser was born under a different name, a name that does not reflect her gender identity. With an ongoing national debate questioning what bathrooms transgender people can or cannot use, Chesser just wants people to understand the struggles that transgender youth are facing locally and the misunderstandings surrounding the issue.

Noelle Chesser was born under a different name, a name that does not reflect her gender identity. With an ongoing national debate questioning what bathrooms transgender people can or cannot use, Chesser just wants people to understand the struggles that transgender youth are facing locally and the misunderstandings surrounding the issue.

"Like anybody else in the world, we just want to be seen as normal," Chesser said. "We want the same rights that anybody else wants in this world. Using the bathroom we want to use is just one step closer to being normal."

Chesser, 18, of Bonham, was named Jakobe at birth with male written on her birth certificate. When Chesser was in the eighth grade, she said she began to understand the feelings and attractions she was experiencing. She said she wasn’t attracted to women like the eighth grade boys around her.

"When I looked at a girl, it was more I want to be her," Chesser said. "I want to look like her."

Chesser began the slow process of realizing who she was and becoming Noelle. She said she first came out as gay, but her attraction to men wasn’t the only aspect at play. There was something missing and Chesser wasn’t comfortable with herself yet. Over the next four years, she said she started experimenting with makeup and women’s clothes. During her freshman year of high school, Chesser said she also started using the female bathroom, which was the first step in finding Noelle and feeling more comfortable inside her own skin.

In response to guidelines handed down by U.S. Education and Justice departments for public schools to allow transgender students to use the bathroom matching their gender identity, Bonham Independent School District Superintendent Marvin Beaty released a statement last week denouncing the guidelines. Beaty said the guidelines create more problems and demonstrates an overreach of federal authority. The statement said all students and personnel "shall continue to use the restroom facility for which God equipped them."

Beaty said the statement came about to make the district’s position clear to the parents of Bonham ISD students. He said the response to the statement continues to be overwhelmingly positive and the issue has faded for them. The superintendent said the statement represents the values of the community and the district doesn’t have anything else to say on the matter.

"I’m not working for popularity," Beaty said. "We’re just trying to do the best we can to take care of our kids."

The whole bathroom issue, Chesser said, is based on misplaced fear. Transgender people are not predators and are not trying enter a bathroom to make a ruckus, she said, they’re just trying to fit in.

"Some people worry about predators coming into the bathrooms," Chesser said. "If people are so worried about that why weren’t they so worried about it a couple years ago. Even if a law is made to where transgender people cannot go into the restroom … what predator, pedophile or sex offender is going to listen to the law anyway?"

As her junior year came about, Chesser said she wanted to stop hiding behind Jakobe and let Noelle show. So she became Noelle and accepted the gender identity she felt was correct for her.

"Being the only open transgender student at Bonham High School, it was a new experience for everyone," Chesser said. "I can understand where they would come from. When people don’t understand things, I feel like they fight it."

She said her junior year wasn’t easy. Chesser’s best friends accepted her quickly and used the name and pronouns that matched her identity, but not all her peers were open to the idea. Chesser said some students felt threatened by the idea of her being transgender, like she was testing them to see whether they would get mad. But she said it wasn’t meant to be like that.

"It was nothing but hate, bullying, slurs and all that kind of stuff," Chesser said. "There would be a few people who would be OK with it, but for the majority, it would be dirty looks, name calling and all kinds of things."

She said she talked with school administration, but the level of acceptance varied. When Chesser first introduced herself as Noelle, many teachers refused to use the name because it wasn’t listed on her files. But Chesser noted a time during her junior year where a vice principal wanted her to retake her yearbook photo because she was wearing makeup in it. She said she went to the principal and broke out into tears when she started speaking. The principal stuck up for Chesser and said nothing was wrong with the photo, so it stayed in the yearbook.

Beaty said he was not aware of any bullying or discrimination facing Chesser. He said it never came to his attention and generally all bullying issues do. He said the district takes all instances of reported bullying seriously and they have procedures in place to deal with it.

"If someone feels like their pleas are not being honored or properly interpreted, keep moving up the chain of command and somebody new with fresh eyes will take a look at it and see if that is indeed the case," Beaty said.

Even with some faculty on her side, Chesser said by the end of the year, the atmosphere of the school had gotten so bad that she didn’t want to continue into her senior year. So she left school and started her adult life, hoping conditions would improve outside the school environment.

During the process of becoming Noelle, Chesser said her family had different reactions to it. When she came out as gay to her father, Chesser said he thought she was joking and that in a couple of months it would go away.

"When I first came out as Noelle, he kind of shunned me, put me off to the side," Chesser said. "… Maybe four to five months after, he started to try. I remember one time he actually called me Noelle for the first time, and I cried because I had never thought he would ever call me Noelle."

One of the biggest misconceptions about transgender people, Chesser said, is that they are not cross-dressers. They do it to try and feel normal, she said.

"We take our identity very seriously because that’s an important part of us," Chesser said.