I don’t normally cry before coffee (okay, that’s a lie) but apparently that’s how we’re starting this week.

Transitioning stories always punch my heart a little. Maybe it’s seeing the emotional, physical, and social struggles that my own trans friends have dealt with. Maybe it’s a sense of empathy for anyone who goes through a time sad, marginalized, doubted, distanced, abused, ridiculed, and generally discredited as a human. Maybe I just get fucking pumped when I see people being brave enough to do shit that they know will be hard. I really do think it takes an extraordinary person to do that; I believe most people would choose being dissatisfied and unfulfilled when being otherwise required such great risk and vulnerability and strength. But mostly, I think it’s that painfully relatable desire to self-actualize, to figure out who you are, and the awareness that there are few things more difficult to endure than living a life that is forced in some fundamental way, or having to exist in a way that feels unnatural and uncomfortable and disingenuous to who you really are. So videos like this one – where you can starkly see how a person can hide who they really are, what that means, how.

Like this? Check out this book, one woman’s transgender story.