Basil Soper

"When I was six years old, I remember talking to my Dad about how the other boys teased me — threw the ball harder at me, and stomped their feet in protest when I became the catcher. I felt rejected. In retrospect, I think I was telling him that I felt like these boys were searching for any crack in my identity so they could tear me wide open, expose me, and make me leave their club. I didn’t understand why, though, seeing as I was a boy too. My father laughed in anger and said, 'If you’re a boy, then why don’t you have a dick?' It was the first time that I felt torn open and like something was wrong with me.

I finally transitioned twenty years later. Today, I am free and live as the man I’ve always imagined I was. I’m an uncle, a writer, a boyfriend, and kind. I am myself. I still live in a world that sometimes dissects me hoping to find a crack. Only now, when they find one of those cracks, the process still stings but only motivates me to continue being myself. I realize, now, that their meanness and ignorance is about them, not me.



Trans youth, I see you. You are more than your body. You are perfect. I love you, and it will get better."

— Basil Soper