Children often hear the phrase “Just be yourself” from parents and teachers who hope to instill self-esteem and self-awareness. But what if “being yourself” means going completely against societal norms? What if it meant being cut off from your own family? What if it meant a threat to your safety, maybe even your life?

These are the choices transgendered people are faced with every day, and something Vallejo native Jeriann Guzman knows firsthand.

She runs the Solano Serenity Center on Georgia Street, a “safe haven” that promotes acceptance for people with gender dysphoria, and those that identify as lesbian, gay, transgender, queer and questioning, asexual, and inter-sexed (formerly known as “hermaphrodite”).

Guzman, 56, was born physically male and began to transition to a female in 2011. She has undergone all the necessary surgeries to physically be a woman. In every other respect however, nothing has changed: she said she’s been a female her whole life.

“I knew I was different when I was 4 years old,” she said, settling into a cozy chair in the thrift store run by the Solano AIDS Coalition, a space the Serenity Center shares. “My mom used to sit me on her knee and say, ‘How’s my little boy today?’ And I would say, ‘I’m not your little boy…’ She never asked a second question.”

As Guzman grew up, she said she had no concept of being “transgendered,” she just didn’t feel “right.”

“Gender dysphoria” is defined by the American Psychiatric Society as “a conflict between a person’s physical or assigned gender and the gender with which he/she/they identify.”

Until very recently, gender dysphoria was listed as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual that doctor’s use for diagnoses.

In 2012, the manual’s definition changed to one describing a biological or medical condition with psychological ramifications. In short, you can have the brain of a female and the body of a male, or a mixture thereof. It’s not a mental illness but rather a biological condition.

Guzman remembers going to her grandmother’s house as a child and playing with her jewelry, dresses, and slips. Her family chalked this up to their little boy having harmless fun. Once the 1970s and 1980s arrived, it wasn’t odd for a male to wear silky flowered shirts, velour pants, and their hair long. It was “groovy,” everyone was doing it. Still, Guzman said she didn’t have any role models to help her define what was happening to her internally, and she certainly didn’t know there were other people like herself.

It wasn’t until she hit her mid-40s and the advent of the Internet, that she began to learn about transgenderism.

“It was an eye-opening experience,” she said. “It was like, gee, there’s someone else like me.”

Guzman said she joined chat rooms and boards and made other trans friends who encouraged her to see a therapist at the Lyon-Martin Health Clinic in San Francisco. It was to this therapist that she first “came out” in 2010. She began taking hormones in 2011.

As relieved as she was to finally have a name for how she felt, Guzman said she faced a lot of fear, foremost of hurting her family. She was married with four children at the time.

“If I’d transitioned at 20, before getting married or having kids, that would’ve been one thing,” she said. “But I had children to worry about, and now four grandchildren as well.”

The reaction from her family has been mixed, Guzman said.

Two of her children are not accepting of her at all. One is “indifferent,” and another “doesn’t like what I’m doing but will defend to the death my right to do it.”

Her transition has also hit her in the pocketbook.

Guzman said she said she arrives at job interviews and is immediately told the position has been filled. Currently unemployed, she’s seeking work as a notary.

The national suicide rate for trans youth is a whopping 50 percent, Guzman said, and for trans adults the rate is 41 percent. Guzman said she’s made nine suicide attempts, herself.

The United States is third in the world for the murder of transgendered people, she said.

But don’t call living trans “courageous,” Guzman said.

“It wasn’t courage, it was survival,” she said. “When I came out I was scared to death. But who I am on the inside is who I want to be on the outside. Sure, I could wear men’s clothing, I could do this, I could do that … But why lie to everybody? I’m lying to myself if I do that.”

Still, Guzman acknowledges that every time she leaves the house she “has a target” on her back and faces verbal and physical abuse.

Guzman said her “watershed moment” to embrace herself fully and become an activist came in 2013. That was a hard year, she said.

First, her wife died of a heart attack in front of her. Then, her dog died next to her bed. Her house was foreclosed on. All of these things would be difficult on their own, but it wasn’t until she was beaten up for being transgendered that she really began to get organized, Guzman said.

“I was sitting the hospital hallway,” she said. “I’m in a tight white T-shirt top because it’s October, shorts, flats, with my earrings and my jewelry.”

The doctor kept identifying Guzman as a male in what felt like a malicious way.

“He told me to strip down in the hallway so he could examine me,” she said. “I said, no, I’m in transition.’ He said, ‘transition to what?”

Guzman said that the doctor would not touch her, and after she was X-rayed, he had an orderly put the neck brace on her as he watched from the doorway.

When Guzman got home, two police officers greeted her to make a report about the violent incident that led to the hospitalization, and they said, “How can we help you, sir?”

Guzman said she was tired of trying to be herself yet coming up against constant resistance.

“After that day, I started the Serenity Center in earnest,” she said.

“The work that she is doing at the center is really helping to dispel the stigma,” Solano AIDS Coalition head Mario Saucedo said. “She’s done beautiful work and I’m very happy to be in partnership with her.”

The support Guzman has gotten from community members has been heartening, she said.

Incoming Vallejo Mayor Bob Sampayan has been a steadfast ally.

“I knew he was a supporter when I held a vigil for the victims of the Pulse shooting,” she said, referring to the June 26 massacre at a gay Orlando nightclub. Sampayan was one of a few Vallejo city leaders to show up.

“As I started reading the names, it was windy and I was having a hard time holding my papers,” Guzman said. “Bob took the paperwork from me, stood one step below me, and held the papers so I could read them. He had tears in his eyes as I read those names.”

Sampayan was instrumental in proclaiming November Transgender Awareness Month in Vallejo, and every third Saturday in November going forward will be a Day of Remembrance for the city’s trans people.

“He’s been extremely receptive to us, and, at least locally, we have something to look forward to in the coming years,” Guzman said.

Nationally, though, not so much.

The new President-elect has named anti-LGBT people to his cabinet and the LGBT community is “bracing for the worst,” Guzman said.

“We will push back,” she said. “We are going to fight tooth and nail to hold on to the rights we’ve fought for.”

Recently Guzman expanded the scope of the Serenity Center’s goals, as well. It happened after a straight immigrant woman came into the center “visibly shaken” after being assaulted.

“She said she needed to be somewhere where people were kind and accepting,” Guzman said. “To me this was a poignant moment. This election didn’t just affect the LGBT (community), it affected everybody in one way or another. We’ve now changed our mission in a way that we are a safe haven for all people.”

Guzman’s life philosophy is simple: Live and let live.

“We are no different than anyone else,” she said. “We just want to live our life, live our dreams, accomplish what we want to accomplish, and then, when we die, hopefully leave a decent legacy.”