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Until a few months before he started his junior year at Manchester, Chapman had lived as a girl.

He says that all his life he felt different from other girls, but was never really sure why. But then he met a transgender man the summer between his sophomore and junior years and they talked. Those conversations led Chapman to the realization that he felt different because he was not a female. He is a male.

“As he was telling me his story, the puzzle pieces just started to fit in,” said Chapman, who graduated last year. “Everything started to make sense. It was just kind of like an epiphany.”

“From that day on,” he continued, “I knew this is who I was supposed to be.”

For Chapman, the decision to transition from girl to boy was met with mixed reactions at school. Some students, teachers and administrators accepted the change, while others took a more cautious approach. The school accepted his new name and, for the most part, teachers referred to him by the newly correct pronoun.

But like many transgender students, one big question for Chapman was which bathroom he would use.