I always knew I was different, yet the ability to articulate exactly what I felt eluded me for most of my life, especially the early years. I grew up in the 80’s, pre internet, so I didn’t know there were other people in the world like me. When the internet came about, I learned that I was a crossdresser. Though that didn’t exactly fit me, it was the closest thing I had to an identity.

As a teenager I would go through a form of conversion therapy which resulted in burying my feminine side and trying to brace hyper masculinity. It was nothing more than a mask that I would wear for the sake of others. For if I could fool them, one day, I could even fool myself. I thought I was rather good at it, yet there were many days and nights she would be just below the surface, screaming to be let out. Every time I would silence her and go about life. The smile on my face was a poor attempt at hiding the sadness in my eyes.

Decades would go by and with each passing year I marveled that I was somehow still alive. I could never picture a future where I existed, where I had happiness, genuine happiness that persisted in my day-to-day life. I would become depressed over time which led me to one of the most life altering choices I would ever make. Instead of going through the motions and simply existing every day I sought help from a therapist, not just any therapist, but one that also specialized in gender identities, transgender people.

I would finally have answers to my questions. I finally had the language to define who I was. I wasn’t a boy; I wasn’t a man. I am a woman, a trans woman. What did that mean for me? How can I do this at the age of 41, I asked myself. With my therapist’s guidance I was able to answer these questions, navigate this transition and all the added pressures it would bring on someone that has a family, job, and lives in the bible belt.

It wasn’t easy by any means. Depression would set in at the knowledge of being different than the rest of the world. Yet I would plug away. I think my most defining moment early in my transition was the loss of a dear friend who was also a trans woman. The pressure got to her, and she took her own life. And I was scared, terrified, because only weeks earlier that was very nearly me.

My employer had exclusions on gender affirming surgery in the company Healthcare plan, so I was at a loss of how to pay for these surgeries. So, I would keep asking my employer to remove said exclusions. Each year the answer was no. Each year I would send a formal request to corporate and each year I would get a different reason why they wouldn’t remove the exclusions. After 4 years of this I reached out to an attorney for assistance and after a year of back and forth, my employer at the urging of the EEOC removed the exclusions on gender affirming surgery.

I had my first surgery in November of 2023, a breast augmentation or as the community calls it, top surgery. And my bottom surgery was in March of 2024. You’ll hear people say that gender affirming care is lifesaving. And that’s really a hard concept to grasp unless it’s something you’ve experienced first-hand. I even didn’t fully grasp how life altering it would be until my first surgery. Yes, I had gender dysphoria regarding my body. Yes, there were times I hated my body so much I wanted to hurt myself. Times spent in the shower, in the dark, just crying.

And then you have corrective surgery. To many, it’s a small thing. A small step. But when your body is foreign to you, when your body has betrayed you and you wake up from that first surgery and see the results of it? I cannot fully describe the amount of joy I felt. Finally, my body was starting to look like it should have all these years. Finally, I felt at home in my body. I started to stand up straighter. The was no longer this unseen weight on my shoulders. Finally,, I was me! I was happy. I am happy! My body was finally mine, not some impostors. More importantly, when I try to imagine what the future looks like, I can see a world where I exist in it. Transitioning, and gender affirming surgeries, gave me another chance at life. I’m both lucky and grateful to have been able to see the world from two sets of eyes.