Learning about the existence of transgender people for the first time, at college, allowed me to start imagining a future for myself. Researching trans issues became a round-the-clock hobby: instead of going to class, I endlessly watched videos of trans men at various stages in their transitions, read blogs about gender identity, researched the effects of hormones, and tried to piece together my identity and my future. After eight months of exploration, I decided I wanted to start hormone replacement therapy, and I started coming out to friends and family as a transgender man.
At this point, gender fluidity and gender neutrality was not being discussed in the media as it is today by celebrities such as Miley Cyrus and Shamir Bailey (a singer who said, “To those who keep asking, I have no gender, no sexuality and no fucks to give”)
To help them understand, I opened up about the gender dysphoria I had experienced throughout so much of my life, and I asked them to use a new name for me, and new pronouns (he/him instead of she/her).