Member-only story
Another reason I write is my hope a few of my ideas might find their way to a stray transgender youth. At my age, youth includes twenty somethings or even younger. I do realize however to most of them I am a dinosaur. What I went through in my transformative transgender years is so different from theirs I understand it does not matter. For instance, the idea of not having an internet or any social media is completely foreign to younger transgender women and men. What it meant was we had to contend with darker closets where we felt totally alone. It was exceeding difficult to find others with similar gender issues.
Over the recent years I have had the opportunity to experience the feedback of younger trans individuals. Predictably most don’t want or need my ideas and that is all good.
Recently though, I was mildly surprised when a close family member who just turned 21 is attempting to come out as a transgender man. I say mildly surprised because they (preferred pronoun) have matured into a very androgynous individual. At first I was speechless when I was presented with the idea. Quickly I recovered and asked did they understand what all they were getting themselves into. I am fairly certain they do yet they don’t. The power of youth allows us the luxury of making mistakes and then going back and correcting them. My example is another young local person I know who announced not long ago they wanted to be…
