At 11 years old, I began suffering from depression, suicidal ideation, and body dysmorphia. My difficulties with mental illness were born out of the harassment I endured since 1st grade from growing up as queer and trans in rural Pennsylvania.

This made it very difficult for me to maintain any sort of decent relationship with my family. I became guarded and distant. I protected myself with a melancholic and, at times, malevolent mask. I went through my life burning a fierce anger as my only source of fuel. I trusted no one, I loved no one, and I drove myself into isolation.

When I was 13, I discovered that I was, what I understood at the time to be, gay. By the time I was 14, I was lucky enough to have a best friend with whom I could share my secret. She and I are still best friends to this day and I will be eternally grateful to her for teaching how to love and trust again. There is nothing better than true friendship.

When I was 15, my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Shortly after my mother’s diagnosis, she told me that she was going to have a very invasive surgery in an attempt to prolong her life. The doctors said there was a very good chance she would die during the surgery and that we should plan accordingly. I was stunned.

I had hoped to wait another few years until I was out of the house to come out to my family. Instead, I had about 3 months notice before the surgery. It took me a few weeks to weigh my options and another few to gather up the courage, but eventually, I decided to come out to my family.

“I felt extremely blessed to have a family that accepted the idea of me being a homosexual”

I asked my parents and my brother to come into my room for a rare family meeting. When I finally let the words fall out of my mouth, my mom was relieved and actually scolded me for scaring her, thinking it was something more dire. My family assured me that they still loved me. I felt extremely blessed to have a family that accepted the idea of me being a homosexual.

I had mentally prepared myself to be thrown out of the house, but instead, I was embraced. After this talk, I texted all of my friends and told them the big news. I asked them to spread it around that night and in 1st period the next day at school. I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. And for the rest of my years in high school, I remained the only person out as gay in my school that I know of.

My mother survived the surgery and continued her difficult battle with cancer for another two years. During this time we tried our best to begin repairing our relationship. Unfortunately, we had barely scratched the surface of growing back together, when she died. I was 17 years old.

Although I was glad that I came out to my mom as gay, I still had a nagging feeling that there was more to it and that I had failed to let her see me for who I really was. I regret that my mother and I didn’t have more time together. However, I am also so incredibly thankful for the lessons that she taught me.

Luckily, my dad and I grew closer after my mom’s death. We were able to rebuild our relationship. Although I couldn’t ignore that he had been largely absent during a good amount of my upbringing, we became something like friends. We supported each other and I cherished that. 2 years after my mom’s death, my dad remarried. For the next few years, my dad, my stepmom, and I got along really well and I felt so blessed to have such a welcoming family.

“I would cause my life to implode and I would bury my head in the ashes”

My mental illness increased over the following years – now, adding anxiety and hypomania to the already horrendous depression, suicidal ideation, and body dysmorphia. I was lost and stuck in a lot of self-defeating behaviour cycles for a long time. Every 6 months or so, I would cause my life to implode and I would bury my head in the ashes.

Around this time, I brought my current boyfriend home at my parents’ request. After this visit, I was on cloud nine. I thought everything went so well! I, again, felt so blessed to have such a welcoming family. My heart was so full. A couple of weeks later, my dad pulled me aside and said that if my boyfriend was going to come around again, that we would have to refrain from showing affection for each other in front of them. I was shocked and my gleaming perception of my family was shattered.

The rest of that conversation didn’t go well. Unfortunately, my father wouldn’t listen to anything I was saying until I was fully sobbing – a behaviour of his that had become a regular occurrence. This planted a seed of destruction in my relationship with my father that we struggled with for a long time. My dad and my stepmom refused to discuss the damage that was done during this time and they began to treat me with increasing disrespect and disregard.

“I finally had a sense of purpose and an outlet to channel all of my intense energy and emotions into”

When I was 23, I discovered drag, which really turned things around for me. I finally had a sense of purpose and an outlet to channel all of my intense energy and emotions into. I realized that this was what I wanted to do with my life and I moved to Chicago to immerse myself in the drag scene.

By the time I was 24, that nagging feeling that was prodding me when I was 17 came to fruition. I discovered that I was transgender nonbinary. Over the year or two prior, I learned the difference between sex and gender. I learned about the spectrum of transness and the myth of the binary.

I felt a renewed sense of freedom and relief in my discovery and I was so thrilled to have drag as a playground for the exploration of my gender identity. My partner Phazma Plazma, who discovered that they were transgender nonbinary a bit later, also provided me with an immeasurable amount of support as I became reacquainted with my deepest self.

I came out to my family as transgender nonbinary and it didn’t go well. My parents were not receptive at all. My brother was a bit confused at first but came around pretty quickly. I had been working hard to educate my parents about social issues and patiently and compassionately broaden their worldview over the last few years. I continued this for another year after I came out as nonbinary.

My stepmom stopped talking to me entirely, despite my efforts to resolve things with her. My dad and I would make huge strides and I would think we were really on the path to working things out, but then he would revert to being extremely defensive and angry. He would consistently try to silence my voice and did not want to hear from me about my experience.

“Most of all I was afraid of being rejected by the trans community”

At 26, given my increasing level of body dysmorphia, I decided to try going on testosterone blockers and estrogen. It was a positively transformative experience. I was so afraid that I was actually a transwoman. I was afraid that, as in many other instances, no one would believe me. I was afraid that I wasn’t trans enough. And most of all I was afraid of being rejected by the trans community.

Then I would be truly alone. I interacted with this intense fear by finally giving myself permission to explore the possibility that I was a transwoman. I experimented by privately telling myself to fully embrace that I was a transwoman as a fact and to see how I felt. I figured that if this wasn’t right, I would feel some sort of discomfort or resistance or desire to shift back.

“Parts of myself that I had been denying space in my body and in my experience for over a decade began to rapidly rush to the surface”

However, after giving myself this permission, parts of myself that I had been denying space in my body and in my experience for over a decade began to rapidly rush to the surface. My partner and my closest friends immediately noticed a difference. I was more at ease with myself and my energy was far less turbulent. I was not at outright war within myself. I was definitely still battling, but this was the first step toward restoring balance to my inner life.

This process was overwhelming, confusing, immensely painful, and ultimately relieving. Through this metamorphosis, I discovered that I was indeed a very repressed transgender woman. I was finally able to see myself clearly. I was shocked to find that there were such cavernous parts of myself, containing entire worlds, entire realities that I was almost entirely consciously restricted from accessing.

I realized that my reaction to the trauma that others inflicted upon me from a young age was to become my own abuser. As I started to go through puberty my family and peers came crashing down on me just as my body dysmorphia and mental illness were rearing their mighty heads.

I craved to have a sense of control over any part of my life. I decided once and for all that if anyone was going to abuse me, it was going to be me. At least then I could see it coming and I would be in control. I threw the most feminine parts of myself into a deep well. I trapped her. I beat her. I abused her. For years. Without my conscious knowledge of what I had done and of what I continued to do.

This realization was devastating, yet essential for me to move through the pain. It is something that I am still recovering from, trying to nurture both parts of myself – the abuser and the abused. To give them their own space, their own agency, and to ultimately encourage them to grow back together through mutual love and understanding.

I came out to my family as a transwoman shortly after making the discovery myself. My brother and his then fiancé did their best to understand and to be inclusive, which I really appreciated. My stepmom wouldn’t talk to me much at all. My dad and I had a lot of ups and downs that followed my third time coming out.

“I am so thrilled to be on this long journey back to myself”

I’m currently 27 years old. I have been out as a transwoman and on HRT for a little over a year. My mental illness has mostly lifted its hold on me. Some days are worse than others, but it isn’t a constant barrage of darkness anymore and I am no longer suicidal. I am so thrilled to be on this long journey back to myself. It has been especially difficult to go through the process of transitioning without any of my cis-women family members alive to mentor me.

I missed out on those relationships with my mother and my grandmothers when they were alive. We were separated by a lack of the necessary information, mutual understanding, and language for me to express who I was and to let them see me.

“I have to be that feminine role model and mentor for myself now, as I strive to be that feminine mentor for trans-femme youth in the future”

Now, I am nurturing myself to grow through all of the unknown. I am an adult, but at the same time I am a child. I am a woman, but I am also a little girl. In a sense, I have to be that feminine role model and mentor for myself now, as I strive to be that feminine mentor for trans-femme youth in the future.

My brother and his wife have continued to be supportive and surprisingly my stepsisters have been really supportive as well. I am so grateful for that! Unfortunately, my dad and stepmom don’t want to continue having a relationship with me, so we are now estranged.

Drag continues to be my greatest outlet for my energy, my feelings, my exploration of myself and of the world around me. Above all, I am immensely grateful for the memory of my mother, my partner Phazma, my best friend who has stuck by me for 13 years, Chicago’s endlessly supportive and inspiring drag community of trans and queer folks, and the budding woman that I have been, that I am becoming, and that I will be. Much love to all of the trans and queer folks out there! You are not alone!