I often feel that trans people have always been told we will never be enough—by our family, our peers, our surrounding world, and, most importantly, ourselves.

Throughout our lives, we frequently feel inadequate compared to those around us. We just don’t seem to fit in. We are unnatural; something about us is “off.” For centuries, there has only been “men” and “women,” categorized neatly in nice little monotone boxes. And for centuries, there have been trans people too—but only in the past one hundred years or so have we finally been able to get our voices out there. And, when in the face of this enormous history of cissexism and transphobia, we are often drowned out in the hate. Or, our multitude of unique experiences and identities are inherently othered in contrast to the resounding default of the cisgender identity in our society. We will never be normal.

In order to combat this constant attack on our own livelihood, we must be equipped with the knowledge that it is okay to be who we are. To feel, identify, and present how we choose. The strongest doses of hate cannot be matched by the largest reserves of self-love. But, of course, this is easier said than done: it’s hard to love yourself when you feel like everyone is against you. Our biggest enemies are own relfections, but, unfortunately, internalized insecurities aren’t the only monsters out there.

When I was twelve, I was given the book Chicken Soup for the Preteen Girl’s Soul. Terrified of growing up and confronting the looming threat of “womanhood,” I pored through the pages. I remember the book had sections dedicated to certain themes: peer pressure, love, family, death, friends, and more. Each section was prefaced with a small poem, and peppered throughout were works of art—usually comics. The meat of the book was stories sent in by girls approximately between the ages of eleven and eighteen, and depending on the age of the author, they were either tales of recently acquired life lessons, or reflective accounts of life-shaping memories.

In my sixth grade year, I read the book front-to-back countless times, even flagging my favorite stories with hot pink sticky notes (the color of which matched the font on the cover). I cried reading about a girl whose mother died, and was both terrified and moved by a bulimic girl’s story. Other submissions stuck out to me?—?one about a girl who started her period, another about a girl who joined the Boy Scouts instead of selling cookies with the Girl Scouts, or the last story of the book entitled, if I remember correctly, “Ugly Girl,” which featured a young woman and her journey through bullying and self esteem.

I had a diverse collection of voices of young women at my disposal, and as I read their words I wondered where I would fit within the mosaic of girlhood, of womanhood: what my story would be, what my struggles I would face. I fantasized about eventually submitting my own piece to a future edition of the book. At the end of my story, there would be my name staring with K, italicized like all the others, finishing with the first initial of my last name—M.

Yet I ruminated with a sort of detachment. My fantasies were really just fantasies. In reality, I had no idea how I felt about living life as a girl. The more I thought about it, the more confused I became. In questioning what kind of woman I would become, I was also faced with the question of being a woman in general. For the first time, I had to consider how I felt about being a girl, and I didn’t have the answer to what should have been an obvious question—if I was born this way, there shouldn’t be a problem, right? 

At the time, this was just an unease I couldn’t put a name to, and I chalked it up to my aforementioned fear of entering my teens and getting on with life past childhood. Looking back, however, it’s clear to me now that this was a precursor to a much larger identity crisis.

Fast forward through more confusion, and I eventually joined Tumblr at thirteen, melted into the Glee fandom, and was exposed to the queer community—mostly cis, gay fans of the show. One such blogger was a masculine lesbian named Taylor, who received questions about their gender and pronouns; not regularly, but enough for me to take notice. Taylor responded, stating they were unsure of their feelings on male pronouns, that their unisex name was just a nickname. Shortly after this I gathered my courage and sent them a message, stating how I loved their blog, and voiced my confusion about my gender identity. I said I wanted to start presenting more masculine, but was unsure of how to go about it. Taylor was kind, and said they’d been shopping exclusively in the male section of stores for awhile, and that me there was nothing wrong about me for wanting to try it out.

Fast forward again, and I started identifying as a lesbian. Off the computer, I was wearing the same pair of green cargo pants from Goodwill every other day because they were the only masculine piece of clothing I owned. One day, I tentatively googled “transgender,” “what is transgender,” etc. My most vivid memory is scrolling through another Tumblr blog, seeing their definition of “pangender”?—?an identity which fluctuates between multiple genders. This seemed to line up with my bouncing back and forth from being a girl to becoming masculine, but it still didn’t fit.

Then, I found the term FtM. Nothing fell into place, and everything didn’t suddenly make sense. But it felt as if I was starting towards the right direction, and I took on the mantle of female-to-male. I asked my online friends to refer to me with male pronouns, but kept using my birth name—a change I deemed unnecessary (but was actually scared of), and wouldn’t make until a year later.

I am sixteen now, I will be seventeen in less than a month, and the past almost-four years since I first identified as trans have been something of a roller coaster. For awhile, my gender identity was tied with my mental health, which had taken many nosedives, rising back up only to plummet yet again. For a long time after I started identifying as trans I thought I was heterosexual. I also became somewhat hypermasculine. Both of these were compulsory, knee-jerk reactions in an effort to reject the femininity I was trying to untangle myself from, and resulted in a lot of internal strife and pain. By trying to fit into the mold of the perfect, masculine straight boy, I thought I could make up for not being cis—but I never gave myself the chance to explore the other facets of my identity, so I found myself subconsciously repressing some things I did not want to have to face.

I was extremely insecure, with my gender and myself as a whole. I struggled with self harm, depression, suicide, and anxiety. I was also juggling a juxtaposition—while I was overcompensating for being trans, I was also scared I wasn’t trans “enough.” Because I didn’t even think about gender until I was thirteen, I thought something was wrong with me. I thought I wasn’t allowed to think of myself as a trans boy. In all the articles I had read, it sounded like you were just supposed to know who you are, automatically, right out of the womb. And yet I definitely couldn’t consider myself as a girl, either.

Out of place in the predominantly heterosexual, cisgender society, and scared I wouldn’t be welcome in the trans community, left me lonely and depressed pretty much all of the time. These conflicting emotions were the source of some of my internal problems, and working through them was paralleled with working through my other mental health issues.

I started hating myself because I didn’t realize there was a problem “sooner.” I hated myself because I was scared of surgeries and hormones. I hated myself because for a year I still used my birth name. In an essence, I hated myself because I was myself, instead of what I thought I should be, both as someone who was born to be cis and as a trans person. Until I was able to accept who I actually was, I would never feel better.

A lot of this funneled into my sexuality. Without getting into any uncomfortable details, I thought about women a lot, in what I thought was a natural way. In trying to fit the bill of “teenage boy,” I hyperfocused on women, trying to pretend if I was straight, then being trans wouldn’t matter. This correlated with my poor self image.

By this time I was fourteen or so, and I’d already started to question my sexuality—something which terrified me. By participating in compulsory heterosexuality, I was denying myself the possibility of becoming what I call “fully queer.” As of now, I consider myself gay, but back then I thought being gay and trans would be “too much.” I thought it would alienate me even further and leave me totally alone, without any friends, family, or community to fall back on. Coupled with problems at home (my parents got divorced) and school (I was close to failing many classes), I felt like I couldn’t be anything. You can see where this was leading.

Or, where it could have lead.

All of my personal doubts and fears could have manifested in disastrous ways. And I admit, they occasionally did. I hurt myself a lot. I was suicidal. In November of 2013, I even went into the emergency room for a psych evaluation, nearly got admitted, and had to write a “safety discharge plan” at midnight before I left. It wasn’t fun. Having to almost kill myself in order to live as myself wasn’t fun.

But I wouldn’t trade my experiences for anything. And in the end I regret nothing. Because without all of this pain and suffering, I’d never have the happiness I do today.

As I gained more trans friends I became more comfortable with myself, which gave me the confidence to change my name once and for all. My mom chose my birth name, which I inherited from an alien on a Star Trek spinoff, and I wanted something as equally unique. I immediately thought of what I consider the rarest letter of the alphabet?—?X?—?and naturally chose “Xavier.” It fit, in a way that only trans people will be able to understand.

Choosing a name for yourself that coincides with who you know yourself to be is an act of rebirth and reclamation. Instead of trying to force yourself under a persona which is the opposite of everything you are comfortable with, you gift yourself a small but invaluable taste of autonomy and control. When you find your name, you just know, and the sensation is indescribable. Typing it out, reading it, and hearing my friends call me by it still fills me with joy?—?I hope it always will.

After choosing my name, everything else happened so fast and slow at the same time. I was outed the summer before my sophomore year, when my sister got on my phone and saw me go by Xavier on tumblr. That fall was when I went to the hospital. I was in the full swing of therapy, too, and had some trial and error with antidepressants, which threw me in for a loop. For a few years, I was so miserable. Nothing seemed to be going right. I felt like I had no future.

But somehow, I kept going.

One year after I was outed, my mom and step mom got married in Miami. We flew down to Florida for a week (I got sun-burnt on the first day), went shopping in the biggest mall I had ever been in, swam in the ocean, and spent our evenings balming our pasty, Midwestern skin with aloe. Despite all this fun, I felt detached from everything. I’d been feeling dysphoric for a few weeks, my sophomore year didn’t turn out how I planned, and I just wanted to be home with my cats. For a handful of nights I distinctly remember crying once everyone was asleep, my sore skin sticking to the white leather of the couch in our condo, using two pillows (filled with real feathers) to cover my head and block everything out. My mom and step mom got married at the end of the week, and I was thankful to go home.

On the drive back from the Indianapolis airport I stared out the window the entire time, wondering why I had been so desperate to go home. Now that I was back, I felt kind of stupid. But I paid attention to the lanky sunlight standing between cars, the tall grass flanking the interstate, peppered with delicate wildflowers. We passed the Illinois border and I welcomed the cornfields with open arms. As we neared my home town in the heart of the state the familiar highways and green directory signs, flashing with a rainbow reflection of the sunset, filled me with a beautiful sense of calmness.

It was the end of July. I only had a few weeks of the summer left until school started again. I was determined things would be different. My heart seized as we reentered our town, and finally the driveway. I was filled with spectacularly new ambition, all thanks to my shitty, boring, despicable hometown, swamped with farms in the middle of Cornfield land. But it was home, and that is where charity begins.

When midterm report cards come out in a few days I will be officially three-fourths of the way done with my junior year. I got off to a shaky start, but looking back, I realize how far I have come. I am participating in class, I’m doing my homework (or at least most of it), and I have As and Bs in all of my classes (except for math, which is stupid anyways). I plan on going to a community college for a couple of years before transferring, probably up north to Joliet or Aurora or even Chicago, to study psychology, gender and sexuality, and political science. I want to get my doctorate in psychology and use my work and research to help aid the transgender rights movement. After that, the sky is the limit. I’ve thought about heading west to California or Oregon, but I don’t think I will ever be able to stay out of state permanently. Those stupid cornfields always call me back home.

Looking back on the past four years since I started identifying as trans is such a blur. I have overcome so many things I thought impossible. When I was thirteen, I never thought I’d be writing this, or planning my transition, or coming out to friends, my English teacher, and getting ready to tell the rest of my family besides my parents and little sister who I really am. But these are all things I have accomplished. My freshman year, I thought I’d have killed myself before I graduated. Yet here I am, full of inspiration, hope, and courage, taking steps toward the rest of my long, fulfilling life.

I have accepted who I am. I am not only “fully queer” but “fully here”—I have embraced my whole identity. I’m not just trans, or gay, or Xavier, but I am a human being. I have talents, I have potential, I have promise. And I have hope.

I want trans people to know that it is okay to be who you are. I want trans people to know that it is okay to be sad and happy and angry and scared and nervous. I want trans people to know they are beautiful and wonderful and just as important as anyone else.

I want trans people to know it is okay to be trans as well as gay, lesbian, disabled, neurodivergent, asexual, aromantic, or anything at all. I want trans people to know they are more than their identity, but also that your identity is integral to who you are, and without accepting yourself, you will never be able to love yourself. It is okay to be who you are, whomever that is.

I want trans people to know it is okay to experience dysphoria, and it is okay not to. I want trans people to know it is okay to want surgery or hormones, and to not want them. I want trans people to know it is okay to want what they need, whatever that is.

More than anything, I want trans people to know that they deserve love and safety—and that there is a wonderful community open to them, which understands them, and will fight for them, and listen to them, and care for them.

So, dear trans reader, know this:

There is a Chicken Soup for the Transgender Soul. There are sections dedicated to peer pressure, love, family, death, friends, and more, with poems and artwork in between. There are stories of trans boys and trans girls and nonbinary people and bigender people and so many others. There are stories of trans love and trans beauty and trans happiness. There are stories of trans sadness and trans struggle and trans pain.

These stories are my stories, your stories, our stories. These stories are in all of us, waiting to be written. You are writing your own story, and it will be a great one.

If you ever feel lost, hopeless, or confused—if you’re ever five seconds from jumping off that ledge, or finally coming out to your family, or about to check a different box under “gender” for the first time, know this:

When I fantasized about writing for Chicken Soup for the Preteen Girl’s Soul, I never imagined I’d be writing for the Transgender Soul instead. But I am, and I will continue to do so, and I hope you do, too. Because it’s about time we get our own chicken soup—we both deserve it.