Transgender Identity Narrative

The phone rang one spring afternoon in my history class. “Jay, the vice principal needs to see you” my teacher informed me. Begrudgingly, I got up out of my seat and began the walk of shame towards the door. What did I do? My mind was racing, trying to come up with every possible bad thing I did during the week and how I would explain myself.

I walked into my vice principal’s office and sank down in the chair. She studied me and took a deep breath. “Jay, I have a favor to ask you. There is a student at the local middle school that is struggling with their gender identity and needs someone to talk to. Would you go talk to them”? I jumped at the opportunity to speak with another transgender teenager. I am a senior now, but when I came out as transgender as a high school freshmen, the world felt compressed and dark. I had no older trans role models at my school, and I was struggling to navigate the stress of high school and my identity by myself.
I was confronted with people who did not share the same beliefs or morals as I did, and I started to question my own faith. I felt like a fish trying to swim upstream. Who was I? Where did I belong? I certainly wasn’t the popular girl, or the stellar soccer player, or even the biggest bookworm. I felt like some part of me was incomplete, that my own mind was trying to hide something from me. I was hospitalized for attempting suicide because I was so unhappy with who I was and my body. As I lay on that hospital bed I began to realize the truth about who I am. Being transgender is how I can make an impact on the