All high school students are struggling to find out where they fit in among their peer groups. Their clothes may change, their hair or their dialect. While others were faced with these challenges, I was trying to discover where I fit in with myself. I was struggling to accept who I was as a person in a whole different sense. Instead of questioning my clothing, hair or choice of words, I was questioning my gender identity.

Many people I have met, think that gender is either boy or girl, with no choice in between. You are born as one or the other, and there is no question that is what you were meant to be. But what if there was a mistake somewhere along the line of development and growth? What if the chromosomes got mixed up? That is what I have questioned every day of my life since the age of five.

As a child, I hated wearing dresses and growing my hair out. Whenever anyone called me “Heather” or “she,” I shivered because it wasn’t right. I didn’t know what was right, but I knew this wasn’t. I was far from being a little girl. I preferred jeans and a tee shirt with skate sneakers, rather then the tight clothes that my other female classmates wore. I often told other kids that I was a boy and told them that my name was Travis. I knew deep down that I wasn’t a girl, and struggled with this secret for years.

I can remember when I was in third grade, I was caught going into the boys’ room instead of the girls’ and my classmates made fun of me for the rest of the year. When I told my teacher to call me Travis and that I was a boy, I was laughed at and sent to the guidance office. From that point on, I never spoke another word about it in that school.

As I grew older, I began to learn about terms such as gay, lesbian and bisexual. I had never really been attracted to males, and being biologically female, I assumed I was a lesbian. I had found something I fit into sort of. I was a lesbian, or so I thought.

But something still didn’t feel right. When “Heather” became unbearable, I couldn’t understand why I hated being in my skin and felt so displaced. I couldn’t understand why my breasts became something I wanted to get rid of and felt as though they didn’t belong to me. Then I met my friends Justin and Eric. They introduced me to the term transgender. Transgender is an umbrella term used to describe any person who identifies or feels comfortable in the gender not assigned to them at birth.

I read about transgender on the internet and it fit. I didn’t like labels, and still don’t, but to find a name for this feeling, and others who felt the same way was so liberating. Now the obstacle of coming out and growing comfortable with myself entered my mind. Onto the next challenge!

After living as a girl, using female names and pronouns, for over fifteen years, I decided to finally become myself. I started what is known as “transitioning.” When a person transitions, they begin to make changes to their physical appearance to better align their bodies to their minds. For me, this meant cutting my hair, changing my name to a more masculine one, and continuing to bind my chest. (I began binding at the age of thirteen.) This was a challenge because of my living situation. My guardians at the time, wouldn’t allow my to change my name or pronouns, but they did allow me to cut my hair and bind my chest. I had to fight, until Waltham House came and advocated for my transition.

The Waltham House is a group home for gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual and questioning youth between the ages of thirteen and eighteen. When the representatives came and fought for me, I immediately made it a goal to live there. A month later, I moved into Waltham House. I changed my name and pronouns with my high school, and later went to court and legally changed it. Everyone at Waltham House knew me as “Alex” and used male pronouns. All the people there didn’t even recognize me as female or as “Heather.” Respect was an all around rule especially regarding identity and orientation and was amazing to live in an environment such as this.

There was one drawback though. Adversity from my friends and family. I faced some of the most hurtful things and painful insults that I had ever heard. My family walked out of my life and they no longer call or talk to me. I haven’t seen my family for more then five minutes, in over two years. They don’t accept or understand anyone different then the average heterosexual individual. They think that being transgender is a choice, along with being gay, lesbian or bisexual. Often, they called Waltham House, swore at me, and degraded who I was. They swore and insulted the staff there. They didn’t seem to realize that although my name and physical appearance had changed, I was still the same person inside. I am still a musician, skater, writer, poet, hard worker, dedicated, focused, determined and energized person. I still have the same heart. One thing that people often ask me is, “Why do you want to become a boy/man?” My answer, “I am not becoming a boy/man, I am becoming myself.”