My name is Kameron, and I’m a 34 year-old trans-person. (Oh man, that makes me twice your age!)  I wanted to write to you, share a little bit about myself, and hopefully learn more about you.

When I was 17, I was going through a really rough time too.  I felt depressed, and stressed out about trying to make friends, plus juggling school, cross-country running, and a part-time job.  (I worked at McDonald’s.  It sucked.)  On top of all of this, I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to figure out my sexual identity (gender identity questions ended up coming later for me) and to be more open and honest. I was really shy.

I decided that I must be a lesbian, since I was so masculine and it seemed like I would probably date women, although I wasn’t so sure about that.  I didn’t know about transgender identities.  I didn’t know of anyone who was trans, or even what that really meant – it wasn’t talked about at the time, and I didn’t know about any resources.  I could barely come to terms with the idea of being gay, anyway, so maybe it was for the best!  To end up exploring these things in stages…

After a couple of months of feeling such intense pressure in my senior year of high school, I broke down and ended up in a psychiatric hospital for three weeks.  The rest of that school year was really really hard.  I had to drop out of a few of my classes.  I went to more study halls and art classes, but that didn’t really help.  I was not able to focus on my school work or anything else, not even TV!

Things did get better though, slowly but surely.  I don’t want to sound too cliche, but it does get better.  At least for me it did.  And I think if you were to really ask people who struggle with depression and gender dysphoria and everything else, most of them would tell you the same thing.

My mom was supportive, and she found out about an LGBT youth group that I started going to every Sunday morning.  (It prevented me from going to church with my parents, but I was secretly happy about that.)  I will say that I found it difficult to connect with people at first, because I was so shy, but I at least started to feel a little bit more confident at my school.  At the time, my school didn’t even have a gay-straight alliance or any club like that!  Does your school?

When I went to college, a lot changed for me, largely because it was an opportunity to re-invent myself.  Everyone was new.  Also, I learned about so many things I was not aware of, including gender identity.  Do you have plans to go to college?  Even if you don’t, there are all sorts of opportunities to be the person you see yourself as, even if most people know you as someone else right now.  Whether you join a new gym or start a new job or join a new group, I feel like people are more and more accepting and understanding about transgender identities, by the minute, these days.  It’s really incredible how fast things are changing.

I would not have believed I could be where I am today, when I was 17 (the year you were born!  Were you born in 1999?)  I changed my pronouns to he/him/his about 10 years ago.  I changed my name socially, and I want to change it legally too.  I was on testosterone for a few years.  I just had top surgery 3 weeks ago!  My transition has ended up not being as straightforward, partly because I identify as non-binary, but that’s a different story.  Also, I got married to a totally amazing person, and I have a blog, and I’m a radio DJ, and despite having some bouts of depression at different times, I am usually happy and want to get as much out of life as I can!

I’ve been thinking about you and hoping that things are at least getting a little better, every day.  I wonder if you’d want to write back and forth more?  I’d love to hear about what kinds of stuff you like.  I just talked a whole lot about myself, but I’m actually more interested in learning more about you!  Also, if you want to ask me something, go for it! I doubt I will think anything is “too personal.”  I’m pretty open!

Your pen pal,
Kameron