Stay Gold - Tobly McSmith Page 0,4

puberty, and my world crumbled. I knew I was a boy, but I kept turning more into a girl. My chest, my face, my voice. My body was revolting against me and developing without my consent. I didn’t understand my feelings and had no words to describe them. I couldn’t muster the courage to talk to anyone. Not even my sister.

Fast-forward to 2015, the summer before I started eighth grade. I was growing more depressed and uncomfortable by the day. I’d tried to be a girl and do girl things, but it never felt right. It felt like pretending. Or acting.

That all changed the day the Vanity Fair issue introducing Caitlyn Jenner to the world dropped. Jenner—gold-medal-winning reality-TV star, married to Kris Kardashian—came out as transgender. Her very public transition from male to female changed my life. I had heard about transgender people (kind of—Texas is behind), but I didn’t fully understand what it meant to be transgender.

My parents wouldn’t stop talking about Caitlyn at dinner that night. They were leveled. To them, it was inconceivable that a famous Great Olympian, the very definition of a Man, would “turn” into a woman. “He was on the damn Wheaties box!” Dad said.

My sister, only two years older than me but already an old soul, got pissed and tried to educate them about pronouns—they kept using him and his for Caitlyn—but it didn’t work. She eventually got frustrated at my parents’ stubbornness and stomped off to her room. The idea of transitioning gender didn’t compute in my parents’ old-fashioned brains. To them, it made no sense.

But to me, it made perfect sense. I ran up to my room after dinner and googled articles and blogs about transgender topics until I got to the end of the internet. Everything clicked into place. After so many confusing years, I finally knew the reason for my discomfort. I was transgender. I could change, and I was no longer alone. It was unbelievably exciting and absolutely terrifying.

Maybe I’d always known deep down, I just hadn’t been ready to seriously think about transitioning until Caitlyn Jenner. She’s not the perfect trans icon—I can’t unsee her in that red Make America Great Again ball cap—but her level of fame and bravery for coming out under intense scrutiny raised awareness for trans people and cleared the way for more visibility.

When it comes to my feelings, I’m a slow-moving ship. I carried my secret for almost two years before gathering the courage to come out to my friends and family. Two weeks into my sophomore year, I announced my transition in a short email that I wrote and rewrote for a month. Not exactly a Vanity Fair–worthy reveal, but big news for me.

When I finally hit Send on the email revealing my truth, I had a full-blown panic attack. I felt vulnerable, exposed, with no control over what people would think of me. I cocooned myself into my bedspread and tried to clear my head.

My sister was the first to respond, in a very sweet text: OMG! YOU ARE MY HERO. I love u, Brother.

Brother.

My parents didn’t greet me as warmly when they came into my room later that night. My mom sat on the edge of the bed, her back stiff. “How long have you felt this way?” she asked.

“All my life,” I answered. I kept my head down, trying to avoid eye contact with Dad as he paced the room.

“Did something happen to you when you were little?” he asked, trying to find blame.

“No,” I said.

“What if you change your mind, dear?” Mom asked.

“I won’t.”

Then my dad laughed, this horrible venomous laugh that still makes me sick when I think of it. I wanted to say more—I always do. When it comes to trying to explain myself, it’s a tangled mess.

My gut had been right: it’d been better to send an email and let my parents have a little time to process my transition—new name, pronouns, and bathroom—without me there. If I had sat them down, I’m not sure I could have handled their first reaction. And we hugged when they left my room.

I don’t remember sleeping that night. I was too busy tossing and turning, regretting, and imagining all my friends reading the email and laughing at me. Calling each other and laughing together. Forwarding the email to the entire school, and everyone laughing at once. It was awful.

I finally drifted off around five a.m. and woke up to ten emails with lots of heart emojis. Friends