There is only one word I can use to describe being an LGBTQ+ student in high school, and that word is, “lonely”. I never felt more alone because I know there’s no one like me or who really understands what I’m going through. I have a lot of friends, a lot of really amazing friends, and even some LGBTQ+ friends, but no one who’s gone through what I’ve gone through to find and lose myself the way I have. This is my perspective of LGBTQ+ life in high school…

I am a transgender man and honestly figuring this out was super rough. I started my freshman year and I thought I was a lesbian so I talked to a few girls here and there, but when I tried making friends with girls, they’d assume I have a crush on them or that I wanted to kiss them or something and they’d leave me. I have lost so many friendships, I don’t believe any of the high school friendships I have are real. I’ve known people since elementary, whose beliefs, my existence disagrees with. Freshman year was when I lost my innocence. I learned that nobody has my back, but me, and I buried myself in my music. Music saved me from me. When I felt like hurting myself, I’d write my feelings in song form and distract myself with figuring out the melody and the chords on instruments and how to make them flow. At the end of my freshman year, I started questioning what I thought I had already figured out. Who am I? 

My sophomore year began to roll around and I realized I hated being called “ma’am” or “Ms.” and I started to think something was wrong with me, so I masked these feelings with girly clothing and a little makeup here and there. I even went to homecoming with a boy who called me his girlfriend, but I just couldn’t feel the same way no matter how hard I tried. I faked that relationship for 4 months to make my parents happy, and they were really excited when I had a boyfriend, but I just never liked him. I’ve known I was different since the 3rd grade, my first crush was a girl and I didn’t know that was strange or different, till other kids made fun of me for it. I had a few on/off “entanglements” with girls here and there just to experiment, and I knew for a fact I liked girls, but I still didn’t know who I was exactly. Then, mid 2nd semester of my sophomore year, COVID-19 Quarantined us for a year and I took that time to do a little self-developing and figure out who I was once and for all. By my 16th birthday, I figured out that I might be transgender and decided to do some research. 

I buried myself in research while keeping up with online schooling my Junior year, and I asked my mom if I could cut my hair. My mom agreed because I had shown her a feminine short haircut, but when I had gotten the same haircut, I looked the way I hoped I’d look and I felt like how I hoped I’d feel. My mom would tell me to wear some mascara or put on a dress to look more feminine, but when I did this, I felt I was losing all the progress I worked so hard to gain. I’d cry myself to sleep and wake up crying because of how badly I hated myself. I just wished I could be normal. I just wished the world didn’t hate my existence as much as I did. I wished my family could learn to love me no matter who I was or who I loved. I just wanted all the bigotry to be over, but it turns out life is not that easy. I learned by the summer of my junior turning senior year, that I needed to learn to stop pitying myself and start living the life I wanted to live. I got an amazing girlfriend who loved me, flaws and all, despite how I depicted love for myself. 

I came out to my family at the beginning of my senior year and they said they’d love me just the same and that they knew before I even said anything, which I thought was awesome, till it wasn’t. When I came out, I asked for gender therapy which was specified for my issues, but to this day I’ve been told that they are still looking. I have been told to not hold my girlfriend’s hand in public or kiss her in front of anyone. I’ve been told that it’s ok to think the way I am, but I will always be a girl no matter how I identify myself. This has weighed heavy on my chest and has caused me to lash out at people who care about me, have thoughts of cutting my own chest off so I can be the man I look in the mirror and see, even of wishes and prayers that one day I could go to sleep and just never wake up. These thoughts are all very harmful in different ways, and I’ve learned to deal with these issues on my own, seeing that my parents have never had time to give me the therapy I have been begging for for years now. I have learned to cope through my music, which I found to be therapeutic

on my own, and I’ve learned to hide the self-hatred and mask the pain with laughter and making others laugh because crying and hating myself has taken up most of my elementary through high school experience and I want more for myself than that.

No one person has the exact same life as another person. They can be very similar, but everyone has gone through something different, good or bad. Everyone has their own sob story. The difference is that some people use it as an excuse while others use it as motivation. I’ve learned that I can’t keep using it as an excuse anymore because there are so many worst things that could’ve happened in my life that happen to other LGBTQ+ people and I am grateful for that. Overall, my experience with being closeted most of my high school year has been horrible and I can describe my feelings with one single word, “lonely”. After a while, I learned to escape in my own little world, which can help ease the self phobia temporarily, but in the end, it started to weigh heavy on my heart, almost eating me alive as hatred clouded my heart and pushed people away from me. Only when I learned how to love myself, I could learn to love others and allow them to love me. Before making assumptions and judging people because they don’t fit your belief, try staying open-minded and understanding because you never know what someone is going through.