So, you've been thinking about your gender a lot recently.
You've been googling information about surgeries and hormones and what it means to be transgender
and what it means to be non-binary and trying to figure out what words fit for you, and
what steps you want to take to transition from there -- if any.
I know how you feel.
I was in your shoes just two or three years ago.
I was confused about what I was feeling and what that meant for my identity and my life.
And I don't talk about that a lot online anymore.
I try to not talk about my personal life as much any more cause holy shit the internet
can be such a heartless, hateful place.
But this is something that I think I really need to talk about, because what I really
could've used when I was trying to figure this out was someone to tell me that there
was hope if I decided to identify as trans.
So now I want to be that for other people.
If you're watching this, and you're questioning your gender, I want you to know that there is hope.
I can't guarantee you anything.
I can't guarantee you that you will be happy, or that you will find a girlfriend or boyfriend
or partner who will love you.
I can't guarantee you that you'll land your dream job, or that your family will accept you and love you.
But I can guarantee you that there is hope.
That these things are not unreachable.
When I was questioning my gender, I thought that if I identified as trans, it would mean
the end of my life in so many different aspects.
I thought I would never find a girl who would love me.
I thought I would never be able to travel.
I thought I'd never be successful in my career.
I thought I wouldn't be able to make friends.
I thought I would never be able to be confident in my appearance.
I thought I'd never feel comfortable in my own body, wearing clothes that I liked.
I thought that it might be worth it to stay in the closet just to ensure that I could
still succeed in at least some of those aspects of my life.
I thought maybe lying to myself and to those around me might be a worthwhile sacrifice
to make sure I maintained a certain quality of life.
But eventually I took that leap.
I decided to be honest with myself and the people around me.
And it has been a journey since then, with some really high highs and some really low lows.
But I'm finally at a place where I feel fantastic in my own skin.
I have friends all over the world who I love and who I rely on.
I have a girlfriend who loves me, and I love her.
I'm doing what I love, and travelling pretty often, and getting invited to cool events
like the GLAAD Gala a couple weeks ago.
At that Gala, I stood on stage and said this:
"As a trans non-binary person, and as a lesbian, I'm constantly working on being the representation
in the media that I wish I would've had as a kid."
And that was a really powerful moment for me.
Standing in front of this huge crowd of important, influential people and telling them all these
aspects of myself that I was once deeply deeply ashamed of.
But if anyone from GLAAD asks, just tell them it was really cool and casual and I'd love
to do it again next year.
I was also invited to Goalkeepers 2017, an event put on in New York earlier this week
by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to discuss the progress of the Global Goals.
I definitely wasn't speaking or anything, but I was invited without reaching out to
them in anyway, which blew me away.
Barack Obama spoke, Malala Yousafzai spoke.
It was phenomenal.
And now, on the day this video is coming out, I'm with my amazing girlfriend in Greece
where we're celebrating her birthday for a week.
After this, we'll go back to London for a couple weeks and spend a weekend in Paris
before I head back to LA.
My life is surreal right now.
And I'm so so happy.
I literally never thought I'd be this happy.
But my point of this isn't to brag.
Well, like maybe a little.
But my point is more that there is hope.
I never thought any of this would be possible.
If you've just found my channel recently or this is the first video of mine you've
seen, what I'm doing might seem inevitable, it might seem like who I am and what I do.
But I promise you, just three years ago I wouldn't have been able to even dream of any of this.
And like two and a half years ago ish when I came out, I thought I was abandoning any
hope of being successful or happy in my life.
I was so, sooo wrong.
And one reason I'm kinda nervous about making this video is that I know I have a lot of
privileges that other trans people don't.
I'm white, I'm thin, I'm documented, I'm abled, I live in a pretty progress state,
I'm not rich but I have access to financial resources and health services.
I have a lot of advantages that other trans people don't, and I know that.
And I know it can come across shitty to see such a relatively privileged trans person
brag about their accomplishments online, but I have been through a lot regardless.
Because of my hypervisibility online, I receive transphobic harassment and comments from people
at an unbelieveable scale every single day.
I internalized a lot of that.
There've been really really dark times that I haven't spoken about online, and I don't
plan to speak about online.
But things have been hard.
And I feel like after taking so much shit day in and day out, my happiness and my success
is kind of like a big fuck you to all the people who told me I was an abomination or
that I've never be happy or whatever.
I have so much pride in who I am, and I want to show all the transphobes out there that
they can't harass us into non-existence.
We will be here, and we will exist, and we will be happy, and we will thrive.
And I fully believe that you can get here too.
It might take a lot of time, and pain, and sacrifices, but there is hope.
There are no guarantees, and society in many ways is stacked against you, but being trans
doesn't mean the end of your world.
The future is wild and unpredictable and it might take a bunch of years but eventually
you could get to a really good place.
I just want you to have that hope.
I want you to know that it's okay to identify as trans.
Shit's tough out here, but not impossible.
If you want to stay in the closet, I understand completely, and that's 100% your choice,
but if all you need is a little push, someone to say that there is hope for you if you come
out, I hope this can be that push.
If someone had been around to give me a little hope, I probably could've come out much earlier.
And look, I know this sounds super individualistic.
Like, "If you try hard enough, you can be happy as a trans person!" but that's not
what I mean at all.
There are circumstances out of our control that directly affect our quality of life -- especially
for trans people of color, undocumented trans people, disabled trans people, and poor trans people.
I don't want this to come across as like, "I did this, so obviously you should be
able to do this too!"
Just because one person from a marginalized group can achieve something doesn't mean
everyone from that group can as well.
That's for sure.
But all I want you to know is that there can be hope.
You can be happy.
You can find people who love you.
You can find family, even if they're not related by blood.
You can be comfortable in your body one day.
If you don't have this stuff now, if you don't have this stuff a year from now, don't
blame yourself for it.
It's not like you can be happy just by willing it to happen.
But please try to hold out hope that you can be happy one day.
There are a lot of rights we don't have, and there are still a lot of misconceptions
about us circulating in public, but until all of that changes, we still have to keep
on living life.
And I have to believe that we can carve out communities and spaces where we can be happy.
I hope all of that makes sense.
If you haven't come out yet, take your time, there's no rush.
Make sure you're safe.
But when you can do so safely, I want you to know that you can come out.
In the long run, it could lead to you being so much happier.
I know there's always going to be a fear that coming out could ruin your life, and
I can't speak to your specific situation, but I 100% felt that it would ruin my life,
and it didn't.
There is hope.
I really hope you can have hope.
If you're questioning your gender, I want you to know that whatever conclusion you come
to is perfectly fine, and you're not tied to it forever.
If you decide to come out as a binary trans woman but later decide you're more non-binary,
that's okay.
If you decide to come out as non-binary, but later think you're more of a binary trans
woman, that's okay too.
Choosing a label isn't permanent.
And if you think you migh be trans now, but end up deciding that you're just fine identifying
as cisgender later, that's okay too.
Do whatever makes you feel comfortable.
And good luck.
Remember, trans is beautiful, and there is hope.
I believe in you, and you got this.
So yeah, that's all I had for today.
Thanks so much for watching, and I'll see you next time.
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