Appearances Aside

The strawberry blonde hairs on her jaw and neck, already a near-invisible stubble, meet the blades of an electric razor every morning.

Every morning. To erase the evidence of a sex assigned at birth and a gender assigned by society.

Blair is a 21-year-old transgender female. She was born as a biological male. Over one year, as she made her outward appearance more and more feminine, she was faced with coming out to friends, family and a society whose reactions were unknown to her.

But her process of disclosure hasn’t ended yet, and she approaches each person with a different strategy.

This author is using a pseudonym to protect Blair’s safety and security. Subsequently, I chose to use only the first names of Blair’s friends and family.

Discovery

Blair’s father, Andy, remembers that dinosaurs and trains, but never sports, were the fascination of Blair.

“[Blair] was always a person who marched to the beat of his [her] own drum,” Andy said.

As a teen, Andy said Blair dressed gothic and grew out her hair. But none of these things concerned Blair’s parents. Blair was smart and an overall good kid, and her parents didn’t have too much to question.

But since the age of 3, Blair said she has seen herself as a female and wanted to look like a female. She was more interested in female clothing and aesthetics.

“I was always embarrassed about it,” Blair said. “I was too afraid to let that be apparent.”

To view the full story, please email me at sgtanen@ufl.edu

The full story runs 1,370 words

Fact sheet available on request