Hi, I’m Avery. I’m 14 years old and I use he/they pronouns.

For thirteen and a half years, I was living a lie. Something always felt a little wrong about being a girl. Why couldn’t I say my favorite color was blue? Because it was a boy color. Why couldn’t I wear a suit like that guy? Because those are boy clothes. Why couldn’t I cut my hair real short? Because that would make me look like a boy.

For a while, I don’t think I was even aware of my gender. I would wear what I wanted, play with the people I wanted, and apart from my deadname being a “girl name” (names are not gender-specific!) and my parents calling me a cute girl, I don’t think I ever saw a difference between me and the boys.

But when I was 5 or so, I got clued in. When we went costume shopping for Halloween, I ran straight for the spy costumes (that was my thing at the time). My dad pulled the bag away from me and led me to the princess section. “Those are boy costumes, sweetheart. Why don’t you be Ariel?” That was when it clicked. I was a girl, not a boy.

I lived unhappily as a girl for a while. I simply wasn’t aware that there were options for me to be the other gender. They don’t exactly teach you about gender transitions and sexuality in algebra class, after all.

When I was 12, I discovered the LGBTQIAP+ community. I learned two things about myself. One, those feelings I was feeling for a certain girl in my school (and Hermione Granger, ofc) weren’t unnatural or unheard of. Not only were they allowed, in this community those feelings were normal! After a couple years, I figured out that I identified as panromantic asexual, which really took a weight off my chest. I’m part of this community. I’m not an outcast. There are people like me. I don’t have to feel like I’m alone.

The second thing I learned was that amazingly, my gender was not set in stone. In fact, my gender was as fluid as I wanted it to be! For about a year, I identified as nonbinary. But after that, I decided to take that final step in my gender switch. I IDENTIFY AS MALE! Woo-hoo!

Unfortunately, while I am openly transgender online, in real life most people either know me as cisgender or nonbinary. I was forced out to my parents as nonbinary and they took it… Ehhhhhh? My dad still hasn’t really accepted that. But I can see the relief in his eyes, at least she’s not a boy. Oh, if only he knew that I was. But I’m not into the whole getting-kicked-out thing. I’m lucky they didn’t kick me out when they found out I was nonbinary.

Anyways, please please please call me Avery. That’s my name. Not Marisol, my deadname. Not Zell, the name I used when I was nonbinary. Avery.