Name: Theo

Gender identity: trans masculine nonbinary 

Sexuality: bisexual 

Pronouns: he/they 

From: Bridgeport, West Virginia 

Interests: Advocacy, crafting, writing, mental health, drawing, anime, musical theater, and animals.  

On the day that gay marriage was legalized in the U.S., I remember learning that I had options other than being straight when I was 11 years old.  When I had asked my mom what the radio was talking about, she explained to me that boys could marry boys, and girls could marry girls. I asked her why she had never told me about this, and she laughed and told me that she assumed I already knew, seeing as the subject of LGBTQ+ human beings was never something she thought was abnormal, nor had to be explained. 

I was also 11 years old when I realized that the entire world did not have the same accepting views as my mother, which confused me as much as it devastated me. Until then, I had never thought that my identity – one that I had only recently discovered due to googling “what happens when you like boys and girls” and stumbling upon a buzz feed article proudly discussing bisexual celebrities – was one that I should be ashamed of.  I was lucky to have several close friends within the community, who quickly helped me realize at age 13 that, “No, Theo, not everyone wants to be a boy.”  However, despite this need, that did not make me bad. Despite being absolutely terrified to tell anyone, I knew that this is what I wanted – that Theo was who I was. Upon finally managing to tell my mom after several chickening out incidents, she laughed.  I asked her if that was it or if she was mad. She looked at me and said “Theo, I was going to the gay bar before you were born. I’m not mad at you.” 

My mental and physical health have always been factors I have struggled with. Seeing people in the news condemn who I was shook my already fragile self-esteem.  And with a lack of older transgender role models I assumed that, like me, everyone in the LGBTQ+ community didn’t plan on surviving to adulthood.  While that was a journey that is ever continuing, I am extremely grateful for the life I have now lived and will be able to keep living with my wonderful fiancé Spencer. 

My physical health was something that, due to my identity, doctors tended to dismiss. “You are just fat.” “Are you on your period?” “You’re just anxious.”  For years, my chronic pain, reoccurring injuries, light headedness and more were all boiled down to those unfortunate circumstances. On my 20th birthday, my knee dislocated while I attempted to not run into rollerskating teenage girls who were not paying attention.  With bone bruising, broken bones, and a shredded ligament, the doctors were shocked as to how I could do so much damage with such an anticlimactic event. Months later, I am finally closer to that answer. I was diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) as well as a variety of other mental and physical health diagnoses. My connective tissue is extremely loose, which allows things like dislocations, sprains, breaks and tears to be extremely common for me. With POTS, my heart rate is in a constant state of tachycardia while doing activities that should hardly shift my heart rate at all. I am still going to several doctors and receiving several tests, but I am grateful to have multiple forms of support in my life. 

Now, I am twenty, and have had several opportunities that I would have never thought possible.  I have been externally grateful to befriend the ACLU of West Virginia.  I first met them at AQYS, a queer youth camp that not only showed me I was not alone, but that my identity was not something that weakened me. They brought me a strength and power I did not know I had.  I have now been a junior counselor for the camp, traveled with the group to Washington D.C. to fight for abortion access, was covered in two full pages in the ACLU WV magazine, and joined the West Virginia Trans Coalition. 

Despite the hard challenges that come with both my identity and my disabilities, I am so extremely grateful that I am now becoming the adult that my queer child self needed.

October 2024