By

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Hi anyone who is reading this. My name's Ryan, or at least it will be at some point in my life. I'm 14 years old and I am a part of the lgbt+ community. More specifically I identify as Trans masculine/Agender, Asexual and Grey/Pan Romantic. My first personal lgbt experience happened when I developed as big of a crush as an aro/ace person can have on a woman online gamer/livestreamer which led to me (a hetero/cis girl at the time) questioning my sexuality.

Throughout my 4 years at secondary school (that's age 11-14) I have had a somewhat unusual experience in LGBT youth. At my high school people started to 'come out' (including my friend who came out as bisexual) and it was, of course, amazing to see how excepting people were at that school however it somewhat became a trend to be 'unique'. Unfortunately it had the opposite effect and made me more anxious to talk about my own problems as, for the first time; I was questioning my identity. Luckily I have since moved to an amazing new school which has helped me build enough courage up to get to my first milestone: coming out properly to my mum two weeks ago.

Now previously I had talked to her about not feeling like a girl and wanting a binder but this time it was different and by asking her to use my preferred pronouns (he/him or they/them) she has seemed to accept that no, it isn't just a phase.

My next milestone is one of the best and most liberating things to have happened in my life so far. And that is getting a chest binder.

I just want to say something to anybody out there that has struggled to carry on, even thought that the world might be better off without them: I want you guys to know that as long as you are alive things can get better. There will be moments when you think you are worthless (trust me I've been there) but you can't let that bring you down, I know that each and every one of you are beautiful, strong people. Thanks for reading my story ❤