ROBIN READY

"Coming out to my friends was pretty easy. I first came out back in sixth grade as bi[sexual], so it wasn't really a big deal when I came out as nonbinary. I started trying to socially transition towards the end of freshman year. But this year, it's been a bigger deal because some people only know me as my preferred name. So it's pretty cool.

I haven't physically transitioned at all, so the hardest part is still dealing with dysphoria. I talked to my ex-boyfriend a lot because he's transgender, so he helped me with understanding a lot of that. It's important for me to have someone like that because personally, for me, it's really easy to invalidate myself or invalidate my feelings. Some days, I'm not super dysphoric. But then, other days, it's really bad. You just need someone to tell you that this is just how it is.

On the easiest days, it's just looking in the mirror and feeling off. But some days they can trigger panic attacks. I just feel that I have body parts that are missing. It's a weird feeling. I'll just be sitting there and then I feel like something should be there. But then I move and there's just nothing.

Finding myself was definitely a long process, just because I felt something was off. Learning about what being nonbinary is in sex ed really helped me a lot, because I didn't know what the term was. I guess that's what really triggered it. I was like, 'Wait, that kind of fits me.' And then as I accepted more parts of the gender spectrum, I just kind of settled on transgender."