Having a public identity as someone that you aren't is a really distressing thing you feel
constantly sort of like this dissociative state where it's like that's not me but I
feel like I have to fulfill it.
Just get out there and make something.
Thank you.
We have an idea of what we are at a certain age and then we grow up and we look back and
we're like, that’s not who I was, or that's not who I am.
With Sylvia, I think around the time that she was learning and changing and becoming
who she was, she began to see that that wasn't exactly aligning with other people's ideas
of who Super Awesome Sylvia was.
Did you know you could be a rocket scientist in just one day?
We decided to start a maker show, which I’d get some sort of kit or electronics and build
it and make a video on it.
And I kept making those and they eventually started getting really popular because we
kept going to Maker Faire and that's when I really started getting attention for being
a girl maker at the time.
I think at peak popularity, there were around 2 million viewers.
And we felt it because we would go to any of these Maker gatherings, Maker Faires and
everyone would recognize her as you know hey it's you.
Well I learned that I really want to inspire kids all around the world.
It got popular enough that I was invited and got like to conferences and got like flights
paid for.
I was able to go to the White House science fair, and like meet President Obama and show
off some of my projects that I made.
A lot of really incredible stuff.
You know there’s been lots of emails and lots of kids that have told me, you know,
I really look up to you.
And you can be a role mode if you just, you know, inspire other kids and stuff.
I got this feeling immediately that one of the reasons apart from age that everyone paid
attention, was that it was a little girl.
I definitely felt good about being an inspiration but it was also really stressful because I
felt like I had to live up to some expectations that no one had given me.
It was complicated and upsetting especially when I realized that I wasn't a girl
Around in seventh grade was when I first started getting feelings that something was wrong
with my body because that's when it really, like puberty started really kicking in.
And I called up my friend one day and I was like Is it wrong to want to be a boy.
And then it came up again in freshman year.
I was able to see that there were, you know kids who were queer and different and you
know I was able to talk to them and eventually over the course of a couple months, I was
able to realize that I did not have to identify or feel like I was a girl.
I did have a transition time of feeling like I, not lost my daughter, but it was the same
time where your child.
It was the same age where your child's growing up into this young adult.
So it was like this whole big she was growing up into this young woman but now she's growing
up into this young man.
And so some of it was hard.
I think Zeph, you know when I was feeling sad or upset or anything like that we'd have
conversations and I would cry and stuff like that I think he felt immense guilt like he
had let me down . I would constantly tell him that's not what's going on.
You know we all have to go through what we have to go through.
And, but still I know I know he you know felt like he'd let everybody down.
I definitely did see that a little bit with my family that they felt like they had lost
something, like that little girl sort of thing.
And you know I felt that loss too.
I couldn't be that you know girl inspiration, that, you know, role model.
And it was really tough.
It was tough to feel like like it was wrong of me to be a boy or wrong of me to feel that
way.
It only took me about maybe two weeks before I got over it and said oh.
He's my son.
I get it.
So the show stuff had slowed down, I think he felt an obligation in that way too.
I think he saw that there were a lot of girls that looked up to him and how could they look
up to him when he's a boy.
It's hard enough when you're just telling your own family about something like that
but to have this whole other world of people.
I know that it felt crushing for him.
But in January I came out to the fan base and I got a lot of very positive and negative
replies.
But it was good to finally just kind of end it in a way.
But I'm not really ending it.
I'm continuing it, Sylvia as a character instead of a person so I am but not Sylvia.
So she will be in comics and maybe animations and books and all sorts of things.
I definitely can see it becoming like a TV show or something kids would watch.
But I have really high hopes for it.
This is a way of moving forward and like pushing that female part of him out into this creative
outlet that continued on and still connected with kids.
And still connected with girls.
I think that's probably the best solution that we could come up with and it offers so
many opportunities.
I plan on keeping Sylvia Sylvia because there still needs to be a girl role model out there.
And I want to keep that that way.
But I definitely feel like maybe if there was like a TV show or something there could
be a trans character on there or a queer character in general because there definitely needs
to be more representation.
I never really saw any as you know a kid or even in middle school.
So you know seeing that the younger you are the better educated you are which means you're
not as, you're more accepting to diversity when you're older.