I remember people asking me when I was younger,
"Are you a girl or a boy?"
and wanting to say, "Neither,"
or wanting to say, "Both."
If you are genderqueer, if you're non-binary,
if you're transgender, you're a freak.
Growing up, that message was definitely
something I heard every day.
I learned that if I wanted to get along,
or if I wanted to pass, I had to dress like a girl,
even though I didn't feel like a girl.
I remember googling, "Are you an alcoholic?"
and not thinking,
people who drink normally don't wonder that? [laughs]
That's not a normal people question.
I liked drinking and I liked using because it was like,
all of a sudden, all of the anxiety
and the discomfort I felt in my body,
and my shame,
all of it,
my circumstances, my surroundings, all of it was gone.
I struggled from between 18 and 23.
I really struggled.
At that point. I was using speed
every day,
and cocaine when I could get it
and opioids when I could get them.
I finally stopped drinking
in 2007, a couple of months after my 23rd birthday.
[music]
It's been an adventure,
truly an adventure.
I have found in myself,
resources and creativity and passion
that I didn't think were in there at all.
I'm finally discovering who I am.
All I had to do is not drink and use
and also be open to changing a lot of things about myself.
For me, that means
understanding that my gender is not what I thought it was.
This is who I am.
I heard every day that there was something wrong with me
and I believed it,
and I used alcohol to medicate my pain.
When I look at myself now
I see not only someone who has survived but I see a success.
[music]