JANUARY 2018 HIGHLIGHT MAGAZINE ONLINE FULL

This began what Heather recalls as a complicated time in her and her husband’s relationship with their daughter. She explained to him that she thought she was a boy. But one day in August 2016, Mike asked her why she’d seemed so sad lately. She looked into ways to make her voice sound deeper and into binders to hide her breasts. Claire initially kept her feelings from her parents, researching steps she could take toward transitioning that wouldn’t require medical interventions, or her parents’ approval.

In Claire’s mind, the plan was concrete, though neither Heather nor her husband, Mike, knew about any of it. “I thought that that was what made you feel better,” she told me. In Claire’s case, the first step would be gaining access to drugs that would halt puberty next, she would start taking testosterone to develop male secondary sex characteristics. “I just wanted to stop feeling bad, so I was like, I should just transition,” she said. “ Maybe the reason I’m uncomfortable with my body is I’m supposed to be a guy,” she thought at the time.Ĭlaire found in MilesChronicles and similar YouTube videos a clear solution to her unhappiness. She began to wonder whether she was transgender, meaning her internal gender identity didn’t match the sex she had been assigned at birth. Claire had discovered the videos by accident, or rather by algorithm: They’d showed up in her “recommended” stream. His 1 million subscribers have followed along as he came out as a trans boy, went on testosterone, got a double mastectomy, and transformed into a happy, healthy young man. She was particularly fascinated by MilesChronicles, the channel of Miles McKenna, a charismatic 22-year-old.

“At first, I started eating less,” she said, “but that didn’t really help.”Īround this time, Claire started watching YouTube videos made by transgender young people. She acknowledged that part of it had to do with puberty, but she felt it was more than the usual preteen woes. “I thought there was something wrong with me.” Claire, who was 12 at the time, also felt uncomfortable in her body in a way she couldn’t quite describe. “I didn’t have any self-confidence at all,” she told me.

She’d struggled to make friends and experienced both anxiety and depression.

JANUARY 2018 HIGHLIGHT MAGAZINE ONLINE FULL

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January 2018 highlight magazine online