When I was in the second grade I met my best friend. She had the most unique name you'd ever heard. Her father grew up in our town so their family moved back in town half way through the school year. I saw her on a Saturday for the first time in ballet class and by that Monday she had transferred into my school. We clicked instantly. We had matching pajamas and we called ourselves "Thing 1 and Thing 2." We liked to play all the same games, liked the same music, and honestly we even looked really similar. She believed my ridiculous stories, like that my parents taught me to swim using a shock collar and that if her parents didn’t pick her up from school on time they would make her walk home by herself in the dark. We would beg our parents to let us have a sleepover ever single weekend and cry and until they caved. We were inseparable.

At this age I was the boyish one. Basketball shorts and baggy' t-shirts made up my entire wardrobe. I wore boys’ swim trunks with a rash guard in the pool and I wouldn’t go near anything girly. She wore pink, bows, glitter, bikinis—the whole nine yards. I thought it was gross. This was one of our only differences.

In fourth grade she told me she felt like “a boy trapped in a girl’s body.” I will never forget this moment. We were laying on the floor in her bedroom wearing face masks with freshly painted nails and relaxing Chinese spa music played in the background. "Spa" was our favorite game to play with her sister, who was a few years older, and it was a rarity for her to be in the mood. Whenever we played this game we always opened up to each other, granted we were young so we had very few dark secrets. We were talking about my childhood crush, Jake, and how I wished I was more girly so maybe he’d like me back. I told her I wished I was girly like her, and she told me that she doesn’t really feel like a girl. She said she felt like a boy and sometimes she likes to pretend she is one. I didn’t understand what she meant, as no nine-year-old would, so I told her that she was just a tomboy like me. I wasn’t uncomfortable. I didn’t think anything of it and frankly I didn’t care. I didn’t think about that moment again for years.

In eighth grade she told me she liked girls. This wasn’t a huge deal to either of us because in our class of thirty-five kids there were a few other girls who were openly gay or bisexual. I was the first person she told, but again, this wasn’t really a big deal to either of us. She knew I’d be understanding because I had been when our classmates came out. I was raised in a very accepting and understanding household, and she basically grew up with me. I wasn’t uncomfortable. I didn’t think about this moment for years either.

I never in a million years would’ve thought she wasn’t okay. I didn’t think she had a reason to not be okay. Her parents had a happy, loving marriage. She got along as perfectly as any siblings could with her sister. Her family didn’t have any daunting financial struggles and it wasn’t like I was her only friend. At thirteen years old I couldn’t wrap my head around why she was unhappy and why she wouldn’t want to live anymore. Honestly, I didn’t think she could have been as unhappy as she was claiming she was. As all thirteen year olds could be, we were very overdramatic. It wasn’t until the summer when I realized how serious she was. I am overwhelmingly thankful that she made it through that stage of her life.

We went to different high schools and grew apart. I saw her every once in a while in town, most notably my sophomore year of high school. This was the first time I saw him not as the her I had always known, but as him. We were at our city’s annual Labor Day Festival that everyone who lived anywhere nearby went to and had been going to for years and years. I was walking by with my boyfriend at the time and he was sitting with a group of friends. He waved at me, but I had absolutely no idea who he was. He told me he was transgender and told me his new name. I stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out who the hell he was. He looked like her, but also not at all like her. He repeated himself, “I’m transgender, Monica.” I’d be lying if I pretended I knew what the heck that was. This was pre-Caitlyn Jenner, pre-Laverne Cox, and pre-Gigi Gorgeous, or at least pre-me knowing about any of them. His new name couldn’t have been more different from the name I grew up calling him. I didn’t understand, but this time I was uncomfortable.

I wasn’t uncomfortable because I thought it was immoral or wrong. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I figured I’d call him whatever he preferred and it wouldn’t really matter to me. I wasn’t uncomfortable because I didn’t understand either. I didn’t understand at all, but I didn’t understand a lot of the wacky things he did. Honestly, he did a lot of weird shit sometimes and I wouldn’t have put it beneath him to go through a “phase” like this. I was uncomfortable because I thought I had lost my childhood best friend. It was like she, as I knew her as a child, was dead. The person I had played with for countless hours for almost a decade at that point was gone. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that this was the exact same person I had always known. This was the same person that always had my back, who knew me better than anyone else.

We didn’t talk for a couple more years. I really don’t believe this had anything to do with his transition, rather we still went to different high schools and were still growing apart. We didn’t start talking again until my senior year of high school. I saw him on the Metro sometimes and we’d ride home together. He gave me his new phone number and every once in a while we talked. I asked him his opinions on Caitlyn Jenner when that story broke, but that was the only non-small talk conversation we had for the rest of high school.

The summer after my first year of college I texted him. I don’t really know why, but I did. I was feeling extremely lonely as I had grown apart from most of my friends back home. I wanted to be with my boyfriend who lived far away and all of my new college friends back in Ohio. He was a random person to text, but I did it anyway. I picked him up from his house just eight minutes away and we went to Chipotle. The conversation was awkward at first, but we quickly picked right up from where we left off in middle school. He was still my twin, my other half, and my Thing 2. He was still quirky, overdramatic, and aggressively sarcastic like me. He was still loyal as a dog and brutally honest. He was still my childhood best friend.

I realized very quickly that even though I didn’t understand his transition I really didn’t have to. I am lucky to be comfortable with my given gender identity because not everyone is as fortunate. It was actually very easy for me to adjust to his new pronouns and gender identity. For the first few months I slipped up a few times, calling him by the wrong pronouns or by his previous name. He was patient with me, but I knew deep down that it hurt him each and every time. Pretty quickly I started calling him by the correct name and pronouns because that was how I thought of him. When I think of him, I think of a man. He is as much of a man as any cis-gender is. He is not a woman and frankly it’s impossible for me to see him as one. He still has people in his life who don’t support him and his transition, but if they would have seen him at his worst they would know how much this transition has improved his quality of life. They would know that for the first time in his life he gets to embrace who he is and doesn’t have to lie. They would know that even if they don’t understand trans people and why they transition, you don’t have to understand. You just need to respect and support them. Trans people aren’t becoming new people, rather fully embracing the selves they had been hiding for so long. So yes, my best friend changed genders, but our friendship hasn’t changed a bit.