For the first time in American history, a president, Barrack Obama, in the State of the Union address made reference to gay, lesbian, and transgender individuals in regard to the protection of the human rights and dignity of all Americans. There are many issues facing people in the LGBTQ community in this country. One transgender woman, Brandi, talks about her journey, revealing some of her thoughts and experiences, trying to help us understand and stand by our fellow human beings in a more honest, effective, and meaningful way.

Brandi began her story with a very special day. “The day I discovered Brandi”, she said, “I realized that I had been suffering from a feeling of cognitive dissonance, from being told who I was but not having discovered this for myself. How could anyone know me more than I know myself”? She had had an epiphany of reality where she didn’t see herself that way at all. “I am not changing myself, I am finding myself”, she realized. She had questioned her gender identity, asking, what reason do I have for holding on to my socially-constructed birth assigned gender?

Many individuals suffer from gender dysphoria, a condition that Brandi knew very well. “I had suffered with not feeling comfortable in my own skin, but not knowing why. I had tried to identify as a crossdressing individual, but it didn’t feel right for me. Then, the very first time I put on feminine clothing, I knew. I felt a strong, yet surreal emotion, instantly, of feeling at home! I saw and felt, this is the epiphany, this…is who I am.”

Brandi related one of her most important moments, “I had gone to a thrift store, nervously scouring the racks. I was the only patron… were they watching me? I picked out a flowered dress, and asked for a dressing room. When I slid that dress on my body for the first time, an instant rush of emotion came over me. I didn’t quite understand, nor was it what I had expected to see. I didn’t recognized myself in that first instant, yet I also knew instantly, I was Brandi”! “I looked rough, but saw a beauty there I had never seen before.”

Brandi had challenges ahead of her. “I tried to overcompensate for masculinity by buying and wearing slutty clothing,” she recalls, “I bought makeup and boots and went home that night and spent hours preparing myself to go out. Attempting to put on makeup was both fun and a nightmare for Brandi. She thought she knew what she was doing but her face ended up looking like carrot soup with raccoon eyes and blush that resembled a clown!

Brandi, a transgender feminine community activist, recalls the time when she came out. One of her goals is to bring awareness of the power for positivity this process can bring. “My niece was 9 or 10 when I came out” she said, “My brother had assumed she would not know how to handle it or would be confused or react negatively to my coming out.” “I’ve been told my whole life that I fit in this box assigned ‘male’”. “Who says what my gender is anyway, how is this measured”? We are socialized from childhood that any gender other than male and female is wrong and deviant, or just isn’t real. But the story of us is still being told. Aren’t we and shouldn’t we always be in the process of learning about ourselves? If sexuality is on a spectrum, why not gender?

There are many terrifying social barriers for those in the LGBTQ community. “We are compartmentalized from the LGBTQ community,” says Brandi, “Transgender individuals can be hard to read. Many people are confused and assume gender and sexuality are the same. They confuse transgender individuals with drag queens. We endure harassment especially from drunk tourists, disparaging remarks, sometimes getting the least respect in places with more transgender people.”

Surrounding themselves with committed understanding people is critical, something Brandi had to learn. Public places can be very scary. The mall was the ultimate test for Brandi. “There are two groups in society who are brutally honest,” she says, “junior high kids and the elderly. Walking past a group of junior high kids was the scariest and took a lot of courage.”

“Much discrimination and harassment is due to environment, not because of where I am,” says Brandi, “but because of who I am with and how each of us presents.” “If I am read as more feminine or with another transgender who reads as less feminine, we are treated differently.” For Brandi, the scariest place is a public women’s restroom. “It is a place where I am at risk for harassment-- where I am afraid to make any noise. If woman comes in with a child in tow, I’m afraid to come out of the bathroom stall.”

In Orlando, Fla, early on Sunday, June 12, an American gunned down and killed 49 individuals in a gay nightclub and wounded many more in an act of terror and hatred. How do we, in the face of such intolerance and hate, filled with misinformation and misconception, help our own society to learn and accept others we don’t understand? Must we believe as we’ve been programmed to? Is lack of information and education part of the problem? Where do we begin? Ask a transgender like Brandi and she will tell you. Learning, love and acceptance are a good place to start.