The LGBT community as a whole can agree that 2017 has been a particularly difficult year to be queer.

No matter your political views or opinions, there have been decisions made and arguments had over trivial matters and we have taken steps both forward and backward on multiple levels. Since the year is winding down and it’s finally the holiday season, it seems to be an appropriate time to reflect on the things that we are grateful for.

This year, in particular, coming up on two years of being out and ten months on hormone replacement therapy, I thought it appropriate to write about how thankful I am for being transgender.

First and foremost, I’m obviously thankful for the love and support from all of my family and friends. I’m more grateful for them than they will ever know and I will be eternally thankful for them helping me to feel comfortable being myself.

On another less obvious level, I am so thankful for being transgender due to the deepened understanding of the human experience it’s given me.

I have always been a firm believer that life gives us our struggles because we are strong enough to handle them. We each have our own individual obstacles to overcome, but we are never given anything that we can’t handle.

Without getting too spiritual here, I believe that my job is to teach. Not the teaching that happens in a classroom but to educate others about our differences and how similar to we truly are to each other. Something that has always surprised people about me is that I am so open to talking about my experiences.

I love to answer questions that people have about my gender identity. Instead of getting angry with them for not knowing, it is my job to understand that they don’t mean to be rude, they just don’t know any better.

So as opposed to getting angry when people wonder about my transition, I instead take it as an opportunity to teach and connect.

For those opportunities, I am thankful.

Another thing I’m thankful for is the understanding that human beings are more similar to one another than we care to imagine.

Once you see things from both sides of the street, you understand other people on a new level. For example, even the simplest little things you realize are not all that different. People love to argue about which restroom is more disgusting- boys or girls. Well, I can 100% confirm that both are nasty and all public toilets are horribly smelly places.

Even for these tiny little things that make us think we are so different from one another, we are all human and we are not as different as we think. You can also understand how the opposite gender views certain things because you have spent so much time with that.

Growing up surrounded by girls, I now know how it feels to a girl when she gets catcalled on the street or has an unwanted picture sent to her. I know those feelings because I’ve lived them and I’ve heard them and now I know that those things are not okay to do. It’s one thing to ‘put yourself in their shoes’ but it’s a whole different situation when you’ve actually lived it.

Being transgender has made me a more understanding and compassionate person because I know what it’s like to be in somebody else’s shoes.

Overall, I think that my transition has been the best experience of my life. Of course, some days completely suck.

Sometimes, I wish I had been born in the correct body, to begin with, and I wish that people would just take the time to listen instead of jumping to conclusions. Sometimes I wish that medical care didn’t cost so much money and that the government would stop making poor decisions about the rights that the LGBT community has in this country.

But along with the bad, there is so much good.

There is so much that it has given me and taught me, specifically courage and perseverance. I’m thankful that instead of being lucky, I’ve had to work hard for my success and fight to be where I am today. I’m thankful that I understand humanity better than I ever could have otherwise. I’m thankful for patience and bravery I have learned.

Most of all, I’m just thankful to be transgender.