The end of the semester just happened and I felt it was time I told some of the people closest to me about me being trans. Now, I was not obligated to do so, and often I don’t feel that it is anyone’s business. But I thought that maybe they’d like to know because it is a small part of who I am. For the most part, I knew that they’d take it well. There was just one person in particular that I was worried about.

For right now, we will just call him Kanye. He was one of the first people I met in the institution. I was quick to notice that he did not have many friends which surprised me because he was very kind. We ended up having something significant in common, which is one of the reasons why Kanye and I are such good friends. At first, I tried to keep my distance from him as I also found out that he liked to friend everyone on every social platform. I was worried because I knew that my Facebook, at the time, had pictures of me pre-transition. And one day it happened, he sent me a request on Facebook. Now, I am not one to use my social media often, so I had used the excuse “Oh, I’m not on there at all so I did not see it.” He seemed to be a little put off by this but got over it.

Kanye is a very special type of person. He cares a lot but often shows it in the wrong ways. My acquaintances that I tend to be around are very liberal and Kanye is a conservative. Now, I am not saying that there is anything wrong with that, but I just know both sides are very intolerant of each other. Often times, Kanye would say something offensive about liberals and I would have to save him from getting his head cut off. A lot of his talk made me hesitant to ever want to tell him about me being trans. After really listening and talking with him, I came to the conclusion that Kanye was actually politically ignorant about policies/parties and just went off of what he was raised to believe and think. This gave me some hope into telling him about me.

It was now about two weeks before graduation and I was starting to tell my acquaintances about me. They were all really friendly and took it well which was really good. I’m not much of a social person, but I was starting to go out more and talk to them. I was hanging out with everyone … except for Kanye. It was not that we did not invite him. He was just always doing something else. However, this did not stop him from feeling bad and making me feel bad as well. He started to question our friendship, which irritates me because I am not social anyways. I explained to him that it was just because he was busy. Another important thing to Kanye is lying. Kanye does not like being lied to. That is another reason for why I was hesitant to tell him. And it’s not like I was lying to him. I just didn’t feel like there was a point in telling him.

About a week from graduation and I knew that I was running out of time to tell him. Everyone else already knows and they are giving me advice to how to tell him. I figured that I should tell him on my One Year date of being on T. And that was exactly what I did. It was during a lunch period, I told him that I needed to talk to him about something serious. I was very nervous. I could feel my heart pounding out of my chest and the walk to the hallway felt like that potential walk to doom. However, I knew that this was the time to tell him. Kanye felt that I was very close to him as a friend and so I was hoping that this would not come between us, because even though I am not much of a social person I still enjoyed his companionship.

I started off by just saying that there was a reason for why I waited until today to tell him because he knew for weeks that I had to tell him something. I ended up just saying it, but I also made sure that he knew that I was normal just like everyone else. I wake up, brush my teeth, go to class, work a job just like everyone else. I think this is what made him realize that I was still normal Zed. He ended up taking it very well. I remember asking him one thing in particular. I said, “Kanye if I tell you this, you must promise not to look at me any differently than you do right now.” And he really did live up to it. After I told him, everything went back to normal. He did not act any different and our friendship continued to move on. And I’m glad, because even though we have our differences, we are still really good friends.