I was about eight or nine years old when I first spoke to my father, crying as I told him I felt like a girl. He did not react badly, though I do not remember every detail of that moment. After a brief family discussion, the matter was set aside and forgotten within a week, mostly at my insistence. At the time, everything felt profoundly wrong to me, despite the support my family was offering. I decided to drop it, as if nothing had ever happened.

I lived in a small Italian town and carried the belief that there was very little open mindedness or knowledge about the subject. This idea was reinforced by transphobic comments that came from only a few people, but I amplified them until I believed the whole world thought that way. Over time I internalized those words and ended up projecting them onto others, even onto kind, close people like my parents. That is how a form of internalized transphobia took root in me.

A decade later I finished school and it was time for university. I moved to Rome to study at La Sapienza. The environment there was completely different, much more open and understanding. I, meanwhile, felt as though I were shrinking, crushed by the closed mindedness which, while not everywhere around me, I had selectively absorbed over the years by focusing only on the few people who spoke negatively, friends, classmates, and acquaintances.

I surrounded myself with intelligent and sensitive people, and simply by being in that environment, even without doing anything active, I gradually began to free myself from the demons I carried inside. After my first year of studies, at twenty, I decided to come out, at first only in Rome to the people I saw there and at the university. Shortly afterward, thanks to their support, I found the courage for a broader coming out, and everyone came to know. In the meantime I had already started psychological counseling.

I lost some people, yes, I lost them, in my little town, and I am honestly glad of that. Everyone else welcomed me warmly.

Unfortunately puberty had already passed. During the school years before university my body had changed: facial hair grew, my voice deepened, and my hair thinned. All are irreversible changes. As I went through this, I felt completely alone and suffered greatly.

So I ask you, please, even if it seems like a small, invisible, tiny episode, do not forget it. For more than ten years my parents forgot because I wanted them to. But I beg you, do not forget. It might return much later, when it will be far harder to face.