During fifth period Journalism class in 2010, I was sitting next to my friend John on school-issued laptops when I opened the Wikipedia page on "Transsexual" and felt my heart begin to pound because I had a name for this feeling. It was never explicit before that moment. I never thought I wish I was a boy. I wished my chest wouldn't grow so I could still wear my favourite shirts. I wished my hips would stop already so I can keep wearing my favourite "boy shorts". I wished boys hadn't laughed at me in the weeks leading up to my mother realising I needed a training bra. But in that moment as I read the page everything quickly began to align in my mind, the pieces falling into place—it took less than thirty seconds for me to realise what I was reading was me. I felt like I was going to throw up.

My trans awakening would not have happened without the Internet.

I don't know if I would have ever found the word for my nebulous feelings of something's-wrong-with-me, something's-different. I don't know if I would have finally thought "I wish I was a boy" or "I am a boy". At that time I didn't know transgender people existed; I wasn't influenced or confused or deceived by people already in the community. I read a Wikipedia page and that was all it took.

After that, it was natural for me to simply... be gay. I didn't realise fully until later, when friends would ask if that meant I liked girls, and I realised that no, I don't like girls and I never have. There was no gay awakening for me. When I noticed I was a boy, homosexual was all I knew I could be.

I will forever be thankful for Trueselves and Susan's Place (especially Susan's Place). These were the first places and people who learned I was transsexual. While I lurked more than I spoke, the information and camaraderie given by those trans men and trans women was more valuable to me than they may ever realise. The demographics skewed much older and many of them were trans women, but it gave me a solid sense of who I was and who my allies were that withstood the tomfoolery of younger transgender peers on Tumblr who espoused ideas that went against what I'd already learned from my Honorary Elders on those old-fashioned forums.