There is a statistic oft cited, whether it be in mockery or advocacy, that every transgender person knows: more than 40% of trans adults have attempted suicide. I am no exception. What had already been a dysfunctional and toxic family became outright hostile and abusive when I tried to come out at age seventeen. Where I should have been met with love and acceptance, I was instead met with verbal abuse and denial of my identity. My own state of North Carolina would deny me the right to safely use public restrooms two years later after this disastrous attempt at coming out. I was even denied my own sense of security that same year, when students on my college campus began making threats to transgender students on social media. In the face of such denial, of abuse and hatred, I saw only one solution. Sure, I had failed before, spending my sixteenth birthday in a psychiatric ward after my parents discovered the scars on my arms, but this time I would succeed. Except, I couldn’t. Outside of the confines of my oppressive home life, living on a college campus, I began to find something remarkable. Regardless of how strange and ugly my mother insisted I was, I found people who cared for me. Every week I made the trek through the hilly campus of the University of North Carolina at Asheville, all the way to the little house on the outskirts of campus designated for student activities. There, the Transgender Student Union would meet to hold a transgender support group every week. It was here, in this tiny living room, we sat on cushions and sofas to cry and ache together. It was here that we shared triumphs of name changes and surgeries booked. Suddenly, every time I felt that I’d mustered up the courage to swallow all my antidepressants, my phone would light up with a message from one of my friends. I found myself pushing the date of my suicide off, if only to go to one more support group meeting. Suicide took a backseat to obligations like fundraisers, being there for the new students. Soon, I was surrounded by a community that deeply cared for me, and one that I cared for back. It was something I feared I would lose for good when I dropped out of college in 2016. When it came down to the choice of being authentically myself, and being financially supported by a transphobic and abusive home, I chose myself. For the first time in my life, I made the decision to prioritize my own happiness, even if it meant dropping out of college to work to support myself. Leaving behind the only family I had ever known was immensely difficult. It was one that cost me countless nights of sleep, wondering if I had done the right thing. However, I would soon learn that though they were my biological family, they were not the only family I would have, nor the most loving. When I worried about homelessness, my non-binary partner allowed me to live with them, free of rent. On days I couldn’t afford to spare the dollar for a snack from the work vending machine, my manager- a trans woman and a friend for life, would seem to magically unfurl one from her pockets. Though I was no longer a student, the Transgender Student Union I’d helped form, rather than exclude me, decided to expand their reach to the greater Asheville area. I was endlessly grateful to the new family I had found myself, but I couldn’t help but wonder, what if I didn’t have a community by my side? Through my adulthood, I have been lucky to find family with other transgender people. I was fortunate enough to have a community where we could support each others’ mental health and understand our struggles. What about all the other trans people out there without such a community? What about those who can’t advocate for themselves from the closet? Why must they suffer in solitude? Before me, I saw a clear path ahead. I would re-enroll in college to eventually earn my PHD in psychology, specializing in research and social psychology. From there, my plan would be to bolster support in my community for trans mental health. I know the path before me is a long one. As I enter my junior year of my bachelor degree program, I can’t help but feel daunted by all the work ahead of me. Yet, with my looming future, I simultaneously feel more invigorated than ever. I’ve become determined to see my plans through, and over the past few years, I’ve found myself becoming restless during breaks and holidays, eager to get back into my studies. After all, if I want my dreams to become a reality, if I want to have a career that improves the lives of trans people who come after me, I need to have discipline. I need to have the academic chops. Thankfully, I have people on my side to help me get there. I will forever be grateful that I’ve had firsthand experience with how much of a difference a supportive community can have on one’s mental health. My own journey with mental health has made me more determined than ever to ensure that a loving community is something every transgender person might have someday.

Imagine, if you will, the average prison in America. Imagine its population, the sorts of characters inhabiting its stony gray facade. Among them, you may picture violent people; you might picture liars and thieves. Accurate as your initial image may be, I ask: did you picture anyone struggling with mental illness? Did you picture people with disabilities denied their medication? Consider the average prison once more. Imagine its amenities, the sort of life it provides for its inhabitants. Is this a life of rehabilitation, where those convicted of crimes might safely reform their mindsets as well as their behavior, and prepare themselves for a second chance in society? Or is this a place where cycles of violence continue? A place where one must rely on the exact behaviors that landed them in prison in the first place just to survive? The unfortunate reality is that U.S. prisons are populated by those with untreated mental illnesses, without the hope of treatment or rehabilitation. According to a 2022 report by the National Judicial Task Force, those with mental illness are ten times more likely to be incarcerated than they are to be hospitalized. Roughly two in every five incarcerated people in this country have at least one mental disorder. With this number being twice that of the number of mentally ill adults in the overall population, it’s clear that our prisons are largely populated by people in need of mental health resources- resources that our prison system just doesn’t provide. This is why advocacy for better community mental health, and for prisoner’s rights is so crucial, and one of the most important social justice issues of our time. Now, to be fully transparent- no one I love has ever been incarcerated. The personal devastation that comes with having a loved one in prison is something I hope to never experience. Rather, it was growing up in the early 2010’s, during the onset of the Black Lives Matter movement, that opened my eyes to the realities of our prison system. I very suddenly realized that I could not fathom continuing to live in a world in which our prisons were used to disappear the undesirables of society- the mentally ill, black youth, the homeless. At the same time, I felt helplessly daunted by the desire to reform our country’s current system of policing and incarceration. With the United States of America having the largest imprisoned population in the world, was it even possible to make a difference? This sense of helplessness is precisely why the fight for a reformed criminal justice system is one worth fighting for. We often think of prison as integral to our society, yet America has a population of incarcerated people disproportionate to its overall population. A better future is possible, and it is a tangible reality in most other countries. The fight for a future free of the prison industrial complex takes all types. This future is one that requires community mental health care, class equality, educational opportunities, and an end to over-policing. This future requires educators, therapists, law makers, innovators, writers, community developers. It requires everyone in order to succeed. Armed with an education in psychology, I intend to make a difference both in the mental health care of prisoners, and those most at risk of incarceration. Daunting as this fight may be, I find myself ready to take part in building a future free of prison walls.

Through my adulthood, I have been lucky enough to find family with other transgender people after cutting off my biological family due to their transphobic abuse. I was fortunate enough to have a community where I could authentically be myself. In this new family I found for myself, we all support each others’ mental health and understand each others’ struggles. As I’ve grown older, though, I find myself reflecting on my youth, before I had found such a community. What about all the other trans people out there who were still in those situations? What about those who can’t advocate for themselves from the closet? Why must they suffer in solitude because of the ignorance of not only society, but the greater psychological community? With all the psychological progress being made on understanding the intersection of social roles and mental health- there is a clear lack of understanding for transgender people. For nearly a century, homosexuality was considered a mental illness in the DSM until advocacy for gay rights led to a cultural shift and deeper understanding of gay people. But, where is this same shift for transgender people? Why is gender dysphoria still considered a mental illness? Before me, I see a clear path ahead. In 2016, I was forced to drop out of college since I no longer had financial support from my biological family. Ever since, I have been working to support myself, and with a new goal in mind, I scrupulously saved to afford to send myself back to school. I re-enrolled in college in 2022 with the goal of eventually earning my PHD in psychology, specializing in research and social psychology. From there, my plan is to advocate for the exclusion of gender dysphoria from the future issues of the DSM, and to bolster support in my community for trans mental health. I know the path before me is a long one, and an expensive one. As I enter my junior year of my bachelor degree program, I can’t help but feel daunted by all the work ahead of me. Yet, with my looming future, I simultaneously feel more invigorated than ever. I’ve become determined to see my plans through, and over the past few years, I’ve found myself becoming restless during breaks and holidays, eager to get back into my studies. After all, if I want my dreams to become a reality, if I want to have a career that improves the lives of trans people who come after me, I need to have discipline. I need to have the academic chops. I need this scholarship as well. I still support myself without the help of my biological family, but rather than that being a source of shame, it’s become a source of pride for me. I know that I have what it takes to become successful, and with this scholarship’s help, I can make my envisioned success a tangible reality.

Through my adulthood, I have been lucky enough to find family with other transgender people after cutting off my biological family due to their transphobic abuse. I was fortunate enough to have a community where I could authentically be myself. In this new family I found for myself, we all support each others’ mental health and understand each others’ struggles. As I’ve grown older, though, I find myself reflecting on my youth, before I had found such a community. What about all the other trans people out there who were still in those situations? What about those who can’t advocate for themselves from the closet? Why must they suffer in solitude because of the ignorance of not only society, but the greater psychological community? With all the psychological progress being made on understanding the intersection of social roles and mental health- there is a clear lack of understanding for transgender people. For nearly a century, homosexuality was considered a mental illness in the DSM until advocacy for gay rights led to a cultural shift and deeper understanding of gay people. But, where is this same shift for transgender people? Why is gender dysphoria still considered a mental illness? Before me, I see a clear path ahead. I re-enrolled in college in 2022 with the goal of eventually earning my PHD in psychology, specializing in research and social psychology. From there, my plan is to advocate for the exclusion of gender dysphoria from the future issues of the DSM, and to bolster support in my community for trans mental health. I know the path before me is a long one, and an expensive one. As I enter my junior year of my bachelor degree program, I can’t help but feel daunted by all the work ahead of me. Yet, with my looming future, I simultaneously feel more invigorated than ever. I’ve become determined to see my plans through, and over the past few years, I’ve found myself becoming restless during breaks and holidays, eager to get back into my studies. After all, if I want my dreams to become a reality, if I want to have a career that improves the lives of trans people who come after me, I need to have discipline. I need to have the academic chops. I need this scholarship as well. I still support myself without the help of my biological family, but rather than that being a source of shame, it’s become a source of pride for me. I know that I have what it takes to become successful, and with this scholarship’s help, I can make my envisioned success a tangible reality.

There are two things I know with certainty about being transgender. One is that to be transgender is to be denied at every turn. My mother denied me my identity as a transgender man. My own state of North Carolina would deny me the right to safely use public restrooms two years later. I was denied my own sense of security that same year, when students on my college campus began making threats to transgender students on social media. The second thing I know with certainty about being transgender is this: when no one takes care of us, we take care of our own. Though our numbers were few, all the transgender students on our campus banded together to create the first transgender student organization at the University of North Carolina Asheville: the Trans Student Union. Here, I experienced my first taste of community, and the wonders it can do. Gathered in a house on the outskirts of campus designated for student activities, we sat on cushions and sofas to hold a transgender support group every week. It was here that we cried and ached together, that we shared triumphs of name changes and surgeries booked. It was what I would miss the most when I dropped out of college in 2016. When it came down to the choice of being authentically myself, and being financially supported by a transphobic and abusive home, I chose myself. For the first time in my life, I made the decision to prioritize my own happiness, even if it meant dropping out of college to work to support myself. Leaving behind the only family I had ever known was immensely difficult. It was one that cost me countless nights of sleep, wondering if I had done the right thing. However, I would soon learn that though they were my biological family, they were not the only family I would have, nor the most loving. When I worried about homelessness, my non-binary partner allowed me to live with them, free of rent. On days I couldn’t afford to spare the dollar for a snack from the work vending machine, my manager- a trans woman and a friend for life, would seem to magically unfurl one from her pockets. Though I was no longer a student, the trans student union I’d helped form, rather than exclude me, decided to expand their reach to the greater Asheville area. I was endlessly grateful to the new family I had found myself, but I couldn’t help but wonder, what if I didn’t have a community by my side? I would discover exactly what that lack of community felt like when my partner and I left Asheville after the cost of living continued to skyrocket. In Greensboro, I was excited for new opportunities, eagerly befriending activists and other trans people in the area, gathering a new community for myself. Then COVID-19 hit. My world shrank down to just me, my partner, and our cats. The isolation was crushing, and depression became a long, wintry shadow on my existence. I watched on as the small community I had grown to have left the city, some leaving the state entirely. What kept me warm during these cold times was my insatiable desire for knowledge. I spent hours on my phone scrolling through the effects of isolation on the human mind, how to maintain one’s mental health amidst the unthinkable. As my partner finished their degree, I found myself tagging along so that I might spend my time in her campus’s library, reading book after book on psychological research and fascinating case studies. It was here that I realized, with all the psychological progress being made on understanding the intersection of social roles and mental health- there was a clear lack of understanding for transgender people. For nearly a century, homosexuality was considered a mental illness in the DSM until advocacy for gay rights led to a cultural shift and deeper understanding of gay people. But, where was this same shift for transgender people? Why was gender dysphoria still considered a mental illness? It was here that I became determined. Through my adulthood, I had been lucky to find family with other transgender people. I was fortunate enough to have a community where we could support each others’ mental health and understand our struggles. What about all the other trans people out there without such a community? What about those who can’t advocate for themselves from the closet?Why must they suffer in solitude because of the ignorance of the greater psychological community? Before me, I saw a clear path ahead. I would re-enroll in college to eventually earn my PHD in psychology, specializing in research and social psychology. From there, my plan would be to advocate for the exclusion of gender dysphoria from the future issues of the DSM, and to bolster support in my community for trans mental health. I know the path before me is a long one, and an expensive one. As I enter my junior year of my bachelor degree program, I can’t help but feel daunted by all the work ahead of me. Yet, with my looming future, I simultaneously feel more invigorated than ever. I’ve become determined to see my plans through, and over the past few years, I’ve found myself becoming restless during breaks and holidays, eager to get back into my studies. After all, if I want my dreams to become a reality, if I want to have a career that improves the lives of trans people who come after me, I need to have discipline. I need to have the academic chops. I need this scholarship as well. I still support myself without the help of my biological family, but rather than that being a source of shame, it’s become a source of pride for me. I know that I have what it takes to become successful, and with this scholarship’s help, I can make my envisioned success a tangible reality.