I realized I was a transgender woman when I was in my early 20s, around 2016. I was living in Central Illinois at the time, and I was afraid of telling my friends, family, and girlfriend who had all known me as a man. One of the first people I told was my girlfriend who accepted me right away. We are still together today. I was more worried about my family and my friends, and because of that, it took me years before I was comfortable enough to tell them who I was. Particularly difficult has been my much older brother, who is very stereotypically masculine and likewise taught me harmful ideas about gender and sexuality as I was growing up. I was not comfortable with presenting femme, especially in those early years. A couple of years later I left home and moved to New York City where I started feeling more comfortable expressing my femininity in my physical appearance and I began HRT in 2019. Unfortunately, I lost my job at the start of COVID-19 which led me to make the difficult decision to follow my girlfriend to Tennessee where she was starting grad school. Now here, I cannot financially afford to move away before she graduates. For my safety, I feel that I have taken a step back in my transition and I am often dressing more androgynous or even more masculine. After working odd jobs for a year, I decided to change careers and join the computer science program at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. I am still working to support myself as I take classes. I am a nontraditional student, which makes finding scholarships more difficult and I am worried that my gender and sexual identities will further bias funders against me. According to the Princeton Review in 2023, the University of Tennessee holds the top spot for schools that are most unfriendly to LGBTQ+ individuals. The university has been consistently ranked high on that list since 2016 when the campus Pride Center was defunded and shut down by the state because they promoted gender diversity and the use of preferred pronouns. Knoxville has also been riddled with vandalism and violence against the campus Pride Center as well as local institutions like Planned Parenthood and Knox Pride. I have found a support group for transgender folks in a small town about 30 minutes away, but otherwise the state of Tennessee has not been welcoming to individuals who are not cisgender and heterosexual. The state government has been actively introducing legislation to criminalize those who do not fit squarely into the cisgender binary. My current goals are to earn a bachelor’s degree in computer science as quickly as I possibly can, and then to move away from Tennessee so that I can feel safer and be myself again. When I graduate, I want to work in the field of cybersecurity so that I can help prevent people’s data from being leaked. I feel strongly that no one should have to feel worried about their personal information being shared on the internet without their permission or knowledge. Doxxing someone’s gender identity can be especially harmful for transgender folks because it may lead to violence and harassment. When I have a cybersecurity job, I want to help everyone but especially LGBTQ+ people keep their data safe. Cybersecurity also is typically a higher-paying job, and while I do not have disposable income now, I hope to be able to give back to the transgender community through donations and other support measures in the near future.

My dream future self is comfortable in their own skin, confident in their hard-earned skills, at peace with the life choices that they've made along the way, and doing their best to help keep others safe through the field of cybersecurity.

Legacy, at times, has defined who I was and what my values were. Now, legacy remains a large part of my life, but I have grown and changed, and my definition of legacy has changed with me. Music has been a major component of my life since I was 10 years old. I started with trumpet and moved my way up to vocals, piano, and guitar. By the time I made it to high school, music was the primary way that I connected with my community, made friends, and found mentors. My high school band director, Mr. Nedzel, had a legacy to be proud of: he had taught hundreds of students to love and appreciate music, including my older siblings. I connected strongly with him, and he was an impeccable role model. He exemplified what it meant to be a true leader. He treated everyone with dignity and respect, but still pushed them to reach their best self. I cherished the hours that I spent with him every day between choir, band, as well as any free time I had during the day. He inspired me to be a better musician, and in turn, music became integral to my identity. Unfortunately, during my sophomore year, music also became a way for me to cope with grief and loss. I was pulled into the school auditorium with my friends and our families, and we were told that Mr. Nedzel was in critical condition after a tragic accident. He never recovered, and I was left with a gaping hole where his presence used to be. I coped by trying to emulate what Mr. Nedzel meant to me and I did so in the only way I knew how. I pursued a career in music, pushing myself to be the best musician that I could be, through my teens and early 20s. I was finally starting to get a toehold in the music industry in New York City in early 2020 when COVID-19 erupted onto the scene. Several life-changing events occurred in rapid fire. I lost my job. Most of my friends left the city. And soon, I moved away too and followed my girlfriend to Tennessee where she was starting a new school. The career that I had worked towards was yanked away and I lost sight of who I was outside of the legacy that I had believed Mr. Nedzel had left me. The early pandemic was some of the hardest years of my life. The music industry suffered so much during the pandemic that it was nearly impossible to have a career in music at the level I once aspired to reach. I was mourning what my career could have been, struggling with shame about no longer being the person that I once was, and above all – trying to rediscover myself without music being as firmly attached to my identity. Over time, I made the decision to pursue other possible career interests. Cybersecurity stuck out to me as a path to live up to the legacy that Mr. Nedzel left behind and I enrolled in a computer science bachelor’s program. I do not need to be a musician to make Mr. Nedzel proud. His true legacy was the way he treated others and his dedication to helping his community. After graduation, I hope to get a job in cybersecurity so that I can help keep people and their data safe. I will continue to be the kind and helpful person that Mr. Nedzel saw in me all those years ago, and in doing so, keep his legacy strong.