Today I lay my claim to womanhaood.

After 55 years of forcing myself to be what society wants me, what heteronormative – “normative” is a relative term – what conservative bigoted faith leaders and politicians work to shove us back into a closet of guilt, fear and shame – after all this time I’m finally coming out.

I’m breaking free, and being me, finally!

Ever since I was about 6 years old, I have known that I was a girl inside. Yet growing up in rural parts of New England, I thought I was weird. A freak. That something was wrong inside me, and because the rest of the world – at least the world I was exposed to at the time – didn’t reflect what I was feeling, I suppressed myself.

But it never went away.

As knowledge of being transgender gradually came more into the mainstream, I would dip my toes in the pool. But I always got cold feet becuase of guilt, shame, fear, and uncertainty.

If I could only focus on burying my innerself, all would fix itself.

Friends, it never does.

So today, after these long, long years, I am finally free, Finally me.

Finally Lauren!

Let the journey commence…..