There is a misconception that someone simply wakes up one day and decides to be transgender or transsexual. That wasn’t my experience.
For many people, questions surrounding identity are anything but impulsive. They unfold over years, often with the support of licensed mental health professionals who help individuals explore their feelings, understand themselves, and navigate what can be an incredibly personal journey. Self-discovery rarely follows a straight path.
Looking back now, I realize the questions surrounding my identity arrived long before I had the language or life experience to understand what I was feeling.
I remember being around sixteen when I was asked whether I thought I should have been born a boy. At that age, I couldn’t fully comprehend the internal conflict that question carried. Survival mode kicked in almost immediately because, to me, it felt like a trick question. Instead of exploring the answer, I protected myself.
The truth is, I wasn’t spending my teenage years trying to define my gender identity.
My attention was somewhere else entirely.
Like so many Americans after September 11, 2001, I was consumed by the images of the World Trade Center collapsing. My generation witnessed an event that forever altered America’s relationship with the world and challenged global diplomacy in ways few of us could have imagined. As a teenager, I wasn’t asking myself who I was nearly as much as I was asking how I could serve something greater than myself. I wanted justice. I wanted to help protect my country. I wanted to be part of rebuilding a sense of security after foreign terrorism had shaken the world.
Around that same time, my high school softball teammates started calling me “Mitch.”
Ironically, it never bothered me.
I simply embraced it and kept moving forward.
What started as a nickname eventually became something much deeper. During my military years under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Mitch became a layer of armor I wore outside the uniform. My civilian friends knew me by that name. A select few of my aunts stood firmly beside me and respected where I was in life. But there was no public platform. There were no viral videos, documentaries, podcasts, or social media conversations inviting people like me to share our experiences.
There was simply survival.
Before Candi Stratton entered my life, there were other people who quietly helped shape my journey.
There was the Chicago Boi Toiz community, where I first found people who understood pieces of the life I was trying to navigate. Then came Alexis Rouge of Lexi Ravyn Productions, someone who invested in both my creativity and my identity before I fully understood either myself. Alexis saw potential in me and encouraged me to continue creating while discovering who I was becoming.
Then 2009 arrived.
After being sent home following my second deployment, I entered one of the loneliest chapters of my life. The support I thought would always be there wasn’t always there anymore. Some relationships changed. Some people moved forward with their own lives. I found myself trying to rebuild while carrying anxiety, uncertainty, and questions that I had buried for years.
Looking back now, I realize that what felt like an ending was quietly becoming a beginning.
Through the rebuilding of Ravyn Entertainment, I met Candi Stratton.
People sometimes assume admiration comes from celebrity.
That wasn’t what happened.
I never looked at Candi as “the Cher of the transgender community,” nor did I imagine myself living out some television fantasy as Jack McFarland from Will & Grace. Those comparisons never mattered to me.
What mattered was the human being.
Candi became someone I trusted deeply. She offered encouragement without demanding I become someone else. She listened more than she judged. She remained one of my closest confidants during seasons when I desperately needed consistency. In many ways, she showed me a form of unconditional support that reminded me more of a mother than almost anyone else in my life.
Just as importantly, I appreciate Candi for having the courage to tell her story long before it was considered mainstream.
Long before transgender stories regularly appeared in documentaries, television, music, podcasts, or social media, she was speaking publicly through interviews, sharing her experiences and discussing her transition with honesty. That took remarkable courage in a time when visibility often came with tremendous personal risk.
Pioneers rarely receive the appreciation they deserve while history is unfolding.
Today, stories spread across the internet within minutes. Sometimes people unknowingly repeat ideas that others carried decades earlier. Sometimes narratives become distorted or disconnected from the people who first lived them. Yet time has a way of bringing truth back into focus.
As I write these reflections, one blog at a time, I don’t see myself rewriting history.
I see myself restoring it.
I’m putting the pieces back together.
Not because I want recognition.
Not because I believe my story deserves more attention than anyone else’s.
But because context matters.
People often inherit fragments of someone else’s life and unknowingly build an entire narrative around incomplete information.
This is my opportunity to offer the missing chapters.
Even today, I live a relatively quiet life. Anxiety and trust issues have made me something of a hermit, content with a small circle of people I trust deeply. Healing has taught me that peace often grows in quiet places rather than crowded rooms.
Some chapters of my life have cost me relationships with family members.
Yet those same chapters introduced me to friendships that became family.
I’ve learned that family isn’t always defined by blood.
Sometimes family is simply the people who stay.
As I reflect on everything that has happened, I occasionally wonder whether my story would have unfolded differently had I been born in another generation.
Would I have been celebrated for overcoming fear?
Or would I have once again chosen silence to protect myself?
I don’t know.
What I do know is this:
Every person deserves the dignity to tell their own story in their own time.
Identity should never be reduced to political slogans, assumptions, or someone else’s expectations. Behind every label is a human being trying to navigate family, culture, service, trauma, hope, and the lifelong search for belonging.
I’ve spent much of my life watching others stand in the spotlight.
I’ve made peace with that.
Because my purpose isn’t to shine a light on what could have been.
My purpose is to shine a light on the road ahead so someone else can travel it a little more safely than I did.
I want future generations to know they are not alone.
I want them to know that asking for help is strength.
That therapy is strength.
That authenticity deserves compassion.
That no one should ever have to choose between their identity and their safety.
No act of hatred or discrimination toward transgender people or the broader LGBTQ+ community should ever be ignored. The answer is not more fear. The answer is protecting one another’s humanity, standing up for each other’s dignity, and ensuring every person has the opportunity to live openly and safely.
If my story contributes even a small stone to that foundation, then every difficult chapter has served a greater purpose.
Sometimes the greatest act of courage isn’t standing in the spotlight.
Sometimes it’s surviving long enough to tell the story they never saw.
This isn’t an ode to anything other than allow the trans community know that they are still being seen and heard and anytime anyone needs help to understand what you’re going through. Always pay it forward with like minds like Candi has over her years.