always so afraid to just mention mine.

I decided I'd treat myself like I was nothing

then I felt like everyone would just leave me. One day I was driving with my

dad to the beach

and he goes, "Edson, look at those girls in those bikinis," and I just thought to myself

look at the guy next to them! And immediately after that, I always thought myself,

am I allowed to think that? You really look in the mirror

and um... that's not you. I didn't think that for once nobody was going to not

like me

I felt that I wasn't gonna like myself.

*music*

It's already challenging enough being a teen, because you're just trying to figure out

who you are

in the world. So, for a teen trying to figure out Who am I?;

Who do I want to be in relation to other people?; How do I like other people?

Am I romantically attracted to certain people?; Am I sexually attracted

to certain people?

Whoa! That's a lot to deal with.

Well, I first started to question my sexuality

when I was 12 or 13 in seventh grade.

My name's Amelia and I've been out as a lesbian

for about two years now. Most my friends had already come out

as various different things and I just started to wonder

kind of about myself. At first I came out as bisexual

because I felt that it would be easier.

I later came out as a lesbian. I always knew that something was different.

I never knew what it was. I'm Edson Montenegro. I identify as gay as of

middle school in 2009. I mean I knew I could talk to my parents about absolutely

anything and at that point it was like school, people are frustrating me,

but that kind of depth of

personal issues- I still wasn't necessarily a 100% ready to

really

say, "You know what? I am gay." I didn't really think that I was ever a lesbian,

but I knew that I was attracted to women.

So, I guess that's where bisexual comes in for me.

My name is Ana Escalante and I identify as a bisexual woman.

Up until the 11th grade I was very

embarrassed by the idea being gay.

As time went on, I knew that it wasn't going to go away.

I saw women the same way I saw men. It can be really challenging to talk about the

LGBTQ community

because as in today there are SO many different

gender identities and sexual orientations. It can be really confusing

for people.

One of the most common questions we'll get asked is, "What is the difference

between gender and sexuality?"

L, G, and B are sexual orientations. It's about who you're attracted to.

Who you might be romantically attracted to or sexually attracted to.

Gender is more about who you identify as.

You can identify as male, you can identify as female,

gender-neutral, genderqueer, or gender fluid.

It's empowering because there's all these different identities.

But, then it's also overwhelming because there's all these different

identities.

Where do I fit in all of this?

My super specialty has become working with gender non-conforming kids and

transgender adolescents and young adults.

The gender journey actually starts at birth and sometimes even before birth.

"Is it a boy or girl?" That's one of most prominent questions that's asked when somebody

is pregnant.

Looking at that baby's anatomy, we start making stories about what that child

should do as they grow up. I was

confused about who I was. I always had like

you know, kinda like a little voice in your head saying, "No, if you be this way you're never

gonna make it anywhere in life."

"Your family will hate you." I'm 13

I identify as a transgender girl, or just Zoey.

So one day I'm talking to my brother and my brother's like,

"You're not a girl." And then he's like, "You have that."

And I was like, "I know I have that, but doesn't everyone have that?"

I knew that I felt different.

I identify as a heterosexual male. And I was

walking around dressing like a little boy

up until 14-15 once puberty started.

I knew that I didn't feel like I was a girl.

I didn't have the knowledge

or the language to be able to verbalize it

to anyone around me. What's fascinating about younger gender non-conforming kids

is they don't have a coming-out process. They just

like what they like and they tell us. My dad, he used to throw away my mom's

high heels cuz I used to walk around in the house with them. They start to understand

at 6 or 7 when they get into first grade

"Hey, you're a boy. You shouldn't like dolls, that's not okay. I'm not going to be your friend if

you like pink and that's your favorite color." And so they start to

internalize those messages.

I was extremely self-destructive.

I was self-loathing. I wasn't

physical with myself. I wasn't hard on anyone else.

I just - I didn't like myself. They're sitting

on what feels like a huge secret for a really long time

and that be really damaging. So I tried hiding who I was from myself.

Cuz at the time I didn't know what transgender was or the name of it.

And I was telling her, "Mom, I'm a girl. I know I'm a girl. I was born this way."

And I was telling her, "I need to be who I am." There's a tremendous

process of being ostracized if you're different.

People were posting about me, calling me "f**."

"Why haven't you come out yet?" One of my friends was really homophobic.

She told me I was gonna burn in hell once.

That can feel like a tremendous target on their back, especially in middle school.

You know, I was called so many things like, "nerd," like

"he-she," like they are thought I was gay. I've definitely heard

other people like friends make homophobic comments and I'm always that one person

that

stops them and corrects them. I'm Isabel and I identify as a straight female.

And I have two moms and I am an ally

to everybody on the LGBTQ spectrum. I feel like I have a responsibility

to go out into the world every day and be as

kind and

sensitive toward the subject of LGBTQ

as I possibly can. You never know

how much it can mean to have you step up and say

"That's not appropriate. What do you even mean by that?" Other teens that might be

hearing you that might "be in the closet," that might identify as gay,

can just be looking at you very differently thinking, "Wow, there's an ally.

There's someone out there."

"Raise your hand if you heard someone say the phrase, 'that's so gay.'"

LGBTQ outreach is really important for TEEN LINE because people can be

really misinformed about the community.

"Do you think that teen is going to feel safe? No."

Once they can understand what it means and how it hurts and affects other

people

they will usually stop. "A high percentage of LGBTQ youth

in the foster care system"... This is just a topic we don't always talk about.

And when we talk about it, we usually hear about suicides

or all these other things that can be really negative and heavy and we don't hear

about how

actually the community can be really awesome and really

empowering. Hello, everybody.

One of the highlights of our work with TEEN LINE is coming in and training

their new TEEN LINE teens. Kind of the most fun ways that we do that is through this

vocabulary game.

I think that it's really important for people to understand

the language and knowing what is okay to say and what's not okay to say.

And simply what things mean, because

there's a lot of language out there and it's always changing.

I think that the way that we've asked people to describe their gender

experience in the past is very

limiting so, that is why I developed the gender abacus,

so that people can have a more complete way to explain what their experience is.

So you can see we start with sex - so your assigned sex at birth based on your

anatomy.

This second rung of the abacus is gender identity - who you are. Do you feel

mostly male, do you feel mostly female? Do you feel

half of both? Do you feel a little more female than male?

Show us. But, the abacus gives people an opportunity to visually represent what

that experience is like for them.

The third rung the abacus is gender expression. How you want the world to see

your gender.

And then sexual attraction. But one kid said me, I thought this is great,

"Can you just have a randomizer button there so that it goes blpsh." You know?

It just goes where, the beads land wherever.

Because that's sort of how I feel about my sexual attraction.

I think it was probably my sophomore year. I was in a social psychology class

and that was the first time I had heard of gender-identity disorder.

And it all clicked. From that moment,

I did come out to my sister almost immediately.

What she said to me what is, "I have no idea what that is,

but I love you. I'm always going to support you and I'll help you

figure out how to come out to dad."

Coming out to my parents was a really gradual process.

I had talked to my mom about things I was having

questions about or I was confused about and she just kind of slowly picked up on

everything.

Well, my mom was totally cool with it- was kind of like our little secret.

And she said, "Nothing's changed, I still see you as my son."

After that is when I told my Dad and he said, "If anyone breaks your heart then I'm

gonna break them."

And that- that's the thing that really just made me feel good, because I just

realized that

you know, he cares.

If you're coming out, it's really, really important to

make sure you're safe and if it's not a safe environment,

it might not be the right time to come out. Sometimes, unfortunately, there's still

those families out there that

don't support. It's important to identify those people in our life

that are safe and that could be a teacher, that can be someone else's parent,

that can be your friend. To have my mother and my father

just be by my side... all I can say is that I was incredibly blessed.

I can only hope that in the future that other people

are as blessed as I am. 5th grade year,

you know, it all broke out. I finally became myself.

The reaction I got from my mom was really good. I was so happy.

My mom's like, "Alright. We're going shopping for your clothes." And then that was

the day that I got my clothes. At the time it felt like, "Wow. That's who I am."

Like,

finally I'm complete now. I have a close friend at my school

who this past year came out as a lesbian and she just like

came into the room and stood up and she was like, "Everybody!

I'm coming out. I'm lesbian." And we all

just like started clapping and we were all so happy for her.

What's important to remember is that everyone

is going to have their own coming-out process. Everyone's going to have their own

journey

and all of those are okay.

If you've made this decision to come out, there's a lot of things out there to

support you.

There are a lot of books out there that you can read.

There are so many opportunities to find support. So maybe

you can't find someone in your school, let's say, who identifies as asexual...

but there's a thriving community on the Internet that you can turn to

and that can be really empowering. You can turn to social media, you can turn to

Instagram, you can turn to Tumblr and Facebook

and youth groups and community centers and there's always TEEN LINE.

If a teen calls in from anywhere in the world,

they're going another teen who understands. Who's trained to just

actively listen, provide empathy, and link them with resources based on anything

they're going through.

If you have a Gay-Straight Alliance at your school,

to reach out to the advisor- let them know what's going on with you.

GSA stands for Gay Straight Alliance, but it's pretty much an..... A GSA is a safe

place for students to go

and be heard and to feel validated.

We try to introduce ourselves

at each meeting and share our gender pronouns. Hi guys, I'm Nicole or Charlie.

My PGP's are she/her or he/him. It's

kinda fluid. You don't need to stress about getting it right.

It's important that all students are involved.

It is called a Gay-Straight Alliance, so all students are welcome to attend

meetings. I love going to the GSA.

It's really great just being out at school and

not worrying so much about other people judging me for who I am.

It's really important for teens who think they may identify anywhere

within the LGBTQ community to have safe spaces

to bounce ideas. They need to

be able to communicate that they're not sure if they identify

as gay or bisexual. Or they need to communicate with someone, anyone, safely

I'm not sure where I am, but, you know, this journey

is unraveling before me. My dad, when I did come out to him,

you know, he had no idea about gender or identity, but once he

saw how happy I was, he was on board with me.

When I transitioned, I had a lot of acceptance from school kids.

They gave me hugs, they listen, they cry.

And they're like, "Oh my god, you're so beautiful because you overcame this"

I'm just like, I'm just being who I am, man. Like, it's nothing big.

When I entered my current high school in 9th grade,

I really felt like I could be myself. So, it was just so liberating knowing that

whoever gravitated towards me, would gravitate towards me.

And I dunno, it just felt like my wings were spreading.

People on the spectrum can live successful lives and be happy

and accepted where they are and for who they are.

We say acceptance isn't enough,

to tolerate someone isn't enough. We need to embrace

different communities, including LGBTQ. Sometimes I get