Advocates for the transgender community say there’s an increasing number of young people coming out as trans nationwide. Transgender is a general term for people who usually do not identify with their birth gender. Some do not even identify as male or female. And experts say it’s thanks, in part, to the internet.
"It really started as a dream," said 14-year-old Gabriel Martin. "When I was in 5th grade, I had a dream that I was in a male's body and it felt so natural."
Gabriel is a freshman at Cypress Lake High School in Fort Myers. He's genetically female, but he came out to his family as transgender about four months ago.
"I was expecting my sister to be ok with that because she has LGBT friends. And my brother, I knew he was going to be fine with it," said Gabriel. " It was mainly my dad I was worried about. I don’t know why."
Ronald Martin is Gabriel's dad.
"Initially, our reaction was shock," said Ronald. "We're still adjusting to the loss of a daughter-- the hopes, the dreams that come with having a daughter...We lost a daughter but we gained a son."
Ronald says he was “amazed” at how well-informed Gabriel was when he first came out.
"What I’m learning is these kids, these teenagers they're almost advanced because Gabriel had anticipated all of my questions. Knew about hormones, knew about fertility concerns," said Ronald. "I was impressed with the amount of research."
Southwest Florida therapist Kathy Lowry is not surprised by the increasing amount of information transgender youth are consuming. She’s been working with the local trans-community for about 12 years. And this surge is something she’s observed within the last two years. She thinks it’s because of social media.
"They're connecting, they’re finding other people that are on the same boat. They're not feeling so alone, you know, that maybe they felt their whole life. And they're also able to get a lot of questions answered by these people," said Lowry.
She's also seeing more kids and teens come out as transgender now. Between one and five children attend her support group every month.
"You have a kid here and a kid there, but there's enough, though, where we have support groups now for trans-children," said Lowry. "So it's not like there's tons, but it is really fascinating to see."
Coming out transgender as a child was simply not an option for GennyBeemyn who did not grow up in the internet age. Beemyn is gender non-binary, meaning does not conform to a female or male identity. And goes by they/them pronouns. They said this increase in young people coming out is a movement all around the country.
"It used to be an anomaly when a trans youth came out and was supported by their parents and was able to be themselves in their elementary school or middle school. Now that is no longer kind of like the exception," said Beemyn.
For about ten years, Beemyn has trained hundreds of colleges around the country on transgender inclusion out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
There are no statistics right now showing this increase because, Beemyn said, society is just now starting to recognize diverse gender identities. Applications and forms historically only ask whether you’re “male” or “female”.
Beemyn did not come out until about 30 years old because of available information, or lack thereof.
"The internet was really a dividing line for people in terms of prior to the wide availability of the internet, " said Beemyn. "People, myself included, really didn’t understand ourselves-- often times felt that we were the only one like ourselves like we were some sort of freak."
Beemyn said before the internet, libraries were the main resources of information, which were not really helpful to transgender people.
"Going through the old card catalogue system was gonna be... pretty negative material and so we were really isolated and for many denied who we were," said Beemyn. "Very different for younger people today who can go online."
High school freshman Gabriel Martin does not think he would’ve come out so soon had he grown up in Beemyn’s time.
"I would feel really scared to come out if I was born back in their generation. I would probably hold it off until I was probably 20 or 30," said Gabriel.
But his family fully supports him, using the right pronouns and calling him by his new name.
"When they first started calling me 'Gabriel,' it felt a little strange because I never was called a guy name by my family," he said. "They treat me like their son or their brother."
Gabriel said when he grows up, he might become a therapist for transgender people. He wants to support the trans-community, and help it become more acknowledged.
