- Before that transitioning period, what was your own kind of perception of the transgender community?

Did you think about the rest?

- Honestly?

- Honestly, yeah.

- I was a little transphobic in the beginning.

- Hmm.

- Because the short version of my story is, I felt like me growing up, - Yeah.

- until age 10, I wanted to start wearing dresses to school and I couldn't.

So I got the talk and I was sent to a psychiatrist for two years every Wednesday to teach me I had to be a boy and like boy things.

And so that was the start of me feeling broken.

And so I started trying so hard to be this man that I thought I was supposed to be, that this doctor told me at age 10.

- Right.

- And so I found the most alpha people that I could find to hang out with, to learn how to be a stronger man, a better man.

And it's the reason why I went in the Navy because I thought, you know, I still feel like me on the inside and they can fix that.

- Right.

- They can make me not be that way anymore because I just felt broken and I adapted and learned a lot of things that, - you know, - Yeah.

- straight people talk about.

- Right.

Learn and unlearn, right?

- Yes.

- And the whole process.

- That's been the hardest part is not just to unlearn a lot of that stuff, it's to let go of things like male pride.

And it's okay to ask questions.

It's okay to say, I don't understand that.

It's okay to say I'm scared.

- [Narrator] "A Slice of the Community" is made possible by the support of the First Horizon Foundation.