My name's Misty Eyez Alicea.

I'm a married heterosexual transgender woman, and I'm the director of three departments at an organization called SunServe.

I grew up in a Christian family, and I lived my entire life on stage, and I was a praise and worship leader, youth group leader, missionary.

The biggest misconception that the world has about trans people is that trans people are trans because they transition.

In reality, people transition because they're trans.

And what I mean by that is, we are born this way.

But some people have the courage to accept the brain that they were born with.

My name is Ren.

I'm 21, and I go by he/they.

I'm a transmasculine, nonbinary person.

For the most part, it's not like, my family didn't kick me out or anything.

They weren't awful.

But it was a bit rocky because in general, transition is a huge change for everyone, not just the person transitioning.

The family has to deal with, you know, you have a kid.

And especially when I'm adopted, you adopt a kid and you think, this is my daughter.

I raised them as a daughter, and all of a sudden at 13, they're like, "I don't like that, I don't go by that."

It's a change.

It's a really big change.

And I think for a lot of people, that's a big challenge when their child comes out because you're basically unlearning everything that you knew up until that point about your child.

Most of my clients come to me in a state of darkness and in a state, often, alcoholism or drug use or self harm, complete and total despair.

And when they accept and learn how to understand and deal with and safely transition, they're night and day different people.

I had a really bleak outlook of life.

I was at a point in which I wasn't thinking I was gonna make it till 18.

I was really in a bad spot.

But the time I turned 18, I realized I had all these opportunities to advocate for myself and get the help I wanted, be it therapy or going to SunServe and getting all the help I could get to start my transition.

And it's, in all honesty, it's changed my life for the better.

I've, I am still on a journey, but I feel much happier in my skin.

I feel much happier being me and being around others.

My transition journey started similar to a lot of our clients that came in.

I was struggling with depression, anxiety, and substance use as a direct result of my gender dysphoria.

I was struggling with gender identity, and what does it mean to be a trans man?

These clients are contemplating suicide because they feel like they have no other alternative.

They feel like they don't have people in their corner that will affirm their gender identity or their sexual orientation.

My name is Chris.

I'm a 39yearold heterosexual trans male.

I'm currently an intern student here serving at SunServe.

I'm in the licensed clinical mental health counseling program with the specialization in school counseling.

I knew I was trans from a very early age.

I wanted to come out as far as maybe like 10 years ago, but during that time it wasn't as known.

I didn't have a lot of information about it.

I would get a lot of pushback from my partners, my girlfriends at the time, and I kind of chose their happiness over my own.

Maybe about two years ago, I decided that, you know, I was tired of waking up depressed and not being happy with who I saw in the mirror.

And I just decided that it was time for me to finally be happy.

And being that I am currently in the mental health field, I decided the best way for me to be effective in helping my clients was to first make sure that I was good with my own mental health.

And in order for me to do that, I had to be comfortable in who I was.

We help our clients have the courage to exist in a world that tells them they don't belong in.

The laws every day are shocking.

We are fiercely being targeted, and it is sending shock waves through our community of despair and depression.

And therefore many trans people are trying to create a mass exodus from Florida.

Almost every day families are calling me, "Please, can SunServe help me get out?"

They are scared that they're gonna lose their housing.

They're scared that they're gonna lose any access to employment or transitioning services.

They're scared their insurance is no longer gonna cover them because they're a trans individual.

They are scared and they're coming to these support groups with a lot of anxiety and concern for their future.

I rely on things like Medicaid and such, and if they stop being able to pay for that, it'll be much trickier to get when I need like my HRT or my medications and such.

Especially when it comes to transitional care or gender-affirming care.

A lot of times people in my community feel like they can't exist and they don't deserve to live or thrive or be successful.

And I do think that we have every right to do all of those things.

We have every right as trans people to have the same milestones, graduation, marriage, success that every human has.

In the end, we're all just human.

We're all just people trying to love and care and just treat each other well.

My hope for the future is that, I mean, it may sound cliche, is that we just all get along.

You know, everybody learns to just love, embrace and accept each other.

The world would be so much happier if everybody just shared the space.

You know, there's enough room for all of us.