Freedom isn’t an expression. Freedom is a breath.

From the time I can remember, the world looked at me, laid claim to me, and began directing my life. Everyone around me told me — in no uncertain terms — what I was supposed to do, who I was supposed to love, and how I was supposed to play. None of it seemed right. None of it fit. None of it filled me up… But I was trapped with no way out. There was nothing anyone could do to help me and my silence deafened even me. My voice laid dormant for years and the more that happened, the more that festered, the more I ran.

I ran to sex and drugs and parties and anything loud I could find that would drown out the shame of what I knew was true for me.

And then, I told my parents that what they saw, what they thought they saw, wasn’t true. It simply wasn’t true for me and I didn’t know why and I certainly didn’t want it, but there it sat. With me. In me. Surrounding me and haunting me. I was what I was and there was nothing I could do about it.

Nowadays, I have a ‘disorder.’ Nowadays, instead of it being illegal, instead of being put in jail for walking down the street dressed ‘like a girl,’ I have a Disorder. I suffer from something. Once again, people have been able to tell me what I’m feeling, and why I’m feeling it. Once again, I’m at the mercy of other people’s fear.

My parents didn’t speak to me for years after I told them I was transgender. They went through their own transition, and they needed time, as I did, to collect themselves, to make sure it wasn’t some phase, and to heal. To survive what they thought were these gigantic mistakes they made. And so, for a while, there were several lonely holidays.

Eventually though, we got back together. We made up and we lived with each others’ foibles and collected each others’ gifts. It was never perfect, but it was always truthful. And through it all, I learned, and am still learning, that what’s in my heart, what’s truly deeply inside me, is attached to my breath.

The last thing you hear on this video, before he speaks his last piece of Text, is a large, low and exhausting breath. He gestures, and he breathes. He moves forward. He keeps going. He’s got much more to do and much more to breathe through. And for him, this is one of the largest moment in his life, and will most likely remain so until he leaves this planet.

When you live a lie, the one who suffers hardest, is you.

And so now, he’s free.

He’s got a long journey and a big canvas to cover, but he’s free. And he’s breathing. He and I and my brothers and sisters who’ve let that text out, who’ve reclaimed their power, are free. It’s always complicated and it’s always chaotic and messy, and after that, when the dust settles, the joy and the laughter and the magnificence of that one, long breath spreads through everyone like a blazing, hot fire. It’s catchy. It surprises us and it takes us by the throat.

And even though as I write this, my country still believes I suffer from something, I’m still living in the middle of my own freedom. I’m still loud and I’m still frightened and I’m still thrilled to be awake. I’ve never been more awake. And with that comes my deepest thanks to this young brave man in this video. In all the fighting for our country he’ll ever do, he can now add this to his list of brave acts.

And so thanks to him, I’ll take another breath, and see what happens.