all right so I want to start out by
talking about kind of a sobering
statistic from the National transgender
discriminatory serving in the United
States they asked over 6,000 transgender
people if they had ever attempted to
commit suicide in their life and 41% of
those people said that they had and had
I’ve been asked in 2012 in the same
survey I also would have had to say that
I had attempted to commit suicide
luckily I didn’t succeed and I’m here
but I think what’s more important to
start out is explaining what is
transgender what it means to be
transgender and what’s important for
that is gender dysphoria and the
American Association of Psychiatry
defines that as a conflict between your
biological or the gender that you were
assigned at birth versus the gender that
you identify with and to introduce
myself I’m Sonny Miller I’m a
transgender person I’m 30 years old I
live in Frankfort I’m married I have a
wonderful life but there’s always been
this one kind of underlying theme for me
that was always kind of nagging on me
and to start that out kind of talk about
my childhood I have four older brothers
and I come from a really big family and
it’s a lot of masculinity and sports and
hunting and fishing and that was always
stuff I wasn’t really interested in and
I remembered telling my mom and I was
four years old that I didn’t want to be
a boy I thought I should be a girl and I
remember her saying that that’s you
can’t talk like that you can’t say
things like that that’s totally like
that’s crazy you can’t say those things
okay I was four but throughout my
childhood I remember that I always with
books movies anything that I would could
kind of put myself into it was always
with the female character that female
voice it didn’t matter how small that
voice was that was always where I put
myself
and as a child you can kind of be a
little bit more androgynous and you can
kind of role play and it’s acceptable at
that point and that’s kind of what I did
I always would kind of Teeter on that
line between a boy or a girl but then
when you hit puberty that kind of all
changes and then because much more
difficult and as from talking to other
transgender people that’s a really
difficult point in our lives that your
body changes and it changes in a way
that you don’t want it to and for me I
remember as my body was changing going
through puberty hating everything that I
saw and it just it was disgusted with
what was happening because I couldn’t be
this little girl that I had tried so
hard to be as a child and kind of fast
forward a little bit more I started
dealing with depression and I was on
medications and my first kind of turning
point was when I went to college I was
kind of able to get away from my family
and that environment of always kind of
having to be this other person for
everybody else but I had buried that
that little girl inside of me for so
long that when I started kind of
exploring my sexuality I was attracted
to men but the only way that I could
really rationalize that was okay I’m I’m
a man so I must be gay so then I came
out to my family and I could do another
speech about that but so then
fast-forward a little bit more and I met
my husband four years ago and we’ve been
married for three years we have a
beautiful home here in Germany we have
two dogs two cats and for all intents
and purposes I should be the happiest
person in the world but I was still
depressed and I could not figure out
what what is wrong with me why why can’t
I be happy and so that’s when I started
to seek professional help here in
Germany which is actually quite
difficult to find and I came to the
realization with a psychiatrist that you
know I should I am a woman I just
happened to have been born in a man’s
body
and for me it was important to tell the
people around me right away that it
wasn’t I didn’t want to feel like I was
hiding they’re harboring some secret and
so I told my husband which was not the
easiest discussion to have at first I
mean he married a man and was building a
life with a man and now this man is
saying I want to be a woman so I give
him a lot of credit because he’s very
supportive and he’s very open-minded and
he will even go shopping with me when
I’m too nervous to go shopping in the
women’s section so I have to applaud him
for that and his family here his mother
is 84 and she has brought me a beautiful
letter saying that she accepts it and
she thinks it’s wonderful and I will
love me as her own child and then I
think about my own family back in the
States
and I have a cousin who is really
supportive and that’s pretty much it I
have a lot of my extended family that
either they don’t really want to
acknowledge that I’m going through this
or that I’m doing this or they just
don’t talk to me and with my immediate
family it’s a little bit more
complicated because I have four older
brothers and I’m not really on speaking
terms with my immediate family at the
moment so or we just don’t talk about it
if I do talk to them it’s always a
little bit awkward but it’s also about
myself
I mean transitioning is it is it does
affect other people around you but it’s
also about yourself and for me I think
what’s important is for people to
understand is you’re like my daily life
and I think when I wake up in the
morning and I look in the mirror the
first thing I ask myself is what kind of
woman do I want to be should I do my
hair so I not do my hair should I wear
makeup so not wear makeup you know what
should i what do all of these questions
that seem superficial but for me they’re
really important because I need to see
that on the outside what I feel like on
it’s also a lot of trying to build
confidence in this other person that you
buried for 20-some years and now you’re
trying to let them back out and discover
who they are
fundamentally I’m the same person but
there will be some differences and yeah
it’s learning to love yourself kind of
all over again because the person you
were before isn’t they are and they
aren’t going to be there which is really
kind of a complicated thing to say but
then it’s also thinking about things in
the future
I’m started hormone replacement therapy
and July of this year and there are
changes that happen with your body
there’s quite a few changes that can
happen but it’s all kind of based on
biology and your family and just how
your body recep’s to those hormones and
then you have to think forward even
further okay how much do I want to
feminize my appearance I mean I could
chop my body completely apart to look
like a completely different person or do
I want to resemble myself do I want to
get breast implants or I want to have my
whole face makeover with plastic surgery
and then there’s things that I do know
that after my hormone replacement
therapy that I will have gender
affirmation surgery and I do know that I
will change my name because for me it’s
important that I make that decision
because I’m the one that’s deciding to
do this to make this transformation
that’s really for a lot of transgender
people it’s also very important to do
that to pick your own name so sadly it
won’t be sunny anymore but it’s just
it’s about acceptance and inclusivity
and just basic human dignity it’s those
things that most people take for granted
because it’s just given to you but for
people for transgender people like
myself that’s it’s not always the case
people will say horrible things to you
people will hate you for not they don’t
even know who you are
simply for the fact that you’re
different and that’s that and also the
care and I’m fortunate to live in Europe
in Germany and Gent and specifically in
Germany where I have access to health
care and the government protects those
that access that I have to
whereas in the United States you a lot
of people resort to prostitution in
order to pay for hormones or to pay for
surgeries or the whole transition
process but it still was very difficult
for me to find care here and so I still
think that that’s something that needs
to be addressed but what’s more
important and what’s more important for
people to understand is that me and
other transgender people are just people
like everybody else you just want the
same things um it’s a really personal
thing it’s different for everybody I
can’t speak for other transgender people
because it’s a journey that you have to
take by yourself and there are other
people there who can support you but
it’s it could it could be seen as a
selfish decision but it’s also something
that I know for me knowing that it’s not
going to be easy to do this I’m a much
happier and a much better person than I
was a year ago before I decided to start
this so thank you [Applause]