Sorry to double post! I’m 14 and transgender, and my dysphoria has been having serious mental health impacts on my life. I’m trying, if only to poke a hole in the ceiling of this seemingly empty tunnel, to go full time at math camp this summer. I know the camp is extremely accepting as a whole, and the camp has agreed that only the administration has to know I’m not biologically female. I’m just worried I’m going too quickly. Is it too soon to try to go full time? I’m only going on Lupron now, 4 months before camp, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to be passable by summer. Does anyone have any tips or discouragement for going full time early? I don’t know if I can bare going to a residential summer camp as a man, but if people find out I’m transgender, would that be worse? I just want to be seen as a quirky but normal teenage girl like my friends are, and it’s making me anxious. -Cert
I think you are going about this the right way. If there is any field where gender issues are irrelevant, it would be math. (My field!) It's about the excitement of "aha!" and "I get it!" and "Well, supposing this weren't true, then what?" And it sounds like you have reached out to the camp ahead of time -- smart! Good luck being the quirky teenage girl you feel inside, I suspect you will make a lot of friends who take you for who you say you are.
I wouldn't worry about passing. Instead, make sure that the camp administration supports you if people get really shitty. One thing I was really struck by in my youth (and something I really hope is better now) was that "the smart and gifted kids" could be every bit as brutal and oppressive as the jocks.
