Meet some members of IndividualiTy, the youth group for trans and non-binary people under 24, which celebrated its 10th birthday this year.

JAY, 17

“I remember when I was a kid my aunt referred to me as a young lady and I felt really weird about it. I always felt this constant discomfort with my existence. It’s like when the image is just slightly out of focus all the time.

When I hit puberty I thought not being comfortable with stuff like menstruation was normal; to hate it and think it’s so weird. I started to realise that’s not how other people felt. I was online one day on this forum for teenagers and a guy had posted in it, talking about being trans and having a chest binder so he’d have a flat chest, going to try get hormones, to get surgery on his chest when he was older, and I was like that’s a thing?

I think it was very relieving to be able to say ‘I’m trans’, but it was very hard to say it too. I don’t know where I got it from, but it was in my head as something dangerous, that if I told my parents they might kick me out. I was so worried and scared. It quickly became too much for me to handle. I couldn’t hold it in and I had to say it, or else leave the earth.

I wrote a letter to my parents and gave it to them one morning and ran out the door to school. I don’t think I even had breakfast! At school I got a text from my them and they were like,’ it’s fine’.

I’ve been out now for over three years, I’m planning the last stages of transitioning, but back then I had gotten straight to that point already in my head, while my parents were stuck at the very beginning. It took them some time to come around to it. That was in second year. I went back to school in third year as the person I am now.

I heard of BeLonG To before I knew I was trans. I liked girls, so I thought I might be gay. By the time I was old enough to go, I knew I was trans, so I started going to IndividualiTy. It was amazing. Everyone in the group was so nice. I was the young one, looking up to all these 17 and 18 year-old trans people who were getting things done, getting their hormones and trying to transition, being good advocates and being so public. Nowadays I get to see myself in that position.

The kids coming to IndividualiTy are younger and younger, and it’s amazing to see them all doing really cool and important things. BeLonG To has that effect; it gives people opportunities and confidence, the skills to grow and change as a person.

I’m doing my Leaving next year, and I want to go to Trinity after that to do social work. There are so many LGBT+ young people who never get to BeLonG To, who are in care for instance and don’t have the opportunities that I had. I want to be of service to them.”

RÚAN, 18

“I was big into the TV show Glee when I was younger, and

I was reading all this fan fiction online. One of them was about Kurt and Blaine, and I was like, I want to be like them, but I can’t because I’m a girl. I didn’t have a word for what was happening. I talked to my mam and she didn’t really understand, and it kind of got brushed under the rug for another few years.

I was very scared because I thought there was something wrong with me. All through first year of school I kept wishing I could go back to the start of secondary school and enroll as a different student who was a boy, and just live a completely different life and no one would know it was me.

I realised I was attracted to girls, so I started looking into LGBT+ topics and eventually I met this young person who told me they were non-binary. I thought this was me as well, and from there it was about discovering more and more about me and reading as much as I could. I came out to my friends as non-binary in third year and they were very accepting of it. Then as I got older I began to lean more towards being trans-masculine and eventually I just came into my own.

I went to my first ever BeLonG To Sunday on my 16th birthday, and about six months after that I started attending the IndividualiTy group. I’m a peer educator now; I’ve done training and facilitated groups. I’m on the panel to advise the National LGBT Youth Strategy, and I’ve been to the Transgender European Council in Italy. I’ve met my best friends here, and I’ve met my boyfriend here, and it’s changed my life completely and made me a much more confident person. I honestly don’t think I’d be where I am today without it.”

SEAMUS, 18

“I didn’t have a word for it, but I always just knew I was male. When I was 13, I figured out the ‘trans’ word, and I thought maybe it was me, but I really repressed that. I was in an all-girls school for first and second year. I wore shorts under my uniform, hidden away.

It was a very difficult time. I live out in Meath, and lots of people at my school were using all sorts of slurs against people, particularly around the marriage referendum. I was very emotionally drained. I hadn’t told my parents anything, although I know they suspected something was wrong.

I’d always known about BeLonG To, after seeing one of their Stand Up! videos, and a poster that was hung in my old school. I was a nervous wreck my first day, but within six months I was a peer educator.

I came out to my parents when I was 16, having already come out to everyone else beforehand. I put a letter on their bed and went to the scouts. They sent a text saying it was alright and they still loved me. They’re trying but they’re not fully understanding of it yet. My dad travels for work and everywhere he goes if he sees anything to do with trans in the newspapers, he’ll get it and bring it home.

Where I’m from is a very small place, and I always saw myself as the outsider. All over the country there are young people who feel different and alone, especially in rural Ireland, where they get the LGB, but they don’t get the T. At BeLonG To I met the first trans person that I knew was a trans person. It’s hard to describe the feeling. I knew I wasn’t alone anymore.”

Find out about IndividualiTy and all of BeLonG To’s youth groups at www.belongto.org