evidence: It’s like my life had been a scattered puzzle and suddenly the frame was there and everything fit and I understood the picture. I thought at that time that it was too late, as far as doing anything with my life. I have a bad heart valve and I was 350 pounds and my heart was failing. I’ve never heard of anyone my age losing one hundred pounds, much less two hundred. I had never heard of anybody my age transitioning. I couldn’t find anybody online. You know, I found people in their forties transitioning, but to transition at sixty-three! [...] This progress is amazing, but even though we have more visibility and awareness, education, and resources now, there are so many young trans people who still don’t feel good about themselves. I hope that trans people, especially young trans people, coming up in the world can see that they’re beautiful and they’re brilliant and they’re amazing and unique in a special way, and that’s a good thing! It saddens me that trans youth are still struggling, that people are still ending their lives. We have so much more work to do, but we’re going to get there. I’m an optimist. And I’m an old-ass motherfucker, too, so I'm like, "Hey! Look how far we’ve come!"