Utah teenager Payton Butler came out as transgender early on in high school after years of struggling with his gender identity.
Growing up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Butler says his family considered him a tomboy. Every Sunday, he felt uncomfortable wearing dresses to church until his mom let him start wearing pants at age 8. The family left the church that same year — and not long after, Butler started going through puberty.
“Just from those changes, my life got just infinitely better. It was so much easier to just wake up in the morning and look at myself in the mirror,” the 18-year-old high school senior says. “And I felt more me, like a ninth grader should.” If Utah’s ban went into effect a few years ago, Butler says he wouldn’t know what his life would look like today. Butler spoke to Gov. Cox and state Sen. Mike Kennedy, who sponsored the bill, but felt like the lawmakers couldn’t hear him.
“I think when [Kennedy] talks about all of these negative outcomes, he's not really focusing on the lives he's saving,” Butler says, “because, yeah, I could not transition and maybe live a couple of years longer because I stayed female. But I'm not really living. I'm just kind of going through life unhappy with who I am.”
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