My name’s Alexis. I’m from Brownsville, Texas. 

I grew up very feminine in a conservative family. We grew up on the southern border and I kind of was just developing the way I was until one day my dad kind of checked me for it. And he just told me that he didn’t like how I was talking or how I was walking.

When I was 15, I ended up coming out to my mom as bisexual. She felt that it was the best option to take me to get some therapy in Mexico. And so she took me through, I think it was like seven months of conversion therapy. So she would just pick me up from school and then we would just drive over to Matamoros is what it was called. So we kind of had a really long trip back. Sometimes it would take up to like three hours to cross back.

And so I just told her when we were going back and forth that when I was 12. I felt so outcasted and confused and like I was never going to be the son that they wanted, and I did make an attempt on my own life.  When she heard that. It was like she saw me as her baby again. That was the last day that she took me to the… to the conversion therapy. She wasn’t like full support and like, “Yes, now you can have a boyfriend,” and go do all these things. But she did know where I was at and what I was doing, and she was a little more okay with it. With my dad, though, I still had to pretend and put on a facade.

Further on, when I was 19, I had moved out into my first apartment and life was going good enough on my own to where I felt like if he cut me off and he never gave me any more money or help me out with anything again, it was going to be okay. So I told him one day and sat him down in our garage. And all he asked me once I told him was if my mom knew, and I told him yes, and he just walked outta the room. He didn’t speak to me for the next three months. 

Three months later, he called me out of the blue and he just said that he is already older and that he has his own beliefs, but he doesn’t want to spend the last couple decades or whatever from… away from me – from his child. And then I’m always gonna be his child and that I’m going to have his support. So that was good. That went well. 

I had experienced very small community in Brownsville when it came to, like, the gay community. I moved out to San Antonio, I’m stepping into a much bigger scene. So the first sense of community that I found wasn’t exactly the best for me. I was very excited to be around so many more gay people, and I eventually ended up kind of picking up a sex addiction. And so eventually on that sex addiction journey, I ended up testing positive for HIV. After some time, maybe like three months, I still wasn’t going undetectable, so I did go to AIDS status. 

Ever since I came out to my mom when I was in my teens, she made me start sharing my location with her on Find My iPhone. So she saw that I was at a clinic one day and she met me outside the clinic when I was walking out and she just asked me if I had AIDS. And I just said yes and I kind of broke down for a moment. And she hugged me and she told me she loved me and that she was going to do everything that she could to make sure that I was okay. 

Now it’s out. Now my mom knows now, my dad knows, my siblings found out through them and it just… it just became the talk of the family. Eventually, over time, somehow they never figured out what was wrong or what the resistance was, but it did – I did end up getting undetectable later that year.

Between the coming out to my dad and the transition, I had found Ballroom. There was like a little ball, little competition here in San Antonio. I stepped out, I met some friends, I did really well, and so I kind of found my first little healthy group here. And so then started my ballroom journey where I’m starting to see more gay people in skirts and trans women. Kind of every time that I would see them – even being fully masculine – and looking at them, I would tell them like, I just, “I have a feeling, like a thought, like I might want to transition.”

I have a feeling, like a thought, like I might want to transition.

Eventually I got the support from the community that I had, that they were… they were the ones that really made me feel like no matter what you do, if you wanna do it, if you don’t, if you do it and change your mind and decide that it wasn’t for you, like we are here for you, we support you. 

 

And I found this website online and I had good health insurance and I had an FSA card at the time, so I ordered my hormones and I didn’t tell anyone anything at all. Three months in, I started growing breasts and that’s where it became apparent and people started asking questions. My friends took it well. My mom… she was a little devastated. It was a lot of crying and just asking where she went wrong, and I just had to tell her like, “It’s not about you. I’m going through my own things and I’m feeling these thoughts that I’m already struggling with.” 

 

The beginning of my transition was very challenging. That transition from very masculine man going to now a soft feminine woman, it was really difficult because I didn’t have the full support from my family. They didn’t understand it. I just felt like I was in a really dark place again, and I ended up making another attempt on my life at 22 years old. I was in a coma for a few days and. It kind of really like… it was like a – like I was screaming at my parents in their face. 

But when I woke up, they were there and they all were around my bed and told me that they loved me. They all took turns talking to me and telling me that I was special to them and that they never wanted me to feel alone. And so that kind of like opened up the conversation of like, “Okay, so what’s wrong? What are… what are we doing wrong? What do you need from us to be able to live a happy life?” 

And so it was a really long journey. It’s still ongoing with some people in my family, but for the most part, you know, my sisters see me as their sister. My brother sees me as his sister. And my mom sees me as her daughter. I think my dad is coming around. He’s just taking a lot longer because he has – he’s very set in his beliefs. And so, but I’ve come to terms with that. 

It’s already so hard to be us and to exist in a world that it’s a debate if we should exist or we shouldn’t, and I don’t feel it should ever take somebody making an attempt on their own life to get access to those resources. When it comes to community and ballroom and why we chose to start something here in San Antonio was because it just helps to know that there’s a group of people there that maybe everybody’s very different, but we’re not gonna judge you for being different too. We could all be different together.