Two transgender teens found love and support in one another while
transitioning. Arin Andrews and Katie Hill struggled with their gender
identities throughout their childhoods, suffering from bullying and
depression. But when the two met at a trans support group in Tulsa,
Okla. after each had begun the transitioning process, they instantly
fell in love and soon began an amazing journey together, the Huffington
Post reports.
"All I saw was a handsome guy. We're perfect for each other because we
both had the same troubles growing up," Hill told the Daily Mail of when
she first met her boyfriend.
"We're both size five, so we even swap our old clothes our mom's bought
us but we hated," she explained. "We look so convincing as a boy and a
girl, nobody even notices now. We secretly feel so good about it because
it's the way we've always wanted to be seen."
Katie, 19, whose father is a Marine colonel, spent the first 15 years of
her life as Luke, the Daily Mail reports, while Arin, 17, was born a
girl called Emerald who competed in beauty contests and danced ballet.
Today the two are now content with their new gender identities, but getting there was far from easy.
"I hated my breasts, I always felt like they didn't belong. Now I
finally feel comfortable in my own body," Andrews told The Sun about
surgically removing his breasts last month. "Now when I'm out in a
public pool or lifting weights, no one raises an eyebrow. They just
think I'm a guy...I can wear a tank top, which I couldn't before, and I
can go swimming shirtless. I can just be a regular guy. And I'm so lucky
to have my family and Katie to rely on."
"Being transgender myself, I understand Arin better than anybody else - how good he feels and how complete he feels," Hill said.
Hill suffered from depression for years before discovering that she was
transgender. On an segment of "Inside Edition" last year, Hill said that
as a child she was "bullied and abused. Ridiculed. Ashamed and
embarrassed."
On her 15th birthday, Hill asked her parents for help in transitioning into Katie.
"Knowing what Katie went through for eight-plus years - there's nothing
worse than watching your child suffer," Hill's mom, Jazzlyn, told Tulsa
World. "It's still my baby - male or female, she's still my child. And I
don't have to kneel at her grave."
Andrews's mother feels the same about her son, telling The Mirror that
"seeing Katie go through her surgery was helpful to Arin."
"It was being around it and seeing her getting to transform," she said.
"And being a couple at the time was I think just the cherry on the cake.
Every transgender person would love to have the transformation
physically because it just completes them as a person."
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