JAREK
ST. LOUIS, MO
AGE: 32
TRANSITIONED: Age 29
NO. OF KIDS: 1 who lives with his biological father.

“We hold on tightly to this binary of male and female because humans need to fit into a group. And we’re very uncomfortable when somebody strays away from the group. I think that’s why in society we have to have the men’s room and the women’s room because this is where I fit and this is where you fit. Here’s my group and there’s your group and I’m this person and I’m not that. So we have to define the way that we look at ourselves by the way we look at other people – we mirror each other a lot. It’s a contract we have, a social contract where if you look like this you must act this way because I define myself as this person and not you. And when someone challenges that it makes everyone around them think about who they are. And that makes people very very uncomfortable.”