Too late for a New Year’s post? I think not. This has been a wild year filled with extreme high and lows and I want to thank every reader (all 60,000+ of you) for following my journey. Your support means the world to me and I would not feel complete without it.
In short, 2016 was a tear jerker. It was both my roughest and most successful year thus far (or a close second with the year I started college and had surgery). I hit some major lows, but I want to focus on the highs.
I built and launched a website, a blog that works to inspire transgender acceptance and overall self-authenticity and confidence. If anyone would have told me this time last year, that coming out would fulfill me in ways I couldn’t imagine, I would have scoffed at them. Now, seven months later, I am happier than I have ever been. I have received an overwhelming amount of supportive messages, and numerous people, both trans and cisgender, have reached out explaining how I've made an impact in their lives.
I have accepted my role on this earth as a transgender individual, and through the platform that is CoreyRae.com, I have connected with the transgender community. By coming out, I not only had a massive weight lifted off of my shoulders, but I received unexpected recognition. Within 22 hours of this sites launch, I was interviewed and featured as the online cover story for Yahoo’s Beauty section. I participated in photoshoots, interviews, and contributed to online publications.
This year I met a man who changed my life, non-romantically. I turned a street corner to take a hit from my one hitter, and a guy approached me and struck up a weed-related conversation. After a few dates, I was making my way to his apartment when he found out I was transgender. We spent the next few hours talking about my transition and aspirations, and he told me he had to introduce me to his friend. His friend, Jared Matthew Weiss, is the founder of Touchpoint which “is a monthly town hall about how to date, partner, and have sex in the modern world, open to all genders, preferences and perspectives.” I went to my first meeting in October, and during a conversation about promiscuity, I opened up about how I chose not to have sex until sexual reassignment surgery, and then found a major part of myself through sex with different partners. From there, Jared asked me to write about my experience losing my virginity as a transgender woman, and that article was shared with Cosmopolitan writer Hayley MacMillen. She interviewed me about Touchpoint, my blog, and my virginity article. A week later my name, photo, and website were featured on Cosmopolitan.com.
Realizing that people were engaging with my story has made me want to invest in myself, and go after all of my dreams in the New Year; and that’s exactly what I will do in 2017. A revelation I had in late 2016, is that for the first time, I am at peace with being single. I no longer feel desperate to be in a relationship, something I had so badly wanted since middle school. This year, I’m not going to focus on guys, I’m focusing on myself, my career, and what I can do to help change the world for the transgender community.
Lastly, I’d like to announce that I am officially following my dreams of moving back to Los Angeles. It will be 16 years since I’ve lived there, and I could not be more excited to start this new adventure. I always said that I wanted to live at least part of my 20s in LA, and making this move is already accomplishing a dream in 2017. There is much to come from me and CoreyRae.com in this new year, so look out!
Thank you again for the endless love and support, it is greatly appreciated. I'm wishing everyone a happy, healthy, safe, and positive new year.
xxoo
Written by Corey Rae --- Edited by Emily Turner