Growing up, I felt shame for feeling like a boy and liking girls. I didn’t know anyone else who was gender variant or gay and thought I would never find acceptance and love. I longed for a role model to show me that the kind of life I longed for was possible. I wished a grown woman–someone who looked like me, but older, with a beautiful lady on her arm–would swoop in, and say to me, “Don't worry Julie, one day, you're going to leave this town and find a place where you belong. Where you are ...