2024–2025: A Becoming

A reflection on becoming—through firsts, truth, community, and the long journey home to myself.

2024: A Year of Firsts

It was the first time I began hormone replacement therapy.The first time I used she/her pronouns openly and proudly with everyone.The first time I dressed as a woman in public—and made the conscious decision that this would no longer be occasional or conditional, but permanent.And it was the first year I moved through the world using women’s spaces with quiet confidence and dignity.

2024 was the year I stopped negotiating with my truth. Courage during that year did not always feel bold—it often felt tender, unfamiliar, and deeply vulnerable. There were moments of exhilaration and moments of fear, but beneath all of it was a growing certainty: I could not return to a life that required me to be smaller, quieter, or unseen.

Those firsts were not tentative experiments. They were declarations. Each one shifted something internally and externally, aligning my life more closely with who I had always been.

They laid the foundation for everything that followed.

2025: A Year of Becoming

Some years are defined by survival.Some by milestones.And some—rare and unmistakable—are defined by arrival.

Despite carrying real grief, loss, and difficulty, 2025 became the best year of my life. Not because it was easy, but because it was honest. This was the year I lived fully, visibly, and confidently as myself.

Claiming My Legal Existence

In 2025, I completed a full legal name and gender change across every system that governs my life. This included the courts, Social Security, the VA, DMV, birth certificate, U.S. passport, banking, credit cards, retirement accounts, and employment records.

This work was more than administrative. It was an act of sovereignty. Each document updated brought another part of my life into alignment with my truth.

Advocacy, Education, and Workforce Development

In 2025, my advocacy and service spanned both volunteer and professional spaces.

As a volunteer with DESTIEL, I delivered a presentation on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—with a focus on transgender awareness—to the Austin Chamber. This work centered lived experience, dignity, and inclusion, demonstrating how community-based education can meaningfully shift institutional understanding.

Alongside this volunteer work, I continued my professional commitment to workforce equity through my role with Cal Poly Humboldt, supporting workforce development initiatives through the MC3 apprenticeship readiness program. This work focused on expanding access to career pathways, supporting skill development, and strengthening connections between education, labor, and opportunity—particularly for individuals historically excluded from traditional workforce systems.

I also volunteered with Queer Humboldt, continuing a long-standing commitment to queer and trans community care. Service, advocacy, and workforce development are not separate for me—they are deeply connected.

Aligning Body and Truth

One of the most significant personal milestones of 2025 was undergoing a vulvaplasty procedure. This was not about becoming someone new. It was about coming home to myself.

For the first time, I can look in the mirror and see myself as I always hoped to—something I carried quietly for nearly sixty years. There is a calm recognition in that moment, a sense of ease that had long felt just out of reach. My body no longer feels like something to brace against or conceal. I move through the world with greater comfort and quiet confidence.

There is a rightness now that doesn’t ask to be explained. Even in subtle ways—in how I inhabit my body, in how I carry myself—I feel aligned. I am no longer searching.

This alignment brought not only confidence, but relief. A settling. A deep, was internal yes.

I am home.

Confidence, Community, and Belonging

Throughout 2025, I was met with acceptance and support across my work environment, professional circles, and online communities. That affirmation mattered—not as permission, but as confirmation that authenticity invites connection rather than distance.

Belonging, I have learned, is not about blending in. It is about being met as you are.

A New Chapter of Purpose

In 2025, I announced the launch of my life coaching practice, planned for the spring, with a focus on older transgender people. Too often, later-life transition and self-discovery are overlooked or dismissed. I intend to help change that.

This work feels less like a pivot and more like a return—to purpose refined by lived experience, compassion, and truth.

Becoming “Mimi”

And woven through all of this transformation, I became a grandmother—Mimi.

I chose the name Mimi in remembrance of my wife’s grandmother, a woman who was very dear to me and whose presence continues to live in memory and spirit. Though she never had the chance to meet Andie Jayne, I cannot help but believe she would have accepted her fully—and loved her just the same.

Choosing that name felt like a bridge across time: honoring the women who came before me while stepping fully into who I am now. It carries memory, affection, and continuity—a reminder that love often recognizes truth, even across generations.

Holding Joy and Sorrow Together

2025 was not untouched by tragedy or hardship. Some moments required deep resilience. Yet this year taught me something essential:

Joy and sorrow can coexist.And joy does not have to lose.

2025 was the year I became most fully myself—legally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Not a year of perfection, but of truth. A year of becoming, not through force or urgency, but through care.

After decades of longing and learning, I am no longer reaching for myself.I am here.

I am home.