u/Due_Associate7271

back at this again cause I’m bored and I also want to share and to show young teens that they don’t have to pick between their transition and sports.

I am a trans man who is a diver at a Liberal arts college. i am currently majoring in psychology + poli Sci with a concentration in education seeking license

I have practice 5 times + 2 team weight lifting a week. I have also been on T for 6 months and for all intents and purposes, pretty much 100% stealth even with my team

ama

eta: mods, feel free to DM for proof

Not rly sure how to get over this. 

Im having an extremely weird mental block towards 101. Theres nothing physically wrong with my dive on why I can’t do it but every single time on both 1m and 3m, im bailing and then belly flopping. My hurdle is fine, my approach is fine, if I stay tucked id be fine, but I open up immediately then flop like a fish till I smack the water. I can do it with bubbles but on its own im smacking every. single. Time.

The weird thing is that I can do 1/2 dives. I can still do my 103 just fine. I can do my 5132D. I just can’t front dive. This is quite literally just a 101 issue since I’m doing all my other dives and my other -01s are just fine

We’re at a loss of what I should do and I’m not sure how to get over this mental block. 

I’m currently still in my under grad but I’m pretty certain I want to go into education. I know I wanna teach others about topics that I’m passionate about and I want to also be a support to my future students. 

Currently, I’m starting to look at future programs to apply to like MMUF, Truman, etc to better my chances of becoming a professor. I go to a PHD feeder school which I hope also helps me get into a grad program. 

Just not rly sure what I can do to maximize my chances as well as figure out if this is the path I actually want to take. is there anything you would tell someone going down this path on why you like it or would deter others?

Last night, I went out drinking with friends. we all probably got a little too drunk since we’re all first years who have never had the freedom to drink before (3 ppl were black out drunk by the time they got home, the one sober friend was thrown up on by 5 different ppl, 2 ppl stayed at the party for the night cause they were too drunk to get driven back to campus, etc)

Somehow, I ended up falling asleep on two of my friend’s dorm room floor. Woke up covered in piss. i haven’t been accident free in general (like no alcohol and still doing it) for that long in general so I shouldn’t be surprised this happened with the mix of alcohol

I feel super bad about it. I cleaned it up but they obviously know. They haven’t said anything about anything yet but I feel bad. Not rly sure what to do especially cause I just met these ppl in retrospect. 

since it’s a long weekend, we were gonna do a sleepover at the dorm I fell asleep in since one of them is going home. i don’t think I’m gonna get the invite later..

Currently, my family and I are paying around 30k per semester for my college. 

I am extremely blessed that my father is a doctor and is able to provide me with this opportunity. 

However, the situation rly isn’t as clear cut as it seems. In some aspects, my parents don’t provide me with financial security including health care and being a safe environment as someone who is transgender 

I don’t qualify for FASFA (obviously) but I was also in a residential treatment center as a kid. While I was there, my parents signed of a limited Power of Attorney for Day-to-Day Care including all medical care, schooling, etc. My college also does CSS as well. when talking to someone, I realized that I may actually count under unusual circumstances

For anyone else who’s been in this situation, can they give me advice on how this specific situation worked for you?

I did a pre orientation at my college since I know that I would most likely have a harder time that most with transition to college. The program has a “mentor/mentee” system where the staff at the college who do the program match you up with one of the mentors. 

I made a few upper classmen friends with the mentors so I assumed I’d get one of them. 

I, a cis passing trans man who’s relatively stealth, was matched with the only out and medically transitioning transgender mentor who doesnt want to pass. 

It seems very targeted and I’m LwK very upset. I’m mad that they definitely matched it based on my trans status (which I had to disclose to the school cause I signed up with legal name). Pmo that they decided to match me based on the one thing I try to run away from. 

I’m curious about how normal this is?

I am not diagnosed with autism although I have suspected it for many years (I have autism as a rule out diagnosis and it’s kinda just sat like that for 4 years) 

When I was going through getting accommodations for my college, I noticed a few things I didn’t get in HS. Eventually, he also connected me to the autism specialist on campus who he encouraged I reach out to if I’m struggling socially, with transitions, etc. He also said that while my offical documents don’t say I’m autistic, he’s noticed enough things in my psych eval and history to other ppls where he believes having autism accommodations would be more useful than just things for like depression (my official dx)

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: Wasian 
• Residence: SC
• Income Bracket: middle class/upper middle class (single parent household it would be lower middle but if we also include my dads income, we become upper middle class) 
• Type of School: Large, suburban public school 
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): Some schools I was a recruited athlete, others I wasn’t.

 

Intended Major(s): Forensic Psych/Psych/Poli Sci/ Sociology 

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.92 UW, 4.8 W
• Rank (or percentile): 78/486
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.:

Honors: 5

AP: 6

Dual Enrollments: 3

• Senior Year Course Load: AP Chem, AP Lit, AP Stats, Dual Enrollment Poli Sci, honors Econ

 

Standardized Testing

List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.

• SAT I: Never took
• ACT: 26 
• AP/IB: AP Lit (4), AP Stat (4),  AP Lang (4), Psych (5), AP Chem (3), APUSh (4),
• Other (ex. IELTS, TOEFL, etc.):

List all extracurricular involvements, including leadership roles, time commitments, major achievements, etc.

1. Police explorers: about 8 hours a week (but changed depending on the week), corporal in leadership, taught new members, many awards won in a variety of competitions, 150+ hours in community service, joined at the beginning of sophomore year + year round activity
2. Track and field: Recruitable pole vaulter. Won most improved in 2024-2025 season, Captain, 4 years of participation 
3. Swimming: Year round club for 2 years + high school swim for 3 years, captain 
4. 7 cups: 250 hours of service hours, mental health related, in leadership on the site 
5. Selective county Youth leadership Program, community service project, then I joined the planning committee my senior year and oversaw the service project for that class. 
6. Speech and debate: 2 years, did poetry interpretation + LD. I sucked at this so I Lwk didn’t really fluff it up 
7. Participated in service hours for underserved youth in STEM through a friend’s passion nonprofit. Tech lead 
8. French honors society: co President 
9. Student government president: I was president of my rehabs class 😭obviously I left that detail out but ya 
10. Lifeguarding job, 3 years

 

Awards/Honors

List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. College Deans list 
2. AP scholar 
3. Art in the state art show (psych related piece)
4. Palmetto boys state: I also ended up being the first trans man to ever be selected to go 
5. NHS, NAHS, and NFHS

Letters of Recommendation

AP Psych teacher: I had been my sophomore year. She is known for extremely good recommendations letters and has to put a sign up on her door that she will no longer write them. I rate it a 8/10 so let cause I didn’t really talk to her after I had her. 

Swim Coach/AP lit teacher: 10/10. I actually read the letter and he hyped me up so much. I have known him since my sophomore year of HS and I did well in his class. He also had a soft spot for all CO26 swimmers for some reason which helped 

English teacher: 6/10. I’m not really sure why I asked him. He at one point was my advisor for the Rubik’s cube club I started but it ended up falling through. I really only talked to him about home life issues throughout the years

Calc teacher: 10/10, we were really close when I had her and I came to her class a lot throughout the entirety of senior year. 

AP Chem teacher: 7/10. I had her twice in HS and she really liked me as a whole. 

Interviews

Grinnell: my interview was alright. I kinda blew it since I didn’t know they had tutorials and so I talked about the “history of the pencil”

Conn Coll: I remember we connected well during the interview. She seemed really into all my answers and we were able to connect since we both had siblings applying to the coast guard academy this past year (which is across the street from Conneticut college)

Essays

I spent around 10 hours on my personal statement. I did it during a workshop that my brother’s school hosted. A college counselor reviewed it prior to submission who said it was a good essay. 

My topic was on the butterfly effect. It followed my life from freshman year to senior year and how someone I met at rehab directly impacted my future career plans and life choices throughout HS. 

All my supplementals were done the day of. All of them were BSed and I was pulling the most niche stuff out. I think I, at most, spent maybe 30 minutes on them. I rate them a solid 3/10

Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)

Acceptances:

• Colgate: RD
• Clemson: EA
• Augustana College : EA
• Connecticut College: RD
• Davidson: RD

 

Waitlists:

• Grinnell RD: WL —-> Accepted

 

Rejections:

• N/A

Additional Information:

Waitlist info:

• 4th place in an Anatomage tournament at HOSA SLC
• Top 10 in Community awareness event at DECA SCDC. Project was psych related 
• Started a new job at a swim school 
• 3rd place at a police explorer competition  in crisis negotiation (so the psych event) 
• Wrote a long LOCI about how Grinnell has always been my dream school

 

Note:

My ACT score struggled the way it did due to me not have a traditional math path since I was in a rehab my freshman year. I never took Geometry, Algebra 1, and Algebra 2. I ended up having to teach myself a lot of the curriculum I had missed when I was taking pre calc. Due to that, I learned the bare minimum for pre calc to be able to do well, but missed a lot of smaller, tested topics. 

Rehab also affected my class rank which was based on W GPA. Since we only had CP classes there, I wasn’t able to challenge myself academically till sophomore year. Something I emphasized in my application 

also i legitimately don’t think I deserved to get into the schools i did. I think that my personal statement probably carried me

I was diagnosed with factitious disorder at 13 And soon after went to residential treatment center for 9 months. I no longer fake anything anymore and would like to think I’m pretty well adjusted now… I also no longer fit the criteria for factitious disorder or BPD

if you were to ask little me if he thought he was faking, he would have said no. my faking wasn’t done maliciously and I wasn’t even aware I was fully faking the stuff, rather I was exaggerating pre-existing symptoms that were already present in my life

I faked autism, tics, ED, adhd, and DID

AMA

repost cause I deleted my last one but decided that I actually did want to keep it up

I was diagnosed with factitious disorder at 13 And soon after went to residential treatment center for 9 months. I no longer fake anything anymore and would like to think I’m pretty well adjusted now… I also no longer fit the criteria for factitious disorder or BPD

if you were to ask little me if he thought he was faking, he would have said no. my faking wasn’t done maliciously and I wasn’t even aware I was fully faking the stuff, rather I was exaggerating symptoms that were already present in my life

I faked autism, tics, ED, adhd, and DID

AMA

TW: mentions of ED behavior, grooming, and suicide (no in detail information)

I was in 6th grade when Covid started. Obviously, like most kids I was forced to stay at home and stop doing majority of my extra curriculars. My dad’s behavior started to become more erratic and as a family we pretty much cut him off. 

During this time, no one really talked to me. I was kinda just alone. I’ve always been a relatively weird and socially awkward person so when Covid happened and made everyone kinda off as a whole, it just caused a more visible, larger gap between them and me.  

I came back in 7th grade to everyone having a place and friend group. I didn’t really have anyone so I spent most days eating alone. At extra curricular, ppl started to hang out after practice and I was never invited. Instead, I just came home every day. Eventually, I turned to discord where I made some Roblox online friends. My parents found out about it and cut them off. I was still alone so I eventually logged onto Quora where I met a 36 year old man who would eventually abuse me for months when I was 13-14. 

But let’s go back. Around 7th grade, I started to think I was autistic due to the difference between everyone else and me. At the same time, I started to hate my body, mistaking gender dysphoria for body dysmorphia. In a weird and twisted way, I started to purge since I saw other people were doing it online and it gave them control of their life. Since purging doesn’t necessarily change your weight, no one knew I was doing it. At around the same time, I remember sitting in class and my mouth started to twitch (most likely from not enough sleep). This would eventually progress and I started to think I had tics. In reality, while majority of the movement were out of my control and I was having actual tics (tics run on my dad’s side of my family. 3/6 of my cousins experienced them at the same age as me during puberty), I was also purposely making them worse. 

I also started therapy and my therapist started thinking I might have adhd. The problem is for all of these, I started believing i genuinely had them rather than accepting that I was single handily just giving myself issues and making them worse. 

Eventually, the abuse started to get worse on Quora and I began to fake DID. 

My alters all became things I hated about myself. 

I had a boy alter whom was me trying to run away from my dysphoria, hypersexual from me saying and doing things that were way above age appropriateness, and a “little” who was the character I made to feel ok with liking childish things. 

So in all, I faked DID, ED, ADHD, ASD, and tics. 

I look back now on my actions and realize how much of a POS I was and still am. I don’t even know what happened for me to do this since my life has been pretty alright. I now feel anger that my life is good since I don’t think I deserve a good life. I hate that I don’t suffer more and I hate that I have been able to run away from it. 

Sometimes it still pops up in my life and I’m reminded of what I did. If I experience a medical issue, my parents tell me that I’m fine even if it’s something actually serious. 

A few close friends know I did this and they all have just accepted it and are ok with it, i genuinely think I don’t deserve ppl being nice to me and I deserve to be alone. I’ve attempted over this a handful of times but it’s still not enough. 

I kinda just wish ppl would tell me irl that I am a POS and I deserve to be unhappy more. 

I am in my schools dive team in which I was recruited into the men’s team and did not switch from the women’s to men’s.

since sports is a big topic of interest and often times controversial, I wanted to do a AMA format post for any kids out there who want to do sports who feel like they can’t.

transition: I am 5 months on T, pre op top surgery

recruitment: I was a pole vaulter in high school and prior, I grew up as a competitive gymnast for 6 years. Diving isnt a big thing where I grew up nor is it a lot of places so a lot of ppl get recruited into it from other sports.

Note: I am a freshman rn but had early move in so I’ve been practicing for about a month

I’m an incoming freshman in a small LAC with an open curriculum. Due to that, I have pretty much free rein of what I want to take which helps a lot since I have a few careers floating around. Because of that, I decided to take a few education classes since I’m genuinely interested in it. While my career plans don’t necessarily align with teaching, I’ve always said that once I retire from my main career, I’d like to teach. Even then, part of me doesn’t even know if I want to go down the job I thought I wanted to do and instead go straight to teaching. 

Anyways, I am required to do 4 in class hours of observation a week. Since I’m interested in sped specifically and can choose what grade level I’d like to be in, I’m curious what the best grade level to choose to fully experience, understand, and see if I have the patience for it in the first place. In the real world I’d probably do resource but I feel like I also should experience self contained as well. 

Today, I went over to my grandmas house since I’m moving to college next week. When I walked through the door, she immediately asked about my hair cut. I’ve gone short for the last 3 years but this was the first time that it was a little too short to be called a pixy cut ig. 

She started telling me that no girls will accept me and no boys. She also said I was her only granddaughter and she doesn’t want to loose me. She then said that this will be the worst decision of my life and I’m sinning against Gods will. It was also one of the first times I’ve ever seen her cry. 

I feel like a cunt for doing this to my family but also I’m far enough in my transition where I’m also the happiest I’ve been in a while. (4 months on T, 3 years social transition, not clocky and I haven’t been misgendered in years)