CASPER, Wyo. — By age 11, Riley Jorgensen started to feel like something wasn’t quite right.
“I’d always known that I didn’t feel right in my skin, like I didn’t belong,” he said.
His mother, Christy Jorgensen, says she tells people that “he lost his smile from 11 to about 13.”
Christy said there were clues she missed beforehand, like how Riley liked to keep his hair short and would choose athletic clothes instead of dresses, and how even in kindergarten he asked about an operation “that turns a girl to a boy and a boy to a girl.”
Riley, born as a girl, saw a transgender person on a morning talk show when he was 13 and immediately knew what was happening.
“I had no idea that there were words to describe how I was feeling — or more importantly, that there were people out that that were feeling the same things that I was,” he said.
He was “terrified” to talk to his mom about how he was feeling, but she had long suspected that something wasn’t right, and it didn’t take her long to wrap her head around it.
Riley soon started taking hormone blockers to stop the development of female physical characteristics, and then began taking testosterone. At age 14, his breasts were surgically removed before they could develop.
“It was very scary,” said Christy, “and I felt very bad about feeling sad about it because I wasn’t losing anything, but as a mother you feel like you are.”
As confusing and frightening as it might have been, Christy and her husband Jeff wanted to be fully supportive of their only child.
“We went to our pediatrician and he gave us a referral to a pediatric endocrinologist,” she said.
“So we listened to doctors and what was best, and started doing the hormone blockers and then the testosterone when it was time,” she said. “We’ve just really taken our lead from professionals that know what they’re doing, and it has worked wonders for Riley.”
Riley said he felt depressed and suicidal before and during the early stages of his transition, but is now “happier than ever.” A senior at Kelly Walsh High School, he’s working remotely to finish credits while working with partners to start a new upholstery business.
Riley didn’t mention his transformation during high school, choosing to quietly live life as a boy and leave the rest behind.
Earlier this month, he talked openly about his transformation during a speech at an invitation-only LGBTQ rights event at Backwards Distilling, which was also streamed over the internet.
“I have been trying to be more open about it, because I feel like that could really inspire and help other people,” he said after his speech, “but it is terrifying.”
The event touched on recent homophobic and transphobic events in Wyoming, such as the backlash from members of the Gillette community to a planned magic show at the local library by a magician who happened to be a transgender woman.
“I know there are people like that out there,” Riley said, “but a lot of people have also put out their support for the magician.”
“We need more people to stand up and put their foot down and say it’s not okay to be mean to these kind of people.”
Riley is still optimistic about about the growing acceptance of LGBTQ people by younger generations.
“I think that in this generation it’s easier to be out. We’ve made a lot of progress with laws and just opening people’s minds,” he said. “I have confidence that it’s going to get better.”
During Riley’s speech, Christy and a family friend wiped away tears at times, and exchanged tight hugs after his big moment — a moment that, years back, none of them would have been able to imagine.
“You think about how the future is going to be when you have a little girl, like picking out her wedding dress and helping her do those kinds of things,” said Christy, “but now instead I get this fantastic guy who makes me proud every day.”
An earlier version of this post had incorrect information about a local business, which has been corrected.
