Twenty-year-old Juniper Brown began experiencing immense gender dysphoria when he hit puberty at the age of eight. In his quest to figure out who he was, he began to reject all things feminine, even though he still loved, as he explained it, the “pinks, pearls, and ruffles” so often associated with women and girls.

It took him a while to settle into himself and find confidence in the nuances of who he was, and one of the things that most helped was becoming a drag queen. In a poignant essay for Out, Brown opened up about the intense anxiety he experienced as a child, and how seeking help ultimately led him to the fabulous life he’s living now.

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“What is true for cis men is also often assumed of trans men – that we only like masculine things,” Brown wrote. “But the truth is, being transgender is much more complex than that.”

He detailed the anxiety that grew inside him from growing up in foster care. “With no stability in my environment, I struggled to find stability within myself,” he said. “Judgment became the language around me, laying the foundation for debilitating anxiety.”

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He would eventually learn that he was the victim of an Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE). “Research shows that the more ACEs a young person has, the more likely they are to face long-term mental and physical health challenges well into adulthood,” he explained, which ultimately led him to aid in the creation of California’s Live Beyond campaign to educate folks about ACEs.

He explained that his refusal to conform to girlhood as a child did have consequences. “Being misunderstood and humiliated by my peers terrified me to my core,” He wrote. “As a result, I developed agoraphobia – the fear of going outside – and for six years, I rarely left the house. Staying home made me invisible – and that felt safer than being seen.”

When it got bad enough that he had no choice but to seek help, he discovered how many people out there knew what he was going through. “I found mental health support and discovered queer-affirming youth groups filled with people who understood me. I also found martial arts classes at a dojo that embraced my identity. I finally connected with a community that saw me for who I really was.”

Then he found drag. Performing under the name Lady Guinea Pinks, he said it helped him “reclaim my femininity on my own terms.”

“It was no longer about playing a role I was expected to play. Instead, femininity became a tool of expression — a way of reconnecting with the parts of me that had always been there. The crescendo of that exploration was stepping into the art of drag.”

He said drag was a way for his femininity to be celebrated, rather than questioned, where it could exist “alongside my transmasculine identity, not in conflict with it.”

“It was not a mask that hid my identity, but the truest reflection of it,” he said. “I was finally visible in the way I chose to be. Most importantly, it was the first place where my agoraphobia couldn’t touch me.”

He concluded his piece by encouraging anyone whose struggling to ask for help.

“Therapy didn’t change who I was – it gave me the foundation and support to be a man and still step into the dresses I always wanted to wear. Today, I live beyond fear, shame, and the boxes I once forced myself into… In my healing, I finally live beyond the walls that once kept me inside.”

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