In this week's One Delmarva, we explore what it is like to be transgender on the Eastern Shore.
The non-profit GLAAD advocates for the rights of those who are lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and questioning, and defines "transgender" as the term used to describe people whose identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.
Advocates say there is a growing community on the Peninsula, and members and allies are working hard to change perspectives on Delmarva.
Christiana McBride, 39, is a hard-working, widowed mom of two.
Like most working women, her days in Salisbury are filled with making meals for her children and ensuring they finish their school assignments, and then running errands when she is not at work.
But there is one difference: she injects the hormone estrogen. She said it keeps her life balanced.
"I've been transitioning for about four years," said McBride, hair stylist who is a transgender woman.
"When I say to you, you're a cisgendered female, you were assigned female at birth and you identify as female," McBride said. "I'm transgender because I was assigned male at birth and identify as female."
With Eastern Shore roots, McBride moved away as a teenager. Before her transition, she married her college sweetheart in 2005, moved to Florida and started a family. However, her wife died in 2012. McBride then returned home and initially only "came out" to her dad.
"I ended up coming out to him as a transvestite, which I didn't feel like that was the proper term," said McBride. "The reason why I gave him that answer is because I didn't know the term transgender. I would have said to him, 'Dad, I'm transgender. I'm a girl.'"
Years later she told her two sons and the rest of her family.
"It's hard for people to understand, but I never felt I should have been a guy," said McBride.
She said her biggest regret is never telling her late wife when she was alive.
"After she passed away I would always have these dreams," said McBride. "No matter what, she was always supportive. In the dream she was like, 'You know, be you. You know I still love you.'"
McBride said being transgender does not mean that that person is gay or lesbian, or even bisexual.
"Sex and gender are two different things," said McBride. "Do I like girls, yeah. Of course. Do I like guys. Yes. I feel like once I started my transition, my medical transition, I started being attracted to guys. I don't know if it was always there or the hormones. This blows a lot of people's minds but gay guys don't talk to trans girls."
It's a relational struggle Jay Johnson, 34, knows well.
"In the dating scene I didn't date lesbians," said Johnson. "I dated straight, cisgender women because in my mind I was a man."
The Sussex County native is a combat veteran nursing assistant. He's dated his girlfriend Amber Graham for two years.
"She tends to be a big target," said Johnson.
Graham agreed.
"People sometimes are very rude," Graham added. "People come to me. They've even questioned my sexuality. How do I identify? They get derogatory."
Johnson was born a girl, but says he's always known he's a man.
"The only choice I have is between living as the man that I really am or dying as a woman that I never thought I was," said Johnson.
It's even cost Johnson his relationship with his family.
"Currently, right now, I haven't been talking to my mom for a few months because my happiness is more important," said Johnson.
It's a personal mantra Johnson said many don't seem to understand in both the straight and LGBTQ communities.
"From my experience, men are much nastier to trans women than trans men," said Johnson.
Kathy Carpenter Brown told WBOC transgender men and women have spent decades fighting for the simplest of rights — starting with access to restrooms in gay clubs.
"They told me I couldn't use the women's room there; That was lesbians back in the mid-90s saying 'No, she can't go in there,'" said Carpenter Brown. "Luckily, the bar management said, 'Yes, she can.' In the gay and lesbian community, it's almost like we're second-class citizens."
Carpenter Brown, Johnson and McBride agree another struggle is getting the public to use the correct pronouns.
"People should see it's between life or death," said Johnson. "You misgendering that person might put them over the edge."
Each has also battled numerous personal wars to become their truest selves: including having several medical procedures.
"Just had my total hysterectomy in January," said Johnson. "It was very hard to be able to walk into a OB-GYN office as a man with beard, masculine appearance and masculine voice."
"You also have to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria," said McBride. "Me personally, it's not like a mental case. It's just me — who I am. I'm looking to get bottom surgery this year. As a matter of fact, Kathy Carpenter actually took me to Johns Hopkins to the transgender clinic for my top surgery."
Finding and feeling acceptance is another major struggle.
"I went there because that church became my family," said Carpenter Brown. "They trusted me. That's a place where I was included."
A 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey reveals sexual assault is a large problem, as well. The report found 47 percent of trans individuals will be sexually assaulted at some point in his or her lifetime.
"I had a guy on a date that tried to rape me," said McBride.
McBride, Johnson and Carpenter Brown each helps others fight back by running support groups in all three counties of the Eastern Shore.
They also all believe education and encouraging employers to enforce discrimination laws would greatly help.
"So many people forget we're humans," said McBride.
LOCAL SUPPORT GROUPS AND RESOURCES:
Rehoboth TransLiance: https://www.rehobothtrnaliance.com/
Rehoboth TransLiance MeetUp: https://www.meetup.com/Rehoboth-TransLiance/
CAMP Rehoboth LGBTQ Resource Guide: https://www.camprehoboth.com/lgbt-resource-guide
Salisbury PFLAG: http://www.salisburypflag.com/resources.html
Gender Expression Movement is a support and social group that meets monthly in New Church, Va.
Midshore Transgender Support Group meets monthly in Easton, Md.