A transgender, nonbinary person from East Lyme who transitioned from female to male is encouraging other transgender folks to love themselves and be brave enough to take the first step toward being their authentic selves.

Ryan DeCosta, 20, first came out to friends and family in the spring of 2018 by easing into a name change with his peers in the Gay Straight Alliance at East Lyme High School. He began to introduce himself as Ryan, rather than the name he was given at birth. DeCosta uses the pronounces he, him, they and them.

After he saw how accepting his classmates were of the change — and how right it felt to him — he worked with a group of mental health care professionals at a residential program in Chicago to come out to his parents a year after in an emotional phone call home. They, too, were accepting of the change.

But before he took the next step toward being who he's always known he was, DeCosta said he first needed to learn to love and accept himself.

"The biggest learning experience for me has been to not be afraid to be who you are. There are so many reasons to be afraid, there are many valid reasons over time and history of why you could be afraid," he said. "But it's all about just taking those first steps and not letting that fear take over who you really are. You loving yourself is the most important thing you can do for yourself."

A graduate of East Lyme High School who will attend Mitchell College this fall, DeCosta said he has been embraced with support from his parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers, classmates, doctors and therapists. But he knows that so many people who are transgender have to overcome their own internal transphobia.

Conquering that judgment within yourself, he said, is a good place to start.

"If you don't accept who you are, you aren't going to be able to handle the acceptance or lack of acceptance of other people around you," they said. "The biggest step for me was just accepting who I am, not letting the opinions of others deter you and really not caring about any hate that was around me."

Years after starting his social transition, DeCosta started taking testosterone to begin his physical transition in March 2021. Just last month, they had surgery to further that transition.

Throughout the last three years, DeCosta said the people in his life have been tremendously supportive and he's thankful to have had access to great physical and mental health care.

But the transition hasn't been without its challenges.

"It's hard knowing that other people who are comfortable in the gender they were assigned at birth connect with it and don't have to do anything to feel comfortable in their body; I just have to work harder," he said. "But eventually it gets to a point where you realize all the work you've put in, and it's very brave."

On Friday afternoon, DeCosta's grandmother Heidi Pope was driving her grandson home from the Anchor Health Initiative, a clinic in Hamden that specializes in transgender medicine.

She said that she and the rest of their family have tried to educate themselves and be accepting and open-minded. She hopes other families will do the same.

"By no means has this process and transition been easy for Ry," she said over video chat while looking at DeCosta, whom she affectionately calls "Ry." "He is an amazing person and to get to the place that he's at now has been a long journey. But I think it's important to stress to people out there that if you are a family member or a friend of someone that has come out, how important that support is, how important it is to be open-minded and educate yourself and be as supportive as possible."

t.hartz@theday.com