For transgender people, transition is a time of finding yourself. Holly Edwards has recently found her identity, transitioning from the name Corbin to Holly, and now using female pronouns. The senior is male to female transgender (MTF) and came out at 16.
“I don’t know if I was consciously thinking about this when I came up with the name, but when I was in the 8th grade I ran away from home,” Edwards said. “That was one of the biggest emotional periods of my life, and I ended up going to a rehabilitation facility for about a week. The name of it was Holly Hill and that name has always resonated.”
Edwards was prompted to run away by a breakup. Looking back now, she realizes it was such a small thing to get worked up about. This would later on impact her transition deeply.
“I thought back to that initial relationship in 8th grade that broke off and made me so upset. I think what I realized about all of my relationships ending and them usually leading to me getting extremely overly upset, is that I tend to develop an attachment to a female partner of mine in a sense that I’m trying to connect with not just the person, but their own sense of female anatomy and identity,” Edwards said. “I feel like every time that I break apart from someone who I’m dating I’m losing myself all over again.”
From this, a self discovery was made. Edwards realized that her connection to females didn’t have anything to do with her romantic attachment with them, but more her relationship with herself. After realizing this she began to think the answer was simply that she was bisexual. A few months after coming to this conclusion, she started to question her gender identity as well.
“Eventually one night it came to me and when I realized it, it was a really emotional night,” Edwards said. “When it first finalized in my head, I just cried for a really long time. I stayed up that night. I actually wrote a song about it.”
Music was an easy outlet to turn to in order to express her feelings towards her newly found identity. An example of Edwards’ musical outlet would be the lyrics she created for her song, Shelter, with lyrics such as, “But if he leaves I’ll be my one true self, please hear my cries for help. The caged bird doesn’t sing, it just weeps.” For Edwards, art and music became a way to share her deepest thoughts.
“My beginning theatre class has offered a lot to me,” Edwards said. “I am one of those people who tends to bottle up a lot of my emotions. It’s an easy outlet for me to really express who I am.”
Along with theatre, Edwards contributes a lot to other art forms. It is a key part of her life that she has been practicing for many years. This also includes her passion for music, piano specifically.
“I’m still not finished coming out and I don’t know if I ever will be, but I’m hoping to one day just reach that level of self acceptance where I can look inside of myself and be okay.”
– By Harper Bone & Julia Wieland
