I'm thinking of a transgender girl I recently interviewed for a story. Her name is Tracey, she lived in El Paso, and she started socially transitioning at school when she was 13.

The experiences she related to me were very similar to what I've heard from other trans youth. She went to school early in the morning, she applied makeup and put on a few traditionally feminine pieces of clothing. She asked her friends to call her by her chosen name, and they did. None of this was official, but it was very important to Tracey.

She told me socially transitioning for the few hours she was at school kept her mental health intact.

Unlike a prevailing narrative of transgender presentation being popular and trendy, however, Tracey took a lot of heat from her peers and from some conservative teachers at school. She was bullied constantly, and called pretty terrible names every day. She took that in stride, but it took a toll.

Then a couple fellow students got really mean, threatened to tell Tracey's conservative religious parents that she's trans.

She begged them not to, explaining that there would be terrible consequences, but they said they were going to do it anyway. So she tried to get ahead of things and came out to her parents on her own terms.

A few days later she was on the streets. Her mother said she could come home only on the condition that she renounce her transgender identity and stop presenting as a girl.

An organization I'm familiar with called Rainbow Youth USA heard from Tracey and managed to find a place in a halfway house for her.

She graduated high school a few weeks ago and went to live with a supportive aunt out of state. Sadly, Tracey's mother made trouble with the aunt, who had a big fight with the girl.

She left the aunt's home, then briefly reached out to me and to Rainbow Youth, who had also reached out to the aunt, who had by then calmed down and wanted to assure Tracey that she was welcome and wanted in her home.

Sadly, no one has heard from Tracey since, despite repeated efforts to get in touch.

She's on the street somewhere, almost without resources, effectively homeless because people at her school outed her.

That's what happens.