18-year-old transgender student helping the community through youth-led program Gender Cool

Los Angeles — Some of 18-year-old Alex’s passions include acting and building, which keeps him busy.

But what also keeps Alex – a high school student – busy is being part of the group Gender Cool Champions.

Gender Cool is a youth-led group that aims to create positive change by sharing youth experiences and creating awareness about the transgender community.

Alex is transgender.

“My pronouns are he/him. I do advocacy with Project Gender Cool. But I also do a lot in my school since I was the first transgender student in my school,” Alex said.

Alex is from the South Bay and attends a school in Los Angeles County. He said his journey was not easy.

Part of his identity is his name, Alex, which he took some time to change legally. It was also difficult to change his name on things like medical records.

Another big challenge Alex faced and overcame was getting acceptance of his identity from his family.

“I’m a third-generation Mexican, and I’ve also had some difficulties when it comes to gender identity because of a lot of the religious trauma that comes with it,” Alex said. “But, surprisingly over the years, my grandparents really did grow up, and it was a struggle because my grandparents meant so much to me.”

Alex said he didn’t have much help or people to turn to for guidance at school when he was going through the toughest times of his journey, and there are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to the transgender community.

That’s why he wanted to help get involved and advocate for his LGBTQ peers. For example, he makes sure that people use the correct pronouns when addressing others.

He told a story when a teacher abused a classmate.

“At the end of the class, the teacher actually got the student wrong and I corrected them. It was the first time the teacher ( ) corrected a student’s pronouns in the entire school year. It means a lot because I had no one like that when I was a student because I had to fight my own battle. So It was good to be there for them,” Alex said.

Although Alex has faced challenges, and is a hero to others – he also knows he can count on his heroes, his sister, and his mom.

Alex said he will continue to advocate for the transgender and non-binary community, and hopes to work with lawmakers. After college, he said he would like to go back to his high school and enroll in the theater department.