{"id":1031,"date":"2016-06-23T14:51:51","date_gmt":"2016-06-23T18:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=1031"},"modified":"2016-06-23T15:58:32","modified_gmt":"2016-06-23T19:58:32","slug":"embrace-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=1031","title":{"rendered":"Embrace Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Isabelle Derocher<\/strong>
\nThe Tell Tale
\nHolly HS
\n1st Place
\nDivision 1, Yearbook
\nFeature Writing – Student Life<\/p>\n

While our high school years are often generalized as confusing times, senior Simon Vanslyke seems to have it all figured out. Likewise, gender identity is often perceived as predetermined\u2014it\u2019s not a fluid concept that the individual defines and decides. However, VanSlyke once again defies this misconception. VanSlyke was previously known as August and identified as female. However, VanSlyke has changed both name and gender, now identifying as Simon and male. \u201cI actually didn\u2019t pick [the name],\u201d he said. \u201cI talked to all my friends and said, \u2018This is something that I\u2019m thinking about doing, I don\u2019t really know if I want to go full blown, and I don\u2019t know what I would call myself even if I did.\u2019 At the end of that day, all my friends came in and said, \u2018we voted you Simon! That\u2019s the only name that will ever suit you!\u2019\u201d Obviously, VanSlyke\u2019s friends were accepting and encouraged him to be true to himself. But, he questioned if his family would be just as supportive. \u201cI had a dream that I was pretending to be a guy, and I told my dad about it. And he was like, \u201cHey, for as long as I\u2019ve known you, you never wanted to be the princess for Halloween, you wanted to be the prince. You never wanted to be the damsel in distress, you wanted to be the knight.\u201d Although VanSlyke didn\u2019t know what to say or what to do at first, his friends and family made the desire to change so obvious. \u201cHonestly, to me it was always a question,\u201d VanSlyke revealed, \u201cand they answered so emphatically, saying, \u2018yes, this is okay\u2019 and \u2018yes, we think this is who you are.\u2019\u201d While he has always been very comfortable in his own skin, this overwhelming acceptance and compassion only deepened his contentment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Isabelle Derocher The Tell Tale Holly HS 1st Place Division 1, Yearbook Feature Writing – Student Life While our high school years are often generalized as confusing times, senior Simon Vanslyke seems to have it all figured out. Likewise, gender identity is often perceived as predetermined\u2014it\u2019s not a fluid concept that the individual defines […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[101,3,11],"tags":[135,20],"class_list":["post-1031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-featurewritingsl","category-yb","category-ybverbal","tag-2015-16","tag-division1","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kelsey Parkinson","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=3"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-gD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}