Use an increasing animation delay to create a waterfall animation effect.
The delay for these particular images increases by .1 second increments.
Create different "sections" by dragging out an Anchor point from the top menu, and applying an interaction of "On Click" > "Scroll to Position"
Ceros is automatically set up for retina devices, which have twice the amount of pixels of normal devices.
Be sure to use the retina size when creating your assets in external programs.
Each image block can be easily replaced with your own image. Select the image and toggle "Replace Image" in the nav bar to preserve the location and any animations already applied.
1280px x 5200px
Templates - Sectioned Experience
Scroll down
Just like most young people their ages, the six champions start their days by getting ready for school. “I think it’s just very important to show everybody that we’re just normal teenagers,” Adelyn, from Texas, said, adding that she starts her day with skin care, makeup, picking out an outfit and going to school.
Jonathan, from New York, is studying to get his graduate degree in Chemistry at just 20 years old.
“My mom’s a chemist. My dad went to school for chemistry. My brother is kind of in chemistry,” Jonathan said. “I kind of, like, moved along with them, but I love it.”
In his spare time, Jonathan reads, goes rock climbing, and cooks Filipino food with his grandmother.
Amir, from Maryland, starts his day by giving himself a haircut. He’s been cutting his own hair since he was 10 years old.
“I cut people at school’s hair, I cut my uncle’s hair, my cousins,” Amir said. “It’s just, like, what I want to do and what I want to be.”
Chazzie, from Illinois, starts her day with affirmations. “And I just get ready for school, brush my teeth, pick out my iPhone stuff, and then go to school, learn for like eight hours,” she added. “It’s exhausting.”
Max rides his bike to his high school and loves to write. He wants to be an author when he’s older, just like his dad.
“Writing is easier, I think, than talking,” he said. “He really puts it into a book like you can understand.”
" I think that we should all get the chance to express ourselves how we want to. And no one should have the right to tell us what we can do or what we cannot do.”
Across the United States, transgender children are in the zeitgeist, especially as states introduce a record number of bills targeting transgender people’s access to school sports, health care, and gender-affirming spaces.
But in the midst of the political turmoil, six transgender high school, college and graduate students joined together for a day of conversation and camaraderie with ABC News Correspondent Gio Benitez. Benitez spoke with them about the necessity of gender affirming care.
The medical community is united– The American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the American Nurses Association all said gender affirming care is lifesaving.
According to the Pew Research Center, one in four Americans know someone who is transgender. The GenderCool project, a youth-led group working to show folks that transgender and non-binary youth are thriving, encouraged six of its “champions” to join Benitez for a first-of-its-kind conversation: Max, 15, Adeyln, 14, Jonathan, 20, Amir, 17, Eve, 15, and Chazzie, 16. As much as are they different, these young people have one very important thing in common: they are all transgender, and they have all taken the steps to proudly proclaim “who I am meant to be.”
“People are scared of what they don’t know,” Max, who lives in Texas, said. “And I think that we should all get the chance to express ourselves how we want to. And no one should have the right to tell us what we can do or what we cannot do.”
A day in the life
Proud to be Trans
The six champions don’t know how to be anything else but themselves, and they hope their stories will encourage others to either learn more about the transgender community or embrace their own gender identity.
“I’ve never met someone who would understand me on a level like this,” Amir said. “We understand each other because of the things we went through.”
He hoped his story would reach young children at home who feel confused or have never met someone who could help them explore their gender identities.
“Really, the truth is, being transgender is the least interesting thing about us,” Chazzie said. “We are more than that–we are authors and journalists and barbers and so much more.”
Max agreed. “I think that we should all get the chance to express ourselves how we want to, and no one should have the right to tell us what we can do or what we cannot do.”
Adelyn said that her ethnicity and culture adds another layer of challenges in explaining who she is.
“There’s a lot of machista in the Mexican culture,” Adelyn said. “So there’s a lot of misconceptions, and I feel like I always have to be explaining myself, whether it be to my teachers or to other students at my school.”
Eve, from California, reflected on the future she would like to see. “I want to be here so that other people don’t have to be here,” she said. “You know, people in the future who might not even be born yet don’t have to be here so they can just live their lives at home, or with their friends, or at school, or in their careers or jobs.”
Eve added that she also has to explain her identity to others often, even close friends. “For all my friends, it’s been different. Some I’ve told them after a few weeks, some I had to wait months just because I was like, you know, I’m so close with these people that I’m afraid of their reaction,” she said. “That’s, I think, the big thing for a lot of us. That reaction.”
Becoming who I'm meant to be
The fear of whether or not they will be accepted was something every member of the group had felt.
Chazzie came out in the fourth grade and socially transitioned in fifth grade, but had been expressing herself femininely since she was 2 years old. While her three older brothers played with trucks, she would rather pretend to have a tea party with them.
“When I found out the word ‘transgender’, like, it was scary to me because I was so worried of the end result I would get. And I remember once, before fourth grade,” Chazzie said. “I was crying to my parents. I said, ‘Mom, Dad, I am a girl, and I want you to know that.’”
“And they accepted me and loved me, and they told me ‘Everything’s going to be OK.’” she continued. “I know so many transgender peers don’t receive that love, and so I want to speak out. And we all want to speak about how important it is to love your child regardless, or your family member, or your friend.”
Amir knew he identified with more masculine traits when he put on his uncle’s clothes and felt comfortable. “I felt like me when I put on those clothes.” And he had a similar feeling when he got his hair cut in the fourth grade.
Amir told his grandmother. “The first thing my grandma said to me was, ‘Where do we start?’” he recalled. “I continue to remember that because for my grandma being the person who raised me, you know, since my mom passed from cancer at a young age, that meant a lot to me.”
Jonathan came out when he started college at age 14. He said he’s always been academically minded, and found a program after middle school that allowed him to skip high school and go straight to college.
“That first college was an all-girls school, and so I was living in an all girls dorm. Like, all my classes were girls, and I just realized there was a disconnect,” he said. “It’s not that once I found out about me or the term trans, I thought, ‘Oh, that’s me.’ I’ve always thought, like, I’m just me and that’s just how I’m going to live my life.”
The fear of whether or not they will be accepted was something every member of the group had felt.
Chazzie came out in the fourth grade and socially transitioned in fifth grade, but had been expressing herself femininely since she was 2 years old. While her three older brothers played with trucks, she would rather pretend to have a tea party with them.
“When I found out the word ‘transgender’, like, it was scary to me because I was so worried of the end result I would get. And I remember once, before fourth grade,” Chazzie said. “I was crying to my parents. I said, ‘Mom, Dad, I am a girl, and I want you to know that.’”
“And they accepted me and loved me, and they told me ‘Everything’s going to be OK.’” she continued. “I know so many transgender peers don’t receive that love, and so I want to speak out. And we all want to speak about how important it is to love your child regardless, or your family member, or your friend.”
Amir knew he identified with more masculine traits when he put on his uncle’s clothes and felt comfortable. “I felt like me when I put on those clothes.” And he had a similar feeling when he got his hair cut in the fourth grade.
Amir told his grandmother. “The first thing my grandma said to me was, ‘Where do we start?’” he recalled. “I continue to remember that because for my grandma being the person who raised me, you know, since my mom passed from cancer at a young age, that meant a lot to me.”
Adelyn said it was around Christmas when she was in second grade that she picked up the tree skirt and danced around with it. Her mom sat down with her and asked if she wanted to be a girl.
“I told her, ‘Yes, mom, more than anything in the world,’” Adelyn said. “And then I told her a little story about how at night I would pray to God that when I die, he would make me into a bird, and then when I die again, I would turn into a girl.”
"My mom was like, 'You don't have to die, you don't have to die,' and I was like, 'Really, Mom?'" Adelyn continued. "I don't know, it was kind of instant, but it wasn't like a big change either. Kind of like you said, because I was always that way. Like, the same way I was after I transitioned, I was my entire life."
Max knew exactly who he was from a young age. He came out at 6 or 7 years old and never doubted who he was. “I was always, like, wearing hockey t-shirts and I cut my hair short,” he said.
Eve and Adelyn also came out at a younger age, both when they were in the second grade.
Eve said it wasn’t a huge deal for her because she had always expressed herself femininely, and her mom had already brought up the idea of transitioning to her.
“As I started growing up, my mom started realizing, like, maybe this was who I was and not just like, a little phase or something like that,” Eve said. “I just, like, told the, I think, 15, 20 people in my class, like, ‘Oh, you know, this is me then. This is me now. There’s nothing really different, it’s just a different name.’"
According to The Trevor Project, the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ+ youth, 22% of young transgender men, 12% of young transgender women, and 19% of non-binary or gender queer youth attempted suicide in the last year. Risk of suicide significantly drops when a gender-affirming adult–especially a parent–is present.
"Really, the truth is, being transgender is the least interesting thing about us."
Challenging the misconceptions
Adelyn’s mom accepted her new daughter for who she was, but Adelyn and the other champions know that not everyone is as accepting of transgender kids and adults.
Adelyn said the biggest misconception she hears about transgender kids is that they are forced to transition. “That’s the one thing that bothers me the most because I’m just who I am,” she said. “Nobody has ever forced us to do anything that we don’t want to do.”
Jonathan agreed, but added that he feels people make other harmful assumptions. “I think people assume that we have something innately wrong with us that has made us this way, and that I think for me, that’s the biggest misconception because, I mean, I’ve always been who I am,” he said. “I don’t have, like, a mental illness that causes me to tell my mom that I’m a boy or anything like that.”
“It’s really just who we are,” Amir added. “No conversation needs to be had, or you know, forcing, you know, it’s just we grow up just like any other kid, you know? And the thing is that, you know, we didn’t even choose ourselves, you know? So it’s more just like who we are meant to be.”
Amir emphasized that there was no choice involved. “You were just born in the wrong body, you know, and it’s OK, because now we have to work hard to be who we are and get where we want to be.”
“I was crying to my parents. I said, ‘Mom, Dad, I am a girl, and I want you to know that.’”
Supportive families
While the kids played in Strawberry Fields, a section of Central Park famous for its “Imagine” mosaic, their parents reflected on their own journeys and roads to accepting their children.
“It’s so beautiful for them to be able to see themselves in the world and to know that they’re telling their stories,” Maya, Eve’s mom, said. “So now that they’re in front of the ‘Imagine’ sign, I’m like, oh yeah, we can imagine a better world.”
Chazzie’s mom Jen agreed. “I mean, I see, like, this incredibly cool group of kids and it tells me what the truth is, you know, what the reality is for us and for hundreds of thousands of families just like ours across the country,” she said. “It’s just a beautiful thing.”
While the kids said they didn’t think about being transgender every day, their parents had other feelings.
“It’s not something that comes up for us all the time. It’s not at the forefront of our minds at all,” Sonia, Amir’s aunt, said. “We just continue to say acceptance does not require understanding, and to remind people that you don’t have to understand. Just let them be themselves.”
But Maya, disagreed, saying she thinks about how to create a better world for her daughter every day. She added that it took her a while to get to the point of acceptance. “It took me having to reach out to friends, do research and question my own preconceived notions, even though I considered myself a good listener.”
“At first I cried not in front of her, but I cried privately because I immediately was like, ‘Oh my goodness, the world is going to be so much harder for her than I had anticipated,’” Maya said.
Adelyn’s mom, Mina, empathized with that sense of fear. “Fear is kind of what scares me the most, like the outside world for them,” she said. “I felt so alone when Adelyn first came out, and I don’t want other parents to feel that way.”
But despite their initial fears, the parents noted how quickly they saw a difference in their kids’ mental health post-transition.
“It was like night and day,” Mina said about Adelyn. “I would go back and look at photos, actually, and I would see photos pre-transition and photos after transition, and there was, like, an immediate glow, a happiness of not just being able to be themselves, but being seen for who she is.”
“You could see it in her face,” Maya added about her own daughter. “There’s a picture of her in our bathroom and she is looking in the mirror and she is wearing this kind of like, cotillion-style dress that was totally inappropriate for school, but that she would wear to school. And she was so happy in this picture. You could see it in her face like this, I mean, where she’s just in love with herself in the mirror, and I had never seen that look from her before.”
“I share the same experience,” Sonia said. “The before and after pictures are so obvious, not just because of the social transition in terms of the clothes, but it’s the face. It’s the smile. It’s the glow. The natural joy leaping off the page of the picture is very sweet.
Max’s dad Adam shared that he and his wife went through a sort of transition of their own when Max came out. While he said he always knew that Max was a boy, he had to challenge his own ideas while Max was becoming who he is.
“You have to learn how to see through your preconceived notions, your expectations and your biases, and that’s a transitional process for everybody,” Adam said. “But it’s just what happens when you are open and you have love in your heart.”
Mina said she knew she was doing the right thing for her daughter when Adelyn made the cheerleading team at school and they were buying her uniform. “And she says, ‘well, now I know that you can be anything you want in this world,’” Mina recalled. “So that, to me, came in a time where I was questioning myself if I was doing the right thing or not, and that was the answer for me. So my goal is to just have her have that mentality the rest of her life.”
Under attack
While their children are the GenderCool champions, the parents are, in a way, also ambassadors of the transgender community.
“Truly it is–it’s a club, it’s a family,” Maya said. “It’s like we’re all there supporting each other because we all know that moment of kind of confusion and fear, and then it’s like, hey, for your child to feel so secure in their selves that they can be themselves in a world that looks like this right now is a very powerful thing.”
She added that parents should take the opportunity of their kids coming out to listen more and not be concerned about what other people think. And she emphasized that no one can force a child to be transgender or non-binary.
“I would ask for another parents to think about that before they begin to speak on something that they may not have actual experience with,” Maya said. “And take some time to replace that opinion with an actual interaction with a person who’s Trans, maybe do some research beyond their sphere.”
Adam reflected on legislative challenges in his home state. “Last year in Texas, the governor made a directive that if parents are raising a transgender child, it’s a form of child abuse, and he directed people to report them,” he said. “Our family was one of those families reported.”
Adam added that people staying silent or uninformed are playing into the hands of those who wish to do harm to the transgender community.
“If we have all these people sitting silently on the sidelines, the most horrific things can happen and have happened,” he said. “And people would say, oh gee, that’s terrible, but if they don’t speak up or do something, we’re left here kind of all on our own.”
Chazzie’s mom, Jen, hopes that seeing transgender youth like her daughter on television will inspire those sitting on the sidelines or those with a negative opinion to reconsider.
Maya admitted that her own perception of gender identity changed. “When you see that euphoria, like, for me, that’s when it clicked, and I was like, oh, you are a girl, not you want to be a girl.”
Sonia said that folks need to see the fight for transgender rights as a continuation of the fight for human rights. “As a Black family, we have always been fighting for equality, for equal rights, for people to–for non-discrimination, and this was consistent with that,” she added. “Was it new to learn about what it meant to be transgender? Yes, that was new. But human rights is not new.”
'I just want to be me'
Despite the hostile world they’re growing up in, the six Champions are staying focused on being who they are and becoming who they want to be.
“When I’m at school, I don’t think about being transgender, I just care about me being a student and working hard, being my friends,” Chazzie said. “It never comes across my way. I just want to be me.”
“I’m just Max,” Max added. “I can name every country in the world–their flags. I can! I have a brother. I like chocolate.”
All six of the champions see bright futures for themselves.
“I hope to be in law school,” Adelyn said. “And sometime in the future, I want to be a lawyer and hopefully advance into, like, Congress or Senate.”
Jonathan said he’s focusing on grad school for the time being. “Hopefully afterwards, I want to be, like, a scientific researcher and also be a positive advocate in the scientific community for LGBTQ people.”
Amir has known his calling for a long time–he wants to be a barber. He sees the beauty and individuality in the way people wear their hair. “It’s more to it than just, you know, a color or, you know, a haircut. It’s about, you know, the beauty aspect.”
Eve said she doesn’t know what she wants to study, but she’s certain that she wants to be an actress.
Chazzie said she’s deciding between a career in journalism or education. “All my teachers have been so supportive of me being transgender and lifted up their students,” she explained.
Max elaborated on his desire to be an author. “I think that writing is easier than talking. You can write and a million people could read it, and you could share your story or someone else’s story, and you don’t know who’s reading it.” He added that he would like to study music in college.
Hearing his son’s plans for the future, Adam said he was moved. “I’m a professor. That’s my favorite part of my job,” he said. “I feel like that’s something, you know, a lot of what these kids pick up on, it’s not necessarily what you explicitly teach them, it’s just what you model. And let me just try to model love and opportunity and possibilities. It’s just wonderful.”
According to the ACLU, as of March 31, legislatures across the United States have introduced 490 bills targeting the LGBTQIA+ community during the 2023 legislative session. More than a dozen states have signed laws banning gender affirming care for transgender youth.
Meet the GENDERCOOL Champions
Jonathan, 20, is from New York, and is a graduate student studying chemistry.
Eve, 15, is from Los Angeles and wants to be an actress.
Chazzie, 16, is from Illinois, and loves journalism.
Max, 15, is from Texas. He loves to write and play music.
Amir, 17, is from Maryland. He dreams of owning a chain of barber shops some day.
Adelyn, 14, is from Texas. She wants to be a lawyer and dreams of running for Congress.
WATCH THE FULL SPECIAL