Girlfriends, hairdressers or queen trainers, these are the majority of roles in which we see trans women represented in the media. With the little imagination with which these representations are constructed, it seems that it is difficult to do a worse job of portraying these realities.

However, to the surprise of some and confirmation of others, there is something worse: little or no visibility in the media about trans men, people whose assigned sex at birth was female, but whose gender identity is male.

Little is known about their lives, challenges and experiences. While there are attempts at virtual platforms that try to portray their realities, ordinary people still find it difficult to understand these life experiences.

This is why we interviewed Alan, a young transgender man who opened his heart to tell us about the process of coming out to his family, the support he received and how he found a great pillar in his girlfriend.

Even with the legal advances in our country, a large number of people have prejudices about the trans population. What is it like to be a trans man in Colombian society?

We live in a world where there are a lot of old-fashioned people, who have a different way of thinking than the young people of today. Usually people judge by the fact that they are not able to assimilate and understand that times change, that people are free to do what they want with their bodies, with their things, with their lives.

Against this background, what was it like for you to "come out" as a trans man?

When I told my friends, my parents, my family and my partner that I was trans, it was very hard for some of them. My closest friends told me that they already suspected, but they didn't think I was going to make the decision.

In the case of my girlfriend it was even harder, but she understood it more than the rest of the people I told because her brother is also a trans person who has been in the transition process for a year longer than me. In fact the people I hang out with all the time took it very well, although this is the time that they sometimes call me by my old name or treat me with the pronouns I used to use.

How have you felt love towards you since you came out as a trans person?

It has been a gradual change. For example, for my parents I went from being the apple of their eye to being the man of the house. The way they talk to me and treat me has changed. This doesn't mean that I haven't had support from them, from my girlfriend and friends, who show me how much love they have for me.

It is one thing to tell people close to you about your identity, how you feel and perceive yourself. It's quite another to tell them that you are attracted to women. What was that process like?

When I introduced my current girlfriend I had not yet started my transition; we had been in a relationship for three years and I started my process in the third year. At that time, when I had not started my process, I introduced my girlfriend to my family and they already knew that I liked women. The truth is that everything went very well because my dad and my sister liked her a lot. As time went by, I started to take her to meetings with all my family, aunts, cousins, grandparents, etc. During these "family introductions" my dad helped a lot to get my family to accept that I liked women because he told them that I was still the same person; he basically put me above everything else.

After the "blessing" you received from your family regarding your transition process, how did your girlfriend experience it?

She is the person who has supported me the most throughout the whole process, she has put up with my mood swings, she has seen me cry when I feel defeated, when I've had enough, when I'm about to throw in the towel. She has been with me for a long time before I started my journey. She was the one who asked me to go through the eps, because when I started I didn't do it under the supervision of a doctor.

Sincerely, she is the woman who makes me want to keep fighting to find myself, to feel the way I really want to be. If it weren't for that support, with which she shows me her love, I don't know how I would be at this moment because sometimes, as in everything, one can lose one's mind out of desperation.

She is really the one who gives me that push to go on against so many things, even though it hardly affects me what other people say or do because I am trans... I don't live for what people will say, I live my life without it affecting me.

Finally, what is your message to those people who still discriminate against trans men and LGBT people in general?

The only thing I really have to say to people who still have these prejudices is to live and let live, everyone does with their lives what they like and what they want. Love has no sex, I believe that we, human beings, should fall in love with someone for how they make us feel, for their way of being, for their essence; not for their genitals or because people use their religion to discriminate. If God had created nothing more than a man with a penis or a woman with a vagina, people like me wouldn't be here.