Jay Welch from Evanston, IL is a poet (a man out for my own heart). He lives and breathes for poetry. He discovered his trans identity while in a relationship with a woman. He says that he just woke up one day and knew that he was meant to be someone else, something he had always known, but never actually understood. Family reactions are always hard to take, but Jay’s father was incredibly supportive, and even happy to have a son. Though Jay is still in the beginning stages of transitioning, his father is happy to help him find a job in construction, help him dress appropritately, and is ‘showing him the ropes,’ so to say, of being a man. Jay’s mother, on the other hand, is taking it badly and feels as if she is losing a daughter. It’s an interesting continuity of opposites, the way people are treated before and after such a huge stage in their lives.