After she told her mother she wanted to live life as a girl, they started working with counselors to help with the transition. Patterson says she began hormone therapy but prefers to keep other details of her transition private.
Patterson has been a member of Oak Park’s co-ed cheerleading squad since her freshman year, spending her freshman and sophomore years, and part of her junior year, cheering as a boy.
In May, the same month she came out as transgender on a social media video, she was allowed to wear the girls’ cheer uniform when the squad appeared at a Kansas City T-Bones baseball game.
“It was just so exciting,” Patterson said. “And I felt so pretty. And I finally felt complete.”
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