You're listening to LifeKit from NPR.

This episode is a love letter for any adult who wants to explore their gender and identity.

Because the journey to know yourself is intimate and worthwhile.

I think that whenever we can be ourselves fully as human beings,

and it's always healing, because it's alignment and alignment is what makes life rich, right?

That's journalist Mara Jones.

She says, alignment is the connection between who we are, what we do, and how we exist in the world.

Mara says, we can suffer when we don't have alignment in our lives.

Because one of the things that drives discomfort, sadness, rage, a whole host of things,

is the sense of separation or parts of ourselves being at war with each other or the world.

Do you consider transitioning coming into alignment up for it for you?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, 1000 percent. And that undoubtedly.

I'm Kyle Morris, an audio storyteller and producer and reporter.

And I teach teenagers how to tell stories on the radio.

And I'm a guy with an untraditional beginning, AKA a trans guy.

I transitioned at age 40.

And I'm using air quotes over the word transitioned because I don't use that word for myself.

It makes me think that I started life as one person and morphed into a totally different human being.

That is not what happened.

The way I do explain my experience is by saying I embraced my authentic self and began to make my body a home.

And honestly, that's my wish for every human being on the planet.

The journey for me was a series of steps where I insisted on centering the love I had for myself

...