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Mental Health

Jaimie Wilson's Song of Truth

Jaimie Wilson

The trans singer opens up about his family abandonment, self love, acceptance, and finding your own path.

Jaimie Wilson began 2017 as a semi anonymous young man living in south Florida on a path towards a career in country music. Then on March 19th everything changed. Wilson uploaded a photo of himself on Instagram that was not only personal, but made him a face of transgender visibility. But as Wilson told Cosmopolitan in March,  "I knew from an early age that I felt 'different' but growing up in a religious household I was sheltered — I didn't really know anything about being transgender — I just remember being as young as 5 and thinking I was going to grow up to be a guy." To the outside world Jaimie was a beautiful young woman who loved music, but inside he knew he was dying to break free. Then, he stumbled upon a short film aptly titled Break Free starring Ruby Rose. “Something clicked,” Wilson says and he knew he had to make the change, despite the consequences – which unfortunately included the loss of almost his entire family. 

Despite his circumstance, Wilson found solace in the fact that he wasn’t alone. There were others just like him, going through the same things. Which is why he started the Instagram account with that first photo to track his transition and share his life with the world in the hopes that someone else out there will realize the same thing he had — you’re not alone.

Wilson’s photo and story resonated, in a big way. “I had about 40,000 followers from day one, give or take,” Wilson says his social media fan base initially consisted of other trans people and those in the LGBT community. Since then his followers have grown to 275,000  and it's now a complete mix of people from all sorts of backgrounds. "It's been amazing and the support is incredible.” Since his photo went viral Jaimie has been able to take his love of music on the road. Wilson started playing guitar at 16 when his mom gave him her old guitar that she never learned to play. "I had sang before then but it was when my mom gave me the guitar I really started writing songs and using the guitar to accompany my voice.”

Wilson wrote his first song when he was ten. It was about a love that never fails. “It was about my mom. I guess that's pretty ironic now..”

Wilson hasn’t written any songs that address his transition directly, but he’s certainly expressed the fall out since coming out trans. “My family has completely disowned me since coming out so I've written a song about how ‘Home ain't home forever.’ I was in a dark place when I wrote it but I think a lot of people can relate to it unfortunately.”

Wilson just began a national tour and you can view the city and dates on his Facebook page. For Wilson the best part of his first show was the meet & greet. “I met a ton of awesome supporters and really connect with people. It was a great way to kick off the tour.” Obviously losing my family has been a tough situation for me to go through so getting to meet people who like me for me is amazing and encouraging. I It makes all the hardships on this journey worth it."

Keep up with Wilson on his site.

30 Years of Out100Out / Advocate Magazine - Jonathan Groff and Wayne Brady

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Kenyth Mogan

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