The Ryan Sallans Book Series

Over the years I’ve noticed our transgender brotherhood and our

experiences have turned us into mentors in the community. There are

so many aspects to transitioning: the name change, surgical procedures

and options, hormones, insurance coverage, legal protection, and finding

peace with one’s body. It helps when people are willing to sit down and

talk about each aspect, one issue at a time.

In preparing to do what I felt would be the impossible, I accepted the fact that my family may very well disown me and never want to see me again. If I could accept losing everything and still move forward, I knew that things couldn’t get any worse for me in life.

Many people question how to come out to family. In this brief trailer, Ryan provides a few tips on how to navigate the process. 

In preparing to do what I felt would be the impossible, I accepted the fact that my family may very well disown me and never want to see me again. If I could accept losing everything and still move forward, I knew that things couldn’t get any worse for me in life.

The strong smell of latex paint and a mixture of bleach hit my nostrils as the door swung open to the single dorm room I would be residing in during my sophomore year of college. I was wearing a black tank top to show off my tan, which I had acquired from working the summer on a road construction crew. I also wore a pair of jean shorts that were five sizes too big for me. I kept pulling them up as I was carrying boxes up to my room. My waistline had gotten smaller over the summer.

The diet I had started was finally starting to work.

After a few weeks in college, I began to wonder if I would be able to reach either of my goals that I set after high school (to not to gain weight and to find a boyfriend who would want to marry me). The embarrassment I felt on account of my body, and the fight I had against my biology, affected my development as a person, especially within romantic relationships.

By my twelfth birthday I quit wishing to turn into a boy and started to wish that my body would just stop turning more female. With puberty I saw my breasts developing and my hips widening. The changes were taking away my androgynous build.

“Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird. . . It’s a plane. . . It’s Superman!”

My seven-year-old body shot up, off the ground. My right arm lifted above my head as my feet, clad in red-trimmed sweat socks pulled up to my knees, darted mearound the room. My idol and mentor, like any other boy’s fantasy, was a superhero.

In this episode, take a step back into the mid-1960's in small town Nebraska where my parents first met. I am happy to share that their romance and love story is still strong, 60 years later. 

In this episode we enter into Ryan's current best-selling book, Second Son.

By age four, I was labeled a tomboy—a label

that made my dad happy, I think.

I became his shadow.

Everywhere he went, I followed.

I wanted to be his helper.

I wanted to be just like him.