From an early age, Corey Maison had a strong feeling that she wasn't like everyone else.
The 14-year-old from Detroit didn’t fit in with the girls and the boys made fun of him. That’s because ‘he’ always knew he was a girl and was simply born in the wrong body.
Although she identifies as a girl, her school peers didn’t accept her. They bullied her and made her feel incredibly small. That’s why Corey has made a powerful anti-bullying video, hoping that her story gives other bullying victims hope.
To truly capture our attention, she doesn’t tell us verbally. Her whole story is told via glance cards.
“I didn’t fit in with the girls and the boys made fun of me,” she says. “Kids told me that I should kill myself because nobody would miss me. Nobody liked me anyway.”
Naturally, these comments wounded Corey deeply. Eventually she couldn’t take the bullying anymore, and her mum began home-schooling her instead.
Sadly, it wasn't just other children who failed to accept her as she is. One day at a supermarket, a grown woman started taking photos of Corey, just because she was wearing heels.
Things took a turn for the better one day when Corey’s mum showed her a documentary online. It was of a young woman called Jazz Jennings who’d been born a boy. “OMG! I’m just like her,” Corey writes.
Jazz helped Corey to accept and love herself, and she managed to find the self-belief to move forward and live the life she wanted to live.
She describes the day she began hormone treatment as “the happiest day of my life.” Armed with her new-found confidence, Corey wanted to be schooled with other kids again.
Her mum found a school where the principal was “awesome”, and where she was allowed to use the girls’ bathroom, as she should be.
She’s “even on the girls’ soccer team!”
Corey ends the video with a beautiful message of hope for kids who are being bullied now.
“I want to tell anyone being bullied this is temporary and it WILL get better. Know that even though it may not feel like it now - you are incredible, you are beautiful, you are worth so much and you are LOVED.”
Below, you can watch Corey's fabulous video, which has already been viewed over 1.5 million times!
