Thomas was born female and lived for 24 years as a woman named Tracy.

Growing up in Hawaii, Tracy and her two brothers experienced loss at an early age. When she was just 12 years old, her mother committed suicide. "My father had to learn to be a father because he wasn't around a whole lot," Thomas says. "He worked a lot. He let my mother raise us, and she was an excellent mother."

Though Thomas says he doesn't feel he was born in the wrong body, he does remember being a tomboy. "I liked to play with LEGOs and go fishing," he says.

A few years later, Tracy hit puberty and began to realize something was different. "I started to grow breasts, and it was kind of a shock to me because I didn't have my mother around," Thomas says. "I was just used to catching footballs and balls, and so it hurt. I just kind of thought, 'What's my body going through? Is it betraying me?'"