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Far away from Montana, Kim slowly became more of herself. She moved to San Francisco after college and began experimenting with her gender by dressing as a woman. Kim says she also wondered if she was a gay man, so she dated both men and women...but that didn't feel right either.

After years of living a double life, Kim took her transition to the next level and started taking female hormones. "[I was] just feeling like, for the first time, my body just felt right," she says.

Then, when Kim was in her late 20s, she said goodbye to Paul for good. She decided to undergo full sexual reassignment surgery.

"They fashion, out of your genitalia, a vagina, and I had a little help with my breasts," she says. "I changed my name. I changed my driver's license and social security and passport and everything."

If she could go back, Kim says she would have made the transition much earlier, but she is glad she was raised as a boy for one reason. "I think that just [by] being a boy, it's okay for you to be bold and independent and do whatever you want to do. Sometimes, I see girls who are growing up where they reach that age where they really start to doubt themselves and question and kind of withdraw like 11, 12, 13," Kim says. "I'm glad that I was kind of given this license to [have] this boldness."

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