Visibili-T is dedicated to transgender members of our community in Central Florida and Tampa Bay, some you know and many you don’t. It is designed to amplify their voices and detail their experiences in life.
This issue, we check in with Lukas Kreusch, an Orlando-native and transgender man, who says coming out and discovering himself has been an ongoing process.
Kreusch, 22, describes himself as a person with a million hobbies. From baking to EMT and fire training, Kreusch says he finds out more about himself every week.
“Going to events, and even just reading different books, watching different shows, trying new recipes, with everything I do, I feel like I’ve learned more and more about myself,” he says.
Kreusch never really understood what it meant to be trans until he got into high school. It wasn’t until then he met other individuals who were trans, and it made him realize this could also be a possibility for him. Kreusch would later come out on March 31, 2017, as a junior in high school.
“I didn’t understand what I was feeling my whole life. Once I figured it out, I was like, ‘Oh okay, this is a thing people need to know about because I’m tired of keeping it in,’” Kreusch says.
Kreusch was never exposed to any LGBTQ-friendly events as a kid. Even as an adult, he didn’t attend any LGBTQ events until he went to Orlando’s Come Out With Pride in 2022. There, he says, he felt a sense of community.
“I just felt really safe. I was able to dress how I wanted and was surrounded by people that didn’t make me feel like I had to tone down the person I was to feel safe in my community,” Kreusch says.
According to a 2022 LawnStarter study, Orlando is ranked second in the U.S. for LGBTQ community support and Pride-readiness. Kreusch says growing up in an extremely diverse city such as Orlando, he’s found plenty of opportunities for LGBTQ people and is now starting to experience them for himself.
“I really like the openness. You don’t get that in a lot of areas. It’s hard to get a really loud and proud community,” Kreusch says. “There are lots of clubs to go to, there’s often events to attend. It’s just nice to be in an area that’s surrounded by different communities.”
While Orlando may be one of the friendlier cities in the nation, Kreusch says trans people still live in fear every day. He adds that cisgender people don’t really understand the feeling of walking outside and being unable to exist as the person they want to be. He says there are eyes on him at all times, and he often wonders if today will be the day he gets assaulted.
“Until you exist in this realm, that your existence is one to be persecuted, it’s really hard to understand what that means,” he says.
Kreusch hasn’t legally changed his name or his gender marker yet and says that going into the fire academy, where there’s a mentality that firefighters are big, strong men, proved to be a struggle for someone in his position.
“I was kind of surrounded by a more conservative group, so I didn’t feel like I could share my identity with a lot of my classmates,” he says.
But this didn’t discourage him as he says he needed to work harder than some of his counterparts.
“I am smaller. I am weaker, no matter how much I go to the gym. That’s just the way it is,” Kreusch says. “I had to work a lot harder than some of the other cadets to prove that I can do this too.”
Kreusch has come a long way from the person he was six years ago and says if he could give his younger self advice, he would tell him everything will be okay and not to put himself in a box.
“It’s okay to feel the way you feel. Nobody knows you better than you know yourself,” he says.
Kreusch still plans on becoming a firefighter after he finishes school and gets all the necessary certifications. In the meantime, he works to be in a place where he is happy.
“I want to put myself in a community where I feel safe, loved, accepted and become more me every day,” Kreusch says.
Interested in being featured in Visibili-T? Email Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Williams in Central Florida or Managing Editor Ryan Williams-Jent in Tampa Bay.
