Teddy Geiger is 'willing to talk about everything now' after gender transition

Published: 06:02 BST, 6 July 2018 | Updated: 14:08 BST, 6 July 2018

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Gender transition has made Teddy Geiger 'feel more open.'

She explained to the New York Times that this was 'Because I’m willing to talk about everything now, people are then more open with me.'

The 29-year-old, who announced her transition last October, shared: 'There’s no longer this piece of me back there saying: "Don’t go there."'

New life: Teddy Geiger told the New York Times she can 'feel more open' after announcing her gender transition in October of last year

Said she: 'I used to find that I’d sing songs and think, ooh, it sounds like I’m talking about that stuff, and I don’t want to talk about that stuff. But it was just coming out.'

Teddy, who has written for such pop acts as Shawn Mendes, publicly broke the news of her transition on Instagram while at a studio session with him.

She told the Times that she showed the Instagram post to the musicians at the session, asking: 'Should I post this?' before finally doing so.

Quoth Shawn: 'She let it out, and she was just so happy - I can’t even describe it.'

'It was just coming out': Said she: 'I used to find that I’d sing songs and think, ooh, it sounds like I’m talking about that stuff, and I don’t want to talk about that stuff'

'I can remember back to being 5 and looking in the mirror, feeling like a girl and wanting that. But growing up in Rochester, there were limited resources. I’d never met a trans person before,' Teddy said.

While still publicly identifying as male, Teddy became a teen idol, a period she described to the Times: 'I was going through adolescence and having sex for the first time, but it was in this really weird context. I didn't have a real support group.'

After the teen star days, the rise of Teddy's songwriting career coincided with anxiety so severe that her smoking habit was up to a daily half-ounce of marijuana and two packs of cigarettes last summer.

An ex-girlfriend suggested she paint her nails, which Teddy remembered 'was the only femininity that I was expressing, so I wanted it to be so perfect. It was the only thing I could control.'

'She was just so happy': Teddy, who has written for such pop acts as Shawn Mendes (pictured), publicly broke the news of her transition on Instagram while at a studio session with him

She endeavored to 'get to the bottom of the gender thing' and ameliorate her anxiety problem by beginning treatment in September of last year. 'I threw away all my boys clothes and started wearing makeup,' said Teddy, and she also gave up smoking both tobacco and marijuana.

When she resumed working with Shawn post-treatment, said he: 'It was the first time I ever saw her sober. She was like Teddy, but on steroids. There was this electricity running through her.'

He recounted that once he 'unconsciously referred to Teddy as "she" for the first time in the flow of conversation,' she 'looked at me with an overwhelming amount of happiness and joy beaming out of her eyes.'

Shawn explained; 'It was right then that everything really made sense to me. For everybody that ever questions why people may choose to transition, if they had a best friend or somebody they loved dearly look at them the way Teddy looked at me in that moment, they would no longer question it.'