Perhaps the hottest political topic as we near the November presidential elections includes transgender people and their rights.

Arguments have and will be held, and debates will continue to divide the American people. Oftentimes, however, transgender people themselves are left out of these arguments.

One at Manhattan High School wishes that wasn’t the case.

Freshman Finn Huslig is a transgender boy at MHS, one who despite his relatively young ages feels passionately as state lawmakers make decisions regarding where transgender people can and can’t go in public places.

But before he could insert himself into these arguments, he had to make a decision: who he was.

Huslig was born female, but as he approached the threshold denoting his teenage years, he began to question his identity when it came to gender. And he decided his biological gender didn’t accurately represent how he identified.

Huslig’s decision to come out as a transgender boy following his eighth grade year was a long time coming. For as long as he can remember, he never felt truly feminine. He didn’t like to wear his hair long, nor did he have many female friends. For that reason, when he first learned the term “transgender” in his middle school years, a lightbulb snapped on.

“When I learned [the term], it just clicked,” Huslig said. “And I knew. It’s just kind of like this innate feeling that you know.”

Before he acted on his decision, though, he pondered it. He came out to a few close friends first, then to his family.

From there, the process of becoming male began in a physical sense — Huslig began hormone therapy at the beginning of the school year, which entails going to a therapy sessions, before taking injections of testosterone. Among other things, the added hormone deepens Huslig’s voice, allows him to grow facial hair and reshapes his body to become more like a triangle.

He received a hefty amount of support, but he said he was surprised at the amount of support he did receive.

“I was just generally surprised in how people took it. I really didn’t expect that,” Huslig said. “A lot of people knew more about it than I thought they would — Manhattan, Kansas, isn’t the most open town in the world. That’s one of the things I was most surprised about, is how accepting and loving everyone I knew was.”

But as smooth has the transition has been in his own circles, being transgender has allowed Huslig to speak on larger issues concerning transgender people’s rights — which aren’t many. North Carolina recently passed a law banning transgender people from using the bathroom the gender with which they identify, an act Huslig is frustrated by, saying gender isn’t limited to male and female, as suggested by restroom signs.

“It’s just something else in the spectrum,” he said. “People look at gender as male and female. But it’s literally everything in between and mixed. People are both; people are neither; people are one or the other; some people are three…. It’s kind of annoying to hear people who are so close-minded.”

By the same token, Huslig wishes the public was more open to the idea of transgender people being, in fact, real people.

“I wish people would understand that we are people,” he said. “We feel; we act the same way that you do. We just have a little more of a daily routine than you do.”

Coming out as transgender wasn’t easy. But it has allowed him to be who he feels comfortable being.

“It was really hard [coming out],” Huslig said. “But it was the best thing I’ve ever done.”

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article included an additional source, who was interviewed by the author prior to writing the story. Information from that source has been removed at the source’s request for privacy reasons.