Transgender Influencer Mama Dragun: "Be Careful Who You're Mean to in High School!"

When most of us head home for the holidays, we will dig up old yearbooks and photos of ourselves from awkward, growing phases. That mullet haircut. The overbite. Overplucked eyebrows. But imagine, if on top of that, you were also living life as a different gender. This is a reality transgender people face when looking back on their lives.

Transgender beauty influencer Mama Dragun offered empowering advice for anyone experiencing this. (If her name sounds familiar, it's because she was featured in this Jeffree Star campaign.) On her Instagram page, where she has 1.7 million followers, she shared an image of herself holding a picture of her school photo. In the picture, she is dressed as a boy.

The caption for this Insta image reads: "Be careful who you're mean to in High School! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜." That little boy you picked on may turn into a gorgeous woman someday! Mama Dragun looks chic in an off-the-shoulder white top, loose beach waves, red lips, and dolled-up eyes.

She also said: "The crazy thing is I actually see myself in both photos. I'm not ashamed of my past! Through this journey of changes both physically and mentally I have just become more myself. I hope everyone can discover their true self the way I have in this new year."

Mama Dragun is open about her surgeries and what she has done to transform into this swan of a lady. She even created a YouTube video, in which she watches old videos of herself as a boy.

In the video, she said, "Yes, I do look different...I have had surgeries and procedures along this process. It has been almost four years since some of these videos — since I was in high school in Virginia. So a lot has changed, to say the least."

The takeaway is that Mama Dragun is "herself" in both her past as a boy and present as a woman. She just feels like the best version of herself now, and being comfortable in the skin you're in is the best beauty lesson of all!