Kyler Prescott grew up in San Diego. He was an avid piano player, an animal lover, and a talented writer. According to his mother, Katharine Prescott, he was, most of all, a deeply compassionate young man.

Kyler was also transgender and dealt with bullying in school, online harassment, and constant misgendering. Like many transgender teens, he struggled with depression and suicide. When he was thirteen, he wrote a poem about the heartache of a boy forced into a gender he never identified with:

I’ve been looking for him for years,
But I seem to grow farther away from him
With each passing day.
He’s trapped inside this body,
Wrapped in society’s chains
That keep him from escaping.

But one day I will break from those chains.
One day I will set him free.
And I’ll finally like in the mirror.
And see me —
The boy I was always meant to be.