It’s 2025, and as of writing this, I’m a 21-year-old trans girl from Rome.
I discovered Peanuts just recently; it was back this May due to Apple releasing the Apple TV wallpapers and my mom talking about Snoopy and some members of the gang during some casual conversation.
One thing led to the other, and well, I now own one of the largest Peanuts collections in Italy and managed to even have a chat with Erik Wiese when the Summer Musical special came out.
Dang.
But that’s not really the point; the reason for me slamming the keyboard to type this is due to me wanting to spend a couple of words about something pretty close to my heart: the freedom to be ourselves.
Like I said at the beginning, I’m a trans girl. I realized something was wrong with me back when I was a 9-year-old kid. It really felt weird to be a boy. I knew somehow, even without being able to explain it to myself, that this was not how I wanted to live. I didn’t like being a boy, or to better describe it, I hated it.
I was always into female clothing; I really enjoyed playing with girls instead of boys during my school days, and I just hated looking at myself in the mirror and not seeing the blue-haired girl I was destined to be. It really felt wrong to not be able to express my actual persona because the world chose to give me male genitalia, and let’s not talk about having to wear formal clothing.
I’d rather not go than having to wear a tie and suit; those gave me extreme dysphoria.
I started HRT in 2023 and, good grief, things couldn’t have been better.
My face fixed itself, my butt did grow a bit and I now have actual breasts that make me feel good with my body, I also started laser hair removal to get rid of my beard (my worst dysphoria), and as of March this year
, I’m on my way to losing all the weight I gained during all these years of depression from hating my male self.
But I guess it’s time to explain what Peanuts has to do with all this.
Essentially, during my Peanuts discovery of this May, I dug deeper into the characters of Peppermint Patty and Marcie.
We all know Peppermint Patty, our favorite tomboy who’s really passionate about sports and struggles in school, while Marcie, her sidekick and best friend, completes her by being a polite person, calm most of the time, and really caring about others.
This duo specifically, got me mind blown.
Back as a kid, I DID SUCK. I always found myself to be really attached to Peppermint Patty due to her way of handling things. I was a disaster at school (with the weird exception of English, thank you YouTube obsession at 5 years old), and I never liked how society imposed on you to do something; for Peppermint Patty, it was the school forcing her to wear a dress, for me it was being forced to act boyish around people and hiding who I actually was.
There’s a quote from Peppermint Patty I’ll probably get on my wrist during Beaglefest ’26: "I’m afraid my brain has left for the day". It’s basically my life motive.
While Marcie, well, she’s exactly who I want my daughter to be, and a comic representation of my empathy.
I’ve always been an empathic, kind, and mature person, and on that side, she’s my comic strip equivalent.
Marcie is quite an interesting character cause even though she’s a calm person most of the time, there are times where she just hates the world.
The nicest people out there in the world are the ones who suffered the most.
But there’s one cherry on top that really made me fall in love with her character.
Her story in One-Of-A-Kind Marcie.
In this quite recent special, Marcie is used to represent the concept of a neurodivergent kid who struggles with introversion, with Marcie being one of those people who chose to make the world better by working in the shadows, without being exposed herself.
This just sealed it for me.
I may not be an introvert (to be honest, I find myself quite an extrovert), but I do have my struggles with neurodivergence sometimes, due to me being diagnosed with a form of the autism spectrum.
For some reason, something clicked.
In mid-March, same day I started my diet, I happened to talk with my doctor about raising my HRT dose. I wasn’t seeing much of a result and I asked them if it was a good idea. As you can probably guess, the answer was yes.
Given a maximum of 3 weeks of time, I had no idea what was going on with my life mentally.
I started being more open; my physical changes were starting to actually show up, and my lifelong dream of being Lucy actually started to form. I was going to finally be the girl I was dreaming of as a kid, hoping to wake up as her.
But the point is, my mind went nuts.
It’s like I was 13 again; puberty hit again. Oh god.
Now, I knew this was coming but NEVER expected it to hit this hard. I randomly cry even to this day, and I may have developed some form of panic attack, with the last one happening while at work during early November. Not often, but they do happen occasionally.
This, combined with finally discovering some figures I could relate to, them being Marcie and Peppermint Patty, gave me lots of confidence to finally do something that was missing from my "I gotta do this to fix my life once and for all" list.
Come out publicly.
Peanuts may not have been the main reason for me finally doing it, but surely influenced it quite a bit.
So, on my 2nd transversary (July 11th; you now know when to send me well wishes), I did something that many people in my situation fear doing.
I made an Instagram post and took care of it as midnight struck.
It somehow went well, even from people I thought were going to block me and erase me from their lives. (Apart from my dad, but that’s another story, maybe one day.)
I was the happiest girl in the world.
Everything is finally going great with my life.
But another problem was created.
I discovered romantic loneliness.
Back in my "old life", I really hated the idea of dating. Due to the fact that I was living in a lie, I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy the concept of love. It made me sick because I didn’t have enough confidence to date as that version of myself. Being a guy in a relationship felt sick to my stomach.
The thing is, to make it short, Peanuts somehow was the key that told my brain, "Girl, it’s time for a dang boyfriend/girlfriend. Stop living a lie."
I have two specific strips that, apart from being my overall favorite, really unlocked my heart without me realizing.
I kid you not, 3/4 days after reading those strips and thinking about it, I discovered my heart could actually beat extremely hard due to me being fond of people.
I finally knew what love was.
I missed out on a lot.
Dang, body chemistry plays jokes on you.
Peanuts may not be extremely popular with the Italian Gen Z, but it sure made my world.
Thanks to Peanuts, I basically understood that I could be who I wanted to, and there was no shame in showing it off, especially to someone who I may be very fond of.
It also taught me that friends ALWAYS stick with you, no matter what, because friends help each other and do everything in their power to help you, well, be you.
Since July 11th, 2025, I present myself as Lucy. The very girl I always wanted to be since my childhood, and I’ll always carry a small Charlie Brown and Snoopy plush in my backpack everywhere I go to remind myself of how good it is to be alive.
Sometimes you just need something or someone to show you how life should be lived.