Thirty years ago, Amanda Nicole Watson was 7 years old and sitting in a second grade classroom in a small town in New Hampshire, already struggling for answers.

This week, Watson is being honored for not only finding the answers for her own struggles but helping others find those answers, too. Watson, who received the Gloria Steinem Communication Award from the San Diego Democratic Club for her devotion to gender diversity discussions and transgender equality education, will add Pride’s Community Service Award to her cache of honors.

“Receiving this award puts a face with the award,” says Watson, a male-to-female transgender and activist. “It is part of acknowledging that we [transgender individuals] exist. I will accept the award for the transgender community as a whole, not for me personally.”

On the surface, then, it would seem that there is little that Watson does for herself. And yet, the truth is that it is the surface of herself that she had to do something about in order to be herself. That is, she had to “transition.”

The term “transition”, as it is typically applied to transgender issues, is the process of becoming one’s true gender.

For Watson, that was five years ago. But this came after a protracted isolation from her family.

“I still talked to my mom,” says Watson, “but only on the phone about once a week. And really, you can be whatever you want on the phone. For 10 years, I played a role. Finally, I started dropping hints, and finally got to the point where I could tell my mom I was going to transition.”

Watson’s activism isn’t so motivated by her own process, as it is by the lack of understanding and acceptance in the community at large. Watson serves on the Speaker’s Bureau and board of directors for San Diego TransFamily and co-chairs the Transgender Community Coalition.

“For me, I feel more emotionally-centered,” explains Watson. “But I think our community still experiences a great deal of discrimination, from the obvious stuff like name-calling to the more structured things, like health care, employee benefits and such.”

Educating about these issues has become a passion for Watson.

“What really gets me is when there is ignorance and intolerance, when people lack understanding,” says Watson, “and they choose to go with ignorance instead of seeking knowledge.”

Ignorance, which is classically defined as the absence of knowledge, is a powerful force, not only in the community at large, but in the GLBT community, and in the transgender community itself, explains Watson.

“Even within the transgender community, there are debates about what is right and what is wrong,” says Watson. “Does someone have to live 100 percent in the opposite role? Does the person have to have a surgical procedure? And so on.”

Even when society does seem to make one step forward, as in the case of the Olympic Committee allowing athletes to compete in Athens in their “corrected sex”, Watson says there can be difficulties.

“My understanding is that you have to have completed the surgical procedure [gender reassignment surgery] to compete,” explains Watson. “That just really may or may not apply to some people. I mean, that simply may not be financially feasible for someone.”

The cost of the surgical procedure alone (typically estimated around $20,000) is the tip of the proverbial financial — and emotional — iceberg.

“Pressure and fear, both from society and from ourselves really takes its toll,” explains Watson, who, as a veteran of the United States Navy and a former Eagle Scout, knows the pressures firsthand.

“When I see youth and they are transitioning and making changes and choices, it makes me want to fight harder,” says Watson, a group facilitator at the Hillcrest Youth Center. “I would have never thought about transitioning at 16 or 17. There are so many factors involved.”

“A person has to know in their heart who they are,” explains Watson. “It isn’t about a certain age or anything. You can be 6 or 60. It is when you are willing to accept yourself. When you are ready to believe in your own self and live your own dreams. When, really, you are what I call living your truth.”

Few people have come forward and been as articulate as Watson in explaining the impact of living one’s gender truth. And somehow, that message seems to resonate far beyond the transgender issue, even when she is talking “on message.”

“In 30 years,” says Watson, “we won’t have issues around transgender individuals. We will have become a fully integrated, accepted part of society.”

For Watson, no opportunity passes without making it an educational one.

Even the question of who her favorite Muppet is brings an answer that is as much about awareness as it is about amusement.

“Miss Piggy, of course,” says Watson. “She may not always be right, but she fights with spunk for what she believes in. And, she has had to kiss a lot of frogs along the way.”

Lest this remain the last word, Watson is quick to interject education: “You see,” Watson says, “There are essentially four types of men who seek transgender persons: First, there are the admirers who simply do that, admire. Then there are those who simply want to experience sexual gratification. Third, there those who want to live vicariously through us. Fourth, there are those who want to be us.”

And Friday night, we’ll all want to be Watson.