A heartwarming TikTok has been circulating the internet, showing a trans teen that was given a beautiful birthday surprise by his classmates, causing him to break down in tears.
Andi Bernabe was already surprised to find a choir room full of friends and classmates on his 18th birthday:
"They've been planning this for a month. You're abt to see why," reads the caption.
Within no time at all, the reason is revealed.
"Since you're like a legal adult," a classmate who walked over said, "we kinda raised enough money for you to change your name."
After receiving the envelope, Andi bursts into tears.
The video blew up on Tik Tok and has over 944,000 likes.
Bernabe, who's from the greater Dallas area, says that he had "no clue at all, not even hints."
"They made this fake paper birth certificate and they all signed it," Bernabe told Yahoo! Lifestyle.
"I obviously dropped down to the floor and started crying. It was overwhelming honestly, I couldn't believe they actually did it, especially since it's $300. I was planning on getting a job to pay for it, and just putting a little bit away every month."
$300 is roughly the fee for a name change in Texas.
The party the group planned for him was also in celebration of this big step in Bernabe's life.
"All the decorations were 'It's a boy!'-themed. The cake was strawberry and they put blue icing on top," he said. "The joke was, 'Oh, we accidentally made a pink cake for a girl but it turned out to be a boy'."
Texas has been notably unfriendly to its transgender residents, continually denying transgender citizens equal protections under the law, and seeing a number of transgender homicides in major metropolitan areas.
This small show of kindness is a step in the right direction for Texas and its future citizens.
Jane Rosenberg
Jane Rosenberg
@arianagrande/Instagram
@arianagrande/Instagram