My Crime - identifying information removed

Let me just begin by stating as I've been asked by the counselor to write this out again as others in the group have expressed, I'm frustrated having to go through this again as to my memory I've already told it at least seven times on record. First off, it's in my record. I gave the story to the previous counselor when the sessions were over the phone. I've given the story to my probation officer during a two hour interview, I gave it to the polygraph tester who took my sexual history, I've given it in at least two written assignments here and a third time aloud in the group. I'm baffled as to why one of the previous accounts can't be used. Friends and family members have suggested you're trying to see if I'll in some way "slip up" and give conflicting information from one report to another. If that's not the case, then why can't one of the numerous previous times I've told it on record be referenced? I know I've complained about this exact issue several times in my journals. I will however do as requested once again.

In 2018 I was planning a cross-country trip to the Galloping Ghost Arcade in Illinois. Desiring to talk about the planned trip anonymously with others who shared this hobby I went on Omegle and added Arcade as an interest. I met a girl in this way, she told me she was 20 and from [another state near Illinois] and worked as a waitress at a bar and arcade there. Now, I'm not suggesting she fooled me or tricked me, I figured out fairly quickly she was lying about her age, if only slightly. She kept referencing having been in school band, and the frequency of this made it clear she was still in it, so I asked her if she had any pictures of herself in the uniform, so she provided one which she'd clearly taken on the spot. She had a very specific, time-sensitive hairstyle at the time. For a moment I panicked as this meant she was still in high school, so I hopefully asked if she was 18, she wasn't, she was actually 17.

Before I could really freak out over this, she pointed out 16 was the age of consent in her state. I told her I didn't know what it was in my state and googled. Seeing it was 17 here, I decided it was fine to continue the relationship as she was legal in both states. Plans changed, the arcade became secondary as I became very interested in her and began planning to instead visit her. She had a very unusual issue at home though, and as we spoke it became clear she had been looking for someone to help her run away for some time. Apparently that was the majority of what she spoke to people on Omegle about. Explaining why specifically is kind of delicate, so I often leave it out when telling the story, but I'll be specific now.

Her birth name was [female name], she was a beautiful girl, but quiet and sheltered and the majority of her social contact was online. She hung out with a lot of people on Tumblr and in order to fit in with them, she started identifying as male. I presume she expected her parents to be resistant, but instead her parents -specifically her mother- embraced it and advanced it forward quickly. Her mother had her name legally changed to [male name] at 15. She was a registrered nurse and was somehow able to fasttrack getting her put on testosterone, and administered the weekly injections herself. When I  began speaking to her I think she'd been on it for about four months. She told me at some point that her only real motivation was to get her legal name changed because she hated her birth name. Also, I noticed that the name she chose was extremely similar to that of an internet celebrity she followed online. (Jeffree Star. She changed her name to a male name starting with J and her middle name to Star.)

Trouble was, she never actually thought she was a guy, it was just to fit in with her friends, and she was horrified by the effects. It changed her voice, each time she got a shot her face would break out in acneand there were numerous other physical changes. She would call me crying that she was considering suicide because she didn't want to "become hairy" and she had very thick hair and was afraid this could cause her to develop male pattern baldness. However, she was afraid of the social consequences if she dmitted she never actually wanted to be a guy. We spoke for about nine months, give or take. At first I just suggested she should more forcefully tell her mom she didn't want to take the shots, and she would make a point of calling me when her mother would enter the room and force her to take the shots so I could hear it. She couldn't confront her mom about it, so she took a more passive-aggressive approach. She grew her hair out, wore heavier make up and started wearing more traditionally feminine dresses. When it became clear in spite of this her mom was still going to keep giving her the injections I finally agreed to set her plan in motion and drive up and get her. She packed ten suitcases and her cat into a car I'd rented and I drove her back. She was with me about a week when I was arrested.

I thought what I was doing was legal given she was over the age of consent, but for those last three months until she hit 18 it was still illegal to move her across state lines. I was charged with seventeen felonies, because of what they were I've held the belief they chose that number because of her age. There was one count of Interferring with Parental Custody, one count of Child Endangerment and fifteen counts of Illegal Use of a Minor in an Erotic Display or Performance. This was for the only sexual crime they could really charge me with, over the course of the months we spoke she would regularly send nude pictures to my phone. Hundreds of them, honestly. Typically I'd be at work, she'd ask what I was doing and then inform me she'd bought some new sex toy or lingerie off of Amazon and offer to show me her using it. For her birthday she'd been given a high quality digital camera and she was interested in becoming a model. So she'd set up shoots in her room and take hundreds upon hundreds of pictures of herself. They weren't all nude, but plenty of them were, or she could suddenly become nude in the middle of one which otherwise wasn't. In spite of the fact that she was over the age of consent, and thus it was completely legal to have sex with her or sexual conversations, it was still technically illegal to view or possess nude images of her. I did two years, came home and am now at the end of the second year of a two to five year probation sentence which I'm hopeful will end in September.