E.M.

I often fear I have no great insight about the transgender experience. I don’t care nearly as much about my transness as I did ten years ago. It used to be so precious to me. Today I feel much more casual about it. I still don’t love being misgendered, but now I no longer feel personally attacked by simple misunderstandings. Even those who refuse to acknowledge the understanding I have of myself are now merely annoying, rather than wounding and destructive. I am solid. I am confident. I am whatever I am, regardless of others’ approval. I am no longer hopeful that certain others will come around- whatever that means. Hope is just peace on loan. And what is a loan if not a bet on future success? I am not a gambling man. I much prefer my peace bought wholesale- no strings attached. Unfortunately, the society I’ve found myself in has decided that war is more lucrative than peace and therefore buying it outright, even in small quantities, is nearly impossible. So as much as I distrust the idea of hope and optimism, I recognize its usefulness in a world as starving as ours. Still, I am very intentional about where I place something as scarce and valuable as hope. I was so hopeful about transitioning. I was convinced that it would solve all my problems. Instead, it cleared the mental fog that allowed me to see the problems I’d been ignoring. In many ways these newly revealed problems were worse. Several were scarier and a few were harder. My transness is now far down on the list of immediately relevant life circumstances. I don’t love talking about my transness- it’s not the most interesting thing about me anymore. It’s one reason that I’m not as interested in the trans community as I used to be. Another reason: I’ve found the trans community to be, at times, just as suffocating as the religion I was raised in. The difference now is that I can’t leave. I am part of this community whether I’m welcomed or not. That’s not to say I haven’t been welcomed. I feel extremely welcomed… until I disagree with someone. This experience parallels church in a way that sits in my chest and squeezes at my insides until I feel about three inches tall. It’s always been about expression. At first, I thought transitioning would be enough, but I soon found that I have a seemingly endless need for it. To create, expand, touch, and explore as far as possible beyond myself. This need is in direct contrast to the messages society has carved into the neural pathways of my brain- fit in, and don’t upset the cultural norms. This is a message that exists even within subcultures that upset the broadest norms. While I do agree with most of my trans peer’s political positions, I have found that many seem threatened by disagreement- I’m not. I’m threatened by suppression. I want more trans friends. I’d love to feel more connected to my community, but I have felt freer outside of it. If I express myself incorrectly, I can’t fully leave anymore. This was a terrifying realization, and according to my church-induced neural pathways, it was also inevitable that I would fuck it up. I found the answer by leaving mentally and socially instead. I didn’t fully disappear, but I didn’t connect either. When I was lonely and needed comfort, I didn’t find it where I thought I would. That broke something in my mind. This is a beautiful community; I love it dearly. And yet, fear has kept me from feeling fully a part of it. Still, my transness is as important to me as the color of my eyes. It is very much a part of me, though it’s not nearly as important as a vocal minority of assholes would have us believe. As I work to repair some of my brokenness, I dare say I have hope. I hope that I will find trans peers who similarly dislike the immediate defense and calling of the guards as soon as a disagreement arises. Of all the existing methods of conflict resolution, we as a group have chosen a very painful one; I refuse to believe that I’m the only one who recoils from it. I want something better for us. If we can’t be free to express ourselves in front of our own community, it gives strength to the groups working against us. It took many years to understand my need for expression as a spiritual trait inherent to the essence of me. In my growing awareness, peace has become easier to borrow, and the fear that once consumed me is blown back by breaths of expression. I have hope that as I continue to replace fear with expression, it will be the key to finding others who are doing the same thing.

J & C & D

J. I learned powerful habits of hiding, drifted away from connection, light and love. Told by nearly everyone if I got too close to what I was and what I wanted, it would cost all of these. So I grew believing I would deserve to lose them. False beliefs shaped me into reflexive hiding dressed up as truth, protective misdirection, sheltering distance. I learned to safely remove myself from others because to know me was to be harmed by some wrongness. But I love truth telling! Thrilled and joyful to be honest, I celebrate clarity and transparency, adore how speaking truths stiffens my spine! Declarations and unashamed directness gives me courage, and best of all I love how reality and honesty uplift other people. These contradictions needed resolution, because trying to hold them could harm even more people. I grieve sometimes, thinking about how brave I wasn’t. How I could say I was bisexual but not live it, how I could celebrate my children’s transitions while putting off my own. But after decades and tiny repeated efforts, I’ve built a practice of being myself. This had a cost: heartbreaks, material losses, discomfort, and a life mission to spend the rest being honest and direct without fail. The reward has been not just joy beyond measure, but access to all my feelings: sorrow, grief, confidence, love. I grew up in a time and place when queerness was forbidden, unspeakable, wholly other. I live now with ferocity and certainty, outspoken, wholly connected. It’s been family who lit my way: my partners, my chosen families, and most of all my children. They stepped into their queer trans lives with a courage and certainty that makes me sure we’ve broken the silence forevermore and I can’t wait to live the rest of our lives being exactly who we are. C. There’s no amount of my transness that can be separated from my family. Our identities feel intertwined, that in some capacity I would not be growing into the woman I am without them, even more so than I might be influenced in a more “standard” family. My transition would not be the same had I not seen the man my brother was becoming, the way that he came into his own and found himself is something that I will always look up to. My transition would not be the same if I didn’t have my father uplifting me onto her shoulders, sharing in my experience and helping me press onwards through it. My transition would not be the same if I didn’t have my mother to help me through hardship and pain, and if she did not similarly raise me higher as I found the footing of who I am. They’re fundamentally wired into who I am as a trans woman, to look at their impact on me in any other way feels disingenuous. I think that’s what trans joy is to me first and foremost. I’m extraordinary lucky to be given this life of unending support and care from everyone around me. It’s a constant reminder of what I’m fighting for when I act to try and be seen, and I hope to let that fire carry me on in life as I come to support others.

A.H.F.

I have a small space where you can sit down if you want to see me. It has no purpose, but that doesn't mean it can't matter. Those who call it insanity are afraid of how little they know about themselves. Those who treat it as absolution or revolutionary are full of guilt at not doing what they think is needed. Those who deride it as assimilation or capitulation are referring to the stories told about it, and not what it is. I am also afraid, and guilty, and concerned with the ability of stories to determine who lives and who dies, but I try to avoid letting my idea of myself be subsumed by these feelings. I didn't make the small space myself, in order to be special, though it wouldn't make me a bad person if I had. Other people made it, people who have never been inside. It opened up from the gaps between their belief and their perception. They looked twice at me, listened twice to me, not sure if I was a boy or a girl, and in that extra looking the small space was formed, unbeknownst to them but as real as any idea they were aware of believing in. Pockets of the space snap shut all the time when people decide they know for sure and stop wondering. But just as quickly, more people open new pockets as the rigging wires holding up the empire of common sense appear visible to them for just a moment. The space is delicate but it never dies. Please stop assuming I'm here temporarily! This is not just where someone rests before becoming real. It is not a cocoon. It has no purpose. I like to call it being agender. There is not a true or correct name for it, but please let me call it something.

B.M.

G.R.

E.H.

X.D.