Dear Transphobic World,

Dear Transphobic World,

You will not stop me.

Forget to order my hormone refill, and I will walk back tomorrow. Leave for lunch, and I will wait for your return. “Forget” again — this time in quotes, and I will come back the next day, and the next one. And when I’m due for a dose, and the order isn’t in, I’ll open the little container where I dispose of the syringes, and pull out an old vial or a few, and draw up what I need from those. They aren’t expired, after all.

Glare at me, and I will smile back. Take your sweet time, and I’ll browse my phone. Act like it breaks your heart, to see me look and sound a little more like myself each time, and my eyes will show you unequivocally that my own is piecing itself back together. So get on board, and do your job.

Dear Transphobic World,

If you need a Letter, I’ll give you five. If you want to play phone tag, I’ll catch you. Appointments, follow-ups, background checks, deadlines, phone calls, therapy, haggling or eloquence — you will not stop me.

Fear, doubt, logistics, and medical paternalism — you will not stop me.

I’ll be back, and I’ll call again. I’ll wait those thirty days or however many months on the hormones my body should have been making in the first place, binding that foreign tissue on my chest harmfully, farcically tightly all the while, and I’ll be back.

You will not stop me.

Dear Transphobic World,

In this life or the next, safely or not, you will not stop me from accessing myself.

Dear Transphobic World,

Listen to the kids, alright? Let them grow up to be themselves, or they’ll grow up to be me. And I’ll be a pain in your ass.