On Transgender Day of Remembrance

I’m still not sure I entirely grasp it, because in so many ways I’m damn lucky. Nor have I existed in this plane for very long.

I came into this in near-total, pandemically-padded isolation, after all, with light skin and money and physical safety and more allies than my anxiety (or, frankly, common statistics) could have ever fathomed. I learn something new every month, week, or hour, but I still don’t think I’ve wrapped my head around the unfortunate intricacy and fragility of this sort of life — our sort of life.

So, if you are like me — damn lucky, in denial of your luck or lack thereof (I’m still pretty new to this, after all), still learning, or a combination of both — take a moment to truly think about what you take for granted.

Do people know you?

Do people see you?

Do people stare?

Are people afraid of you?

Are you sometimes afraid of them, as a result?

Is your very existence, in some twisted, horrible way, actually considered a matter of debate?

(I look back on that astounding first taste of vivacity and calm and emotional depth and just…normal okayness in my brain on hormone replacement therapy, and I can’t even imagine how or why feeling human like this was ever up for debate. It frightens me.)

Do you see a never-ending discomfort with you — subtle, unwelcoming undercurrents of it — in the well-meaning but unconscious and unsettled eyes of passers by, acquaintances, society at large, and even the dearest of friends?

For the luckiest among us, it is simply isolating.

For others, it is deadly.