Hi everyone, it’s been a while! I’m back writing on Substack! I posted here every Sunday from October 22nd all the way to February 25th. Many of my pieces were difficult to write, as they asked complete transparency and honesty from me to share my journey with the world. Ever since coming out as trans (almost a year ago now!), I have always believed that it is something that does not have to happen behind closed doors. Transition stories, whether ones of grief, love, joy, or pain, are essential to human experience. I wanted to share my transition narrative because being transgender is both a unique experience and a rather regular human one after all.
So now I am finally returning to the page after almost six weeks away. If you read my last post you know that I was traveling around Thailand and Australia for almost a month before coming back to the States to see my family in Portland, Oregon. Well now I am back in New York City, and the weather is still cold and even rainy. I am back to sitting in my top floor apartment (only 3 floors up) looking out at the Manhattan skyline thinking about what my life is like as a trans person, and now as a woman.
First, I wanted to provide some reflections on my trip, because in my last post I toyed with the idea of updating Substack throughout my travels about my experiences along the way. Of course, being so on-the-go I didn’t have time to write and reflect. In many ways this break from writing was nice because I was living. I was allowing myself to move throughout the world without intense writerly reflection. Allowing yourself to take breaks as a writer in order to experience things only leads to greater things to write about.
Many people, naturally, have asked me about my trip; what it was like, my favorite place that I went, and my favorite thing that I did. These all feel so hard to answer because I did so much. I saw so much, experienced so many new things, and had such an amazing time that it’s hard to pin it down to even a few highlights for talking points. After all, we drank on rooftops in Bangkok, bathed elephants in Chiang Mai, swam in the bluest water I’ve ever seen in Krabi, and stayed on a floating lake house in the middle of the Khao Sok jungle. All of these experiences, and so many more, were truly breathtaking.
What I want to write about for the purposes of this blog though is just how much trans joy this trip brought me. While abroad, I hit six months on hormones (aka half a year of girlhood!) and I am now approaching seven. I really can’t put into words how HRT has changed my life over just this short period of time. Moving through other parts of the world in the way that I want to, with the body that I want to, is so liberating. Especially being in such warm climates I found so much comfort in knowing that even while wearing less clothes than normal, I felt gender euphoria. Sure there are certain things about my body that I am still waiting to change as a result of HRT, but my gender dysphoria was mostly absent. I haven’t been able to say that for a very long time.
While on the beaches in Southern Thailand, I wore women’s bathing suits in public for the first time. At first I was apprehensive about the looks I might get or the potential for harassment, but I didn’t feel unsafe. Rather, I felt normal. The truth is, I haven’t felt normal for a long time (not that I strive to assimilate to normative beliefs, but when you are a queer/trans person it is easy to feel isolated and marginalized). When people think that you are a crossdresser, they tend to look at you like you are crazy. I do believe that there is new found privilege in being able to pass. Of course, I am still sure that some people look at me for long enough to figure out that I am in fact transgender, but I am not afraid of that. I am proud to be trans because it is who I am.
In Melbourne, Australia I had my only run-in with transphobia. My partner Basia and I had walked around and shopped up and down Smith street, located in the busy Fitzroy neighborhood and at times considered the “coolest street in the world”. It was definitely cool, hip and trendy. We had a great day and felt like we were back in Brooklyn, but with an Aussie flare. Before dinner, we met up with Basia’s aunt and her partner and began walking to the restaurant we had picked for our last night. On the walk up Smith street (aka coolest street in the world), a group of men passed us going the other direction. They were seemingly drunk and were mumbling things our way as they passed, but I couldn’t really hear. They had an intimidating presence but seemed harmless. Then, as I was in the back of the group, one of them grabbed my arm and said “oh you’re cute… for a boy”. They all laughed and kept walking.
The humiliation of this moment sent me into silence. No one else seemed to hear this happen but it suddenly made me feel very vulnerable. My mind thought “has everyone on this street today thought the same thing? Or even… has everyone on this entire trip thought this?”. I was suddenly questioning whether my feeling of safety in Thailand had been a result of people just assuming that I was a cis woman, or because being trans is just more accepted there than in parts of the Western world.
While transphobic run-ins like this aren’t new for me (although they seem to happen less and less the longer I take hormones), it was still a jarring experience to cap off my trip. That being said, in no way will I allow it to taint or ruin the incredible joy and euphoria that I felt for the five weeks that I was away. All of these ups and downs are the epitome of trans life in many ways. Finding what grounds us and allowing security in ourselves is what permits us to sit in those ups and not let the downs get us… down. We are the special ones after all.
Ultimately, although I never wanted my trip to end, it’s good to be back in New York, and back to writing on this Substack page. I am going to be posting on Sundays at 10am EST again, so keep an eye out for future posts! I hope that you all, my dear readers of this little transition diary of mine, are well. I really value you all for subscribing, reading, liking, and engaging with my posts. I was anxious about not posting for a while (would people forget about me and my blog? Will it be hard to come back after almost two months away?). However, the trans community on here, and everywhere, gives me life and hope. We represent radical possibility.
Last week was Trans Day of Visibility, and while I had hoped to do an entire piece dedicated to exploring the meaning of that day and the topic of “visibility”, I will leave this piece as that. Traveling the world I was trans and I was visible. I am part of a global community of people that are defying archaic gender norms, and for that I am proud. Being visible isn’t enough in our fight for gender liberation, but it is important to make our presence known in this world. Thank you for being here, I love you<3