Being Trans
Being trans is learning when you are 5 that you most definitely are broken.
Being trans is starting puberty and being disgusted by your own body.
Being trans is going through childhood constantly having to watch and learn how you are supposed to look and feel.
Being trans is staying at your best friend’s house and wishing you could play with his sister instead.
Being trans is growing up having thoughts you don’t understand and don’t want, every minute of every day.
Being trans is convincing yourself that your attraction to girls is sexual, rather than the desire to be one.
Being trans is learning to pretend that you like how you look.
Being trans is reading your older sisters’ book on puberty and wishing that’s what you were going through.
Being trans is folding your wife’s laundry because it’s the closest you’ll ever be to clothes that make you feel normal.
Being trans is the feeling of relief when you think you’ve outgrown those feelings.
Being trans is the feeling of despair when they come back.
Being trans is growing up, and realizing each day that the world gets a bit more gray.
Being trans is finding that alcohol and drugs are the best, easiest way to turn off the thoughts.
Being trans is going to gym religiously for six months and realizing that you still don’t feel any connection to your body.
Being trans is sitting in the parking lot and realizing you can’t do it anymore.
Being trans is realizing on your third day of hormones that, for the first time in your life, you feel like a normal human being.
Being trans is realizing, on the fourth day, that you will do anything, anything, to keep feeling this way
Being trans is telling your spouse the most intimate, scary detail about yourself and knowing you will likely lose them because of it.
Being trans is knowing that if your spouse stays, it will always be despite who you are, not because of.
Being trans is knowing your kids will have a harder life because of who you are.
Being trans is wishing your kids had a normal Dad.
Being trans is limiting when you drink water so that you don’t have to pee while you’re out.
Being trans is always knowing where the safe bathrooms are.
Being trans is knowing that if you have a layover in the wrong airport you might end up in jail for using the restroom.
Being trans is going camping with your kids, and wondering if you can buy groceries without being assaulted.
Being trans is dreading outings with your kids because they’ll see how people treat you.
Being trans is getting pricked by an electric needle 36,000 times and being grateful for each and every one.
Being trans is realizing how much pain and loss you’ll endure in order to stay alive.
Being trans is hearing another friend-of-a-friend killed themselves.
Being trans is knowing exactly how they felt the moment they decided to do it.
Being trans is having a bad day and feeling a little jealous they don’t have to be trans any more.
Being trans is having a nice conversation with the person doing your nails, then having them refuse to talk or make eye contact after they see the name on your debit card.
Being trans is getting called ‘sir’ by the Uber driver, then having him tell you he’s praying for you.
Being trans is planning your errands based on which stores have self-checkout.
Being trans is feeling like you have to apologize for who you are to everyone.
Being trans is crying in the parking lot at the Doctor’s office because you were treated like a normal human being.
Being trans is realizing how much anxiety you carry around without even knowing it.
Being trans is learning that you have to be wary of everyone.
Being trans is realizing that your existence is now someone else’s cause.
Being trans is awkwardly running into the friends who stopped responding to your texts.
Being trans is realizing that even supporters will reduce you to a stereotype.
Being trans is having to respond to the question ‘but have you thought about how this will affect your family?’ as if this wasn’t the thing you’ve thought about, and been terrified of, every day since you were five.
Being trans is breaking down after learning that the insurance company has denied your surgery for the second time because your therapists letter was one month too old.
Being trans is learning that life-saving surgery is actually an elective cosmetic procedure.
Being trans is knowing that if you lose your job, you very likely may not be able to find another one.
Being trans is knowing that you might have to move based on the next election.
Being trans is learning to be grateful for basic human decency.
Being trans is knowing that every good change you make will be painful to those you love.
Being trans is finding out that there are now states where your existence is no longer legally recognized.
Being trans is having strangers feel entitled to ask you about your genitals.
Being trans is realizing that your only options are to live as your true self and be rejected by others, or rejecting yourself for the acceptance of others.
Being trans is realizing you can’t be anything else.
Being trans is dreaming of the day you’ll simply not be noticed.