What Needs To Be Said

on standing in the face of trans genocide

I write what inspires me. I write from a place of excitement.

Just to be transparent, I fucking hate this. I don’t want to be writing it.

I’ve honestly been fighting this piece from coming out for weeks. It hurts to think about. The reality trans people are facing is exceptionally scary for me to look at. I’m grounding myself in hope and trust that I will be taken care of, but I’m scared, and I’m angry, because this is terrifying.

If you don’t understand why I’m scared for myself as a transgender individual — let me fill you in.

Donald Trump vowed during his campaign to do away with transgender people. Literally promising everything up through removing all transgender healthcare for adults in America.

Please, make no mistake, I am not using hyperbole. This would be an act of genocide.

In 2022, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security published a statement on the ‘Genocidal Nature of the Gender Critical Movement’s Ideology and Practice.’

That’s a mouthful, so, let me break it down for you.

Gender critical people are the J.K. Rowlings. The people out there beating the drum that two sexes is all there ever is or was, and all that matters. Denying the existence of social elements of gender which are worth respecting and honoring, outright refusing the lived experiences of others and actual science — favoring their own beliefs, colored by bigotry, born of their ignorance.

The languages and attitudes they are perpetrating is genocidal.

They are fundamentally denying the validity of my existence. They’re using platforms to push an agenda of hatred and division — based solely on the riling up of ignorant masses, to hate people like me more — serving twisted ideals of righteousness born of projection and trauma.

Don’t take my word for it. Take theirs.

J.K. Rowling: “Calling a man a man is not 'bullying' or 'punching down.' Crossdressing straight men are currently one of the most pandered-to demographics in existence, and women are under no obligation to applaud the people caricaturing us.”

Calling me a crossdresser is the most offensive thing someone could say to me, and the deepest ignorance. I suppressed myself for so long because drag and cross-dressing grosses me out so deeply.

It’s what a bigoted culture tried to teach me transness was. How I was shown was the only route to expressing what existed naturally within me. A route that disgusted me and turned me away from myself, since there was no better way available.

I reject that. My femininity is innate. I do not have to dress or perform in any way to earn womanhood. I don’t have to earn it at all.

I have inborn feminine authority. Because I am a woman.

If you wonder why I need to change anything about myself then. Why I’ve done hormone replacement therapy. Taken care of my skin. Grown out my hair. Why I wear women’s clothing. Ask yourself how painful it would be to never be seen as what you are. To be put in a societally constructed box that makes it so you can’t exist authentically, and can never be seen.

How much of a blessing would it be to then finally exist as you are? Getting a chance to embody your actual self, and be seen that way socially.

Would that not be worth pursuing?

That’s why I do it. That’s why I’ve put in all the work of physically transitioning for three years. Because it feels good to be seen as I am.

It’s refreshing after a lifetime of the opposite.

When people in places of power use their platforms to convince others I’m crazy and not to be respected. That the bigotries of old were justified and should be re-established. When a presidency is won on a platform empowered by the promise of stripping my right to peruse freedom, of forcing me back into chains. I grow afraid. I grow angry.

Beyond people like J.K. Rowling, who hilariously writes under a male pseudonym nowadays, there are the people who don’t hide what this energy of denial obscures.

These are real quotes from right wing pundits with large platforms. Platforms which were used to win the election of the presidency and fill seats of congress around the country.

Matt Walsh: ‘We are not going to let them harm our children. This case is just the beginning of the fight. It is not the end. We are not gonna rest until every child is protected, until trans ideology is entirely erased from the earth. That’s what we’re fighting for, and we will not stop until we achieve it.’

Michael Knowles: ‘for the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.’

Ben Shapiro: ‘Transgender people are unfortunately suffering from a significant mental illness that is deeply harmful, and it’s not a solution to pretend that transgender people are the sex that they think they are in their head. ‘

Jordan Peterson: ‘Gay kids are being convinced they’re transsexual. That’s not so good for gay people, is it?’

Pundits like these, who have enormous audiences of right-wing rabble, are beating the drum of hatred used against gays so often. The old — they’re coming for our children.

If education about the existence of transgender and gay people turns your kid gay or trans, I’m afraid to tell you, they already were. When education of human diversity becomes an enemy, we all have a problem.

People literally want to pretend I don’t exist as I am. They want to convince me I’m crazy, that I’m confused, that I’ve been duped by a corrupted system. They want the very structures of society to enforce this suppressive viewpoint upon me.

Then, there are the people who support me on a surface level, but deep down, harbor feelings they think are innocuous. Feelings like this: I respect people being who they are. I just don’t think people should be altering their bodies or taking hormones.

If you feel that way, I forgive you, but you’re wrong.

It’s hard to face it when we’re wrong sometimes. But I promise to be gentle with you if you go on this journey with me.

Coping With Testosterone

Science has proven that the application of specific hormones in the later stages of pregnancy determine the eventual sex of a developing fetus.

At a point, we are all female in the womb, before hormones transform many of us into males.

Studies have shown that transgender men and women have brains that more closely resemble those of the sex with which they identify.

Go figure.

Differences between male and female brains are very subtle, but existent.

Scientist posit that late stage fetal trauma, or very natural variation, can alter this process and cause the development of a brain more suited to a body of the alternative sex.

Surely, the brain differences are subtle between sexes. And no matter the sex, any one person is literally capable of being extraordinarily talented at anything. No stereotypes are justified when it comes to women and men. None.

Yet, this phenomena resonates with my experience. Pondering if it has felt to me like I have a female brain within a male body, the answer is…

Um — YES.

That’s exactly what the fuck it’s felt like.

That makes so much sense it hurts. Top to bottom, through my entire living experience.

When I was a young teen and testosterone began operating in my system, I was so terribly distraught. It immediately took me away from myself.

The most noticeable thing was it had physiologically changed my love and romantic attraction to female bodied people, away from being centered in sweet, tender heartfulness — instead, causing the very sight of the female anatomy to generate uncontrollable physical and psycho-sexual reactions in my body — torturing my feminine mind.

It was impossible for me to have the friendships with women I really wanted. It made me hate this new way my body worked. I was repulsed by my own desires.

But this was literally just one thing, when it was everything.

As I grew older, I had to learn to fight every instinct my hormones fed me, because over time I found they were all leading me to act in ways which were discordant with my true personality; my female brain.

The moments of solitude in my life where I laid in the dark and looked up what Hormone Replacement Therapy does to you as a transgender woman, my heart sang. Regardless of the scary stuff like infertility, and the chance certain things might not work anymore, there were psychological effects which made my whole being call out. Basically, a chance to undo this life I was living of constant suffering under testosterone, to find peace, and finally feel comfortable with the way sex hormones interacted with my body and mind.

Still, the scary stuff reigned over me, preventing me from transitioning until I was thirty-four and the world had given me examples that weren’t prostitutes and crossdressers to aspire to. When my walls came crashing down, realizing I was destined to become myself at last.

Within months of starting testosterone blockers and estrogen, I knew my heart had been right.

Relief. Sweet, holistic relief.

How affirming to me as well, to be shown so clearly that there is a true internally hard-coded mechanism within me to be female. To feel the night to day change from how entirely uncomfortable I felt throughout my life under testosterone — body, mind, soul; all just heartsick — to immediately have freedom from it, feeling cozy in my skin for once.

It’s the greatest blessing I’ve ever known.

And the idea of losing it is the scariest thing I’ve ever considered.

What’s Different With Estrogen?

Everything. It’s a different experience of living from the ground up.

Going outside, experiencing the beauty of nature, was once a measured and intellectual experience.

Wow, that skyline is so objectively beautiful. What unique colors in the sky.

Now, beauty is emotion which washes over me. Everything is felt more than thought.

My body is softer. My joints are more flexible. Two things which represent spiritual themes my heart values, as softness and flexibility are strengths of character I see great virtue in. Being allowed to embody them in a physical sense is deeply healing to me. As is feeling things with emotion, a propensity I was always naturally inclined towards — even when fighting against testosterone which has a comparatively numbing effect on emotions.

Blessings every one. Blessings of the highest order.

I can once again love and be attracted to women in the way that my heart calls for. Where my body is not innately objectifying them. Where I can be seen and held as the woman I am. Shifting a relationship’s center from psychological and physical, to what has always called me, the emotional and spiritual.

Love feels how I always wanted it to now.

My intuitive abilities have enhanced as well. Always there before — muted, but highly valued — now they soar. Another blessing.

The simple and plain, all-encompassing peace and joy for living this has enabled is enormous. It’s enough to make the scary things worth it. Even enough to face down these genocidal maniacs.

The Fear Persists

The thought of having it all taken away. Of being forced by hateful Christians, and idle by-standing masses who don’t understand the cost, to once again have my body work against my heart and soul — hurts to even think about.

I’ve been crying a lot writing this.

Truly and honestly, I might not make it if that happened. It might be the saddest and scariest thought I’ve ever had.

I have daughter. I’ve got so much to live for. And still, this idea scares me that deeply. Not only in terms of the consequences it could impart upon my life, but the despair I fear would consume me.

And I’m an adult. In a trans friendly state. Probably the last person whose care is seriously threatened.

Still, it could happen.

If they pull what they have in Florida nationwide. If they make the requirements to receive medication archaic, if they punish healthcare providers, otherwise discourage care from being delivered.

They can and have de-transitioned adults this way.

Can you even imagine, with the despair I feel, how distraught those who are more likely to lose their care feel? Those who already have. Those who are actively being tortured as their body and mind slowly transforms back toward the version of self which had always felt so wrong, and they’d finally found relief from suffering within.

The hate which drives this movement. The misunderstanding. The projected sexualization and outright suppression. The propagation of suffering upon transgender people. Is the cultural energy responsible for trans people, historically, having exceptionally high suicide rates. We’ve been forced to the shadows. Denied validity.

That, along with us being disowned by families, not having complete career opportunities, being looked down upon and doubted by everyone but especially — ironically and painfully — the dumbest people.

What these politicians, pundits, and bigots are doing is unforgivable.

These men and women, everyone of them, I hope they spend eons in their afterlife alone with the pain they’ve wrought in other’s lives.

They deserve to burn in the fires of their own hatred.

This country, which has chosen blindness like this to lead it, and all the structures of civilization which enable hatred like this to steer us — deserve to burn with them.

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