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Another Dark Christmas

The end of the year is fast approaching. Today is Christmas and I’m feeling a lot of things.

The most prominent feeling is one of needing to reconnect with my creative side. I crave singing and writing. I just want to keep driving and keep singing. My car is currently the only place I feel comfortable singing. My voice is not the way it used to be. I have trouble controlling it and using it in a way that sounds correct. But it still feels good to sing so I keep singing.

All Christmas season I’ve been singing my favorite Christmas songs and this year especially I’m drawn to hymns. 

I’ve been listening to Sufjan Stevens Christmas albums and growing in my appreciation for them. He was raised religious as I was, but is not openly Christian anymore. His music is not made for or marketed towards Christians which makes it feel safe. It lets me connect with a tradition that went from being a huge part of my life to one that later felt unsafe. It is now a more neutral place.

I do not believe in a Christian God or any God that is meddling in human affairs in any way. I don’t know what I believe, and I’m finally ok with that. I’m simply here trying to stay connected to my Christian and Catholic traditions while not being religious and that’s a tricky thing to do.

Every Christmas is hard for its own reasons, this year is hard because I’m watching a genocide happening live on instagram. A genocide in the exact region where Christ was born, lived, and died. A region that has seen instability for as long as we have history for, but rarely on this level. Over 20,000 civilians have been killed in a short time, in a small area. 

I don’t know a lot about Gaza and the Palestinians who live there, but I’m learning. I want to know more about the people who are being so brutally killed and maimed. The people who are being told “Go South!” and then being bombed as they walk, carrying as much as they can, as far south as they can manage.

This Christmas they are mourning their dead and tending to the wounded. While much of the word gathers around overflowing tables in warm peaceful homes.

This morning I woke with them in my dreams. The juxtaposition laid out clearly before me. My wife and I were enjoying life in a fancy high rise building, and we looked out the window and in front of us were buildings being bombed and collapsing. Helicopters above, their search lights looking for survivors to shoot down. 


Then I was woken up and told “Come out, your son is waiting to open presents!” How can I when so many parents on the other side of the world are in despair? Their children brutally and violently taken from them. Some survive, but will never be the same; damaged physically and psychically forever.

I find I can not stop singing “O’ Holy Night” which ends with the truest of Gospels.

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His Gospel is Peace
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother
And in His name, all oppression shall cease
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we
Let all within us Praise His Holy name.

The tradition of celebrating this man Jesus, who preached love and peace, comes in a lot of flavors. My favorite flavor of this tradition is one that is looking for freedom from oppression for all people now, here, on earth, today.

Freedom for every Christian, every Jew, every Muslim, every child, every Palestinian in Gaza and around the world. Freedom for all. Chains broken, and end to all oppression.

We will not see this freedom until we are able to end violent government regimes. Violent governments like the ones in Israel, The United States, Russia, and more,

Many of the same exact issues Jesus was preaching against in his time walking through the lands we now call Palestine, Gaza, and Israel are the same things we are facing today. People in power, political and religious leaders, using their power to oppress, to control, to gain wealth, land, and fame. And yet the biggest supporters of this current genocide in that regions are Christians.

They claim his name, yet they don’t understand his message. They have ears but do not hear.

It’s so deeply disheartening to simply be one person trying to balance joy and despair. Trying to hold the love of my friends and family close to my heart. To grieve my own personal losses this year and also holding this unjust war in my heart and mind. I can post, I can donate, I can email politicians, but it doesn’t feel like it will ever be enough or actually make change. My power is so small compared to the power of whole governments.

I try to remember that when enough of the population believes strongly in a cause change does come, and even slow change is still change. I can’t lose heart. I need this joy and love of Christmas to feed my spirit so I can keep showing up for those who are fighting to simply survive. It’s ok to take a moment to enjoy my family, to enjoy the food, the drinks, the lights, the movies, and all the wonderful parts of this my favorite time of year, Christmas time.

The world is non-binary. We can hold multiple truths at once. The world is a beautiful, joyous place filled with wonderful things, and there are atrocities large and small happening in real time all over the world that we all need to work together to end. 

One of the most powerful things we as humans can do is find joy in the darkness. On these the shortest days of the year we light up our homes and streets with lights and candles and we find there is much to celebrate even among the darkness. Humans have been celebrating during the dark days of winter for as long as they have walked the planet. This is a tradition that goes deeper than I understand, even if the exact traditions change over the years and millenia.

This year I am struggling, but yet I am finding there is room in my heart and soul to hold all these truths at once. 

May you also find space in yourself for both mourning and joy. For pain and celebration. For darkness and light. For love and longing.

Don’t give up. The world needs you.

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A Moment in the Front Yard

The Japanese maple greedily hangs on to its crimson leaves. The air is cool and crisp, but not too cold for a quick walk to the trash bin in a simple white tee.

The squirrels that live in the blue spruce are gnawing loudly on the fruit of the nearby hawthorn. Its late in the year and food is becoming scarce for them. I’ve recently started feeding them; whole unsalted peanuts and vegetables from the refrigerator. They love snap peas, but will also happily accept a carrot or peice of broccoli.

I pretend I can tell them apart, but I can’t. If I keep spending time with them maybe I will eventually be able to.

My wife takes pictures of them with her zoom lens and I try to find distinguishing features. I can only tell the younger ones from the older ones, nothing more. I wonder how long I will even be able to tell this years babies apart from the adults.

The front yard is their domain. I try to keep the dogs out of it so the squirrels can live in peace.

It is October 24th and it has been raining for several days straight. So much rain. The thirsty ground, plants, and animals have been happily drinking it. In this moment though, the rain has paused. The sun is shining though a space in the clouds in the western sky.

I soak up the moment.

This is how you survive the long Oregon winters; you find the small moments, where the sun is shining, and you bask in it, refilling your internal battery, in hopes it sustains you until the suns return.

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Everything Changes

When you realize you are trans everything changes. There is no going back. There is no unknowing.

When you come out things change again. When you start living as yourself things get both easier and harder. You become happier, more comfortable, more easy going among close friends. But all other aspects of your life have new challenges.

Will I feel safe using the restroom? How will they react when I change my name on my account? Will this person think I am a man or woman? How will they treat me based on which ever assumption they come to? If they dead name me is it worth correcting them? Can I just go to a new shop next time and abandon this account? Is it worth connecting with that old friend just to explain who I am? Should I bother telling anyone here my pronouns? Which pronouns will they default to? Is this a place where they call people “Ma’am” or “Sir”? If I try to pitch my voice a bit will I pass better? Do I have the right paper work and ID to make the changes I need? Will they understand what is even happening?

Will I be safe?

Every interaction in public has a new layer of danger added. It’s exhausting.

You will lose friends. Some over outright transphobia and many more over subtle transphobia, transphobia they swear they don’t even have, but they do.

We all have transphobia, well, at least all of us white Americans do. We are raised with it. We are raised in a gender binary that doesn’t teach us to cross or deviate from those binaries except in very specific ways, mostly that women are allowed to be masculine…at times… as long as they understand underneath they are still women and act feminine at the times men deem it most important.

It is the same as racism and sexism, it is so deeply embedded in our culture that it can only be dealt with by looking it head on, and most people don’t take time to do that until someone very close to them comes out. By that point it may be too late to save that relationship with that trans person who in your life.

There are some downsides to the LGBTQIA+ community being lumped together and thats that many people see LGBTQ as simply “LG”. They don’t really think about any of those other letters. They are still thinking in strict binaries and only thinking of sexual attraction. They think that now that gay marriage is legal things are pretty ok for all those “alphabet folks.” When really there is so much work to do for all queer folks, but right now especially trans people.

Most allies don’t think all that much about what they are doing to counter their transphobia. So it left to us trans people and our parents, spouses, and children, to do the work. To educate, to lobby, to bear the brunt of the constant comments and little micro aggressions. To have your life constantly the but of jokes, and to also be in charge of fixing that.

We carry it with us every day after we realize who we are. That we are different from most of you, that we have to give up our safety to find our freedom, in a way those of you are not trans will never understand.

If you are reading this and you haven’t educated yourself deeply on our commonly held transphobic attitudes in this country take the time to do so. This is your wake up call, go learn some stuff. Google some resources.


I want to add that I recognize that many other in our society, especially Black people in America, face the same struggles, without the possibility of “passing” as a way to keep safe in white America. And those at the intersection of Blackness and transness bare this burden even more deeply.

This is why we all need to continually work to dismantle our internalized racism, ableism, transphobia, sexism, as well as working to dismantle our systems designed to keep all marginalized people from experiencing their best lives.

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Men are from Earth and Women are from Earth

One thing that I really wish cis people would understand is that boys and girls, men and women, aren’t that different.

I grew up constantly being told how different they were, how it was built in, it was intrinsic.

Men’s brains are like spaghetti, womens are like waffles.

Men are impulsive, women think ahead.

Girls are kind and sweet, boys are rude and loud.

Hey everyone, I just want you to know, it’s all bullshit. It’s all made up.

Its ok though, it’s actually better that way.

It means we understand each other more than we ever thought.

It means each of us gets to be our true selves.

Think of every gender trait you should embody but don’t.

Think of every time you aren’t “man enough” or “women enough.”

Now think about how none of that actually is real or matters. Let it all go.

Let it go for yourself, your partner, your kids, your parents, your friends.

Sometimes people try to back up these ideas with brain structure, which there is no modern science to back up.

Every older study which showed a difference between the sexes brains was actually just sexism at play. There is no real brain differences between the sexes.

People will then say, well its hormones, it’s the hormones make us different.

And I can attest that hormones do affect how you feel to a degree, but having lived in both an estrogen dominant body and a testosterone dominant body I’m here to say, it’s different, but not that much different.

My day to day thinking and feelings, and way of being in the world is still basically the same.

There were times I struggled with being irritable before and there are times I do now.

There were times I felt joy before and times I do now.

There were times I was sad before and times I’m sad now.

I still experience every feeling in the same way.

There just is no big significant biological difference between men and women that should or could be used to possibly justify the insane gender differences our culture expects and even demands.

Men and women both experience strong feelings of every type. They both experience the word in extremely diverse ways that are not tied to their sex. Its tied to being a human in a body.

I just want people to stop acting like men and women are different species.

We are all people, and we are at a basic level all the same.

So have some goddamn empathy for each other, becuase you are all far more alike than you are different.

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Depression

The last few weeks I’ve been struggling really hard with depression.

The last two days… I’ve suddenly felt a lot better. So now, I have an even clearer view on just how deep I was.

It was bad. And the worst part is that I know it will come back. It might be tomorrow or in a week. If I’m lucky it will be years. But most likely sooner than later, because the biggest stressors that led to this most recent bout aren’t going away.

There is still a pandemic. It is the worst it’s ever been.

My business is still mostly closed. I can’t host sessions, or classes, or lessons. The things I designed my business to do and the things that make us the most money.

Luckily I do have the retail side of the shop and I’ve really bulked it up since March when we closed the first time.

This pandemic has really stretched my problem solving skills.

But you can only problem solve yourself so far.

A week or two ago I was agonizing over the fact that I couldn’t come up with the perfect plan to make up that lost income. I couldn’t figure out a way to hold outside sessions, or a venue to do lessons. I just couldn’t problem solve my way out of it. That was one of the biggest things that pushed me deeper into a place where I felt hopeless and I mostly shut down.

I’ve had moments of suicide ideation over the past few weeks. I’ve never been in any danger. I know how to handle it well enough when it comes and when it’s bad enough to get help.

The fact that it happened at all was scary and alarming though. I don’t think I’ve felt that since before I went on testosterone.

I’ve been scared to write about this or even talk about it for fear that people would think my depression is transition related. I don’t want people to think that it is becuase I’m on HRT or becuase I had surgery.

My transition is one of my greatest sources of joy! But that joy can’t out weight the heaviness of nine months of pandemic.

The only reason I am still in my home is thanks to our loan companies generous forbearance program. The only reason we have most of our bills paid (not all) and have food on the table is thanks the the generosity of friends and various aid programs.

Christmas time has brought out even more generosity in our friends and family and that has helped lighten the load on my shoulders.

Today a friend was able to give me the exact gift my son asked for this Christmas. The only thing he named which would have cost me over $100, she had in her basement and was ready to pass on.

Several friends have sent us money this month, from very small amounts to larger amounts and I greatly appreciate every dollar.

The other night frozen pizzas, soda, and a salad appeared on our doorstep.

These acts of community have lifted me out of my slump.

I also upped my dose of testosterone a bit this week after my 1 year results came back on the very low end of normal. I am absolutely sure that has played a role in my feeling better.

The reasons both for becoming depressed and for coming out of it are complex and impossible to know completely, but I know the pandemic is the largest contributor.

If you read this and you live in the US, please, stay home this holiday season. If you must see other people keep it close to home, keep it small, keep it masked.

Our lives are in your hands, and all gatherings are dangerous right now.

We can do this. We can stay home this Christmas so more people can live to see another year. Vaccines are coming. We just need a few more months to get them rolled out. Stay strong and stay home.

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Doubt and Comfort

As I move ever closer to my transition goals, my top surgery, my name change, the increasing effects of testosterone, it seems I become more comfortable in who I am and experience less dysphoria. This lessening of dysphoria has me feeling more doubt. If I’m so comfortable, do I really need these things?


Suddenly the few places I need to use my old name still don’t bother me so much. Does that mean I never should have changed it in the first place? Or am I just content that knowing within a few months it will be essentially erased from most people’s memories and most legal documents. Is the light at the end of the tunnel making the remainder of the tunnel more bearable?


There is a peacefulness I feel some days that is what I imagine most cis people live with all the time. I’m increasingly comfortable in my body, my name, my identity. I love myself. I like being me. I like being a guy, a man, a queer man, a non-binary man. I’m becoming comfortable enough that those daily little annoyances of hearing my old name, or being called “she” just bounce off a little easier.

This peace and love makes me question if I needed all this hard work the past year and a half. All the sudden, I’m wondering if I should back out of top surgery. Yet I still work hard each day to make my chest as small as possible.

It’s strange that this happiness and doubt come hand in hand. But if you handed me my 2017 body and name and asked me if I would be just as happy with that I would shudder in discomfort.

I’ve just come so fucking far since spring of 2019 when I first started realizing I was trans. I’ve come so far. Sometimes I just need to take a big deep breath and sit in that accomplishment.

Coming out may have been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. So hard I didn’t even do it all at once. I did it extremely slowly over about a 6 month period. But by October 2019 most people who knew me knew I was trans. Its a year later now.

I’ve made it this far and now I have another big step ahead of me.

My top surgery is October 6th. Thats 11 days from right now.

I’m scared and I’m ready.

See ya’ll on the other side, as literally a new man.

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International Women’s Day

One year ago I made a post celebrating my “women owned business.” We were just over one month away from the grand opening and working like crazy to finish the build. It was just one short month after the opening that I had my gender crisis™️.

Owning a business slowed down my coming out pretty significantly. I realized I was “Not-cis” so quickly after I opened the business. I had been on TV and in the paper and met hundreds of people in person how could they now possibly learn that I’m not who I just said I was.

I tried to just not come out for several months. It didn’t work. I was starting to loose it a little bit being one person at home and another at work/in public. I needed to be fully me.

Here we are a year later and I’m fully out. Lots of people still don’t really know or if they do they don’t get it. Most people still see me as a women. I’m not.

Upon my gender crisis™️ last May the first thing I knew for sure was I was definitely not a cis woman. I wasn’t sure what I was, but I knew what I wasn’t. I very quickly started using they/them pronouns and I still use them today.

This year’s international women’s day was hard. I didn’t feel right hanging out with my skater friends at an international women’s day event. I didn’t feel right at all. I was exhausted physically from a big event yesterday, and exhausted emotionally from being misgendered about 1000 times at the event. Then just add some sensory overload to all that from the same event and you’ve got a big mess.

After an early morning at work I was home at 2pm and spent nearly three hours in bed on and off napping. I woke up just feeling the weight of not fitting in.

I don’t fit in with men. I don’t fit in with women. I just don’t fit. I never have.

I’ve come to terms with my identity as a non-binary trans man, and I’m totally open to that identity potentially changing or evolving in the future, but it feels like no one else has accepted that’s who I am. People don’t do much to acknowledge it. Only those in my inner circle get my pronouns/titles correct. Most people still call me she/mom/wife.

Today, fortunately, is the day of the week my wonderful non-binary support group meets. I was able to be heard about how hard today is and have some people empathize with me in these feelings. I’ve also spent some time texting with some really supportive folks, some who have experienced transition themselves.

I needed that reminder that I am not alone. There are other people who this is their first year realizing they aren’t a women. Or maybe their relationship to womanhood has changed. Maybe this is the first year they are celebrating being a women, as is the case for my partner.

Today is not bad, it’s just complicated. I have a complicated past with womanhood and a lot of baggage to work though still. Gender is hard and I’m here for the ride.

Next year should be a whole lot easier.

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Three Months on Testosterone Update

Three months in and life is good.

There is a part of me that is more happy and at peace than ever before. There is another part of me that is constantly disappointed and frustrated. It feels like the part of me that was frustrated with my gender has just morphed to now be frustrated with the way the world responds to my gender.

Lets start there.

For the first time in a long I have a growing sense of character. I know who I am. But this can be hard to communicate to people who have never struggled with their gender, especially because I don’t fit easily into the gender binary. Even though I feel comfortable with calling myself a trans man now I still strongly identify as non-binary. My full answer to who I am gender wise is, “I am AJ, a non-binary trans man.” That’s too much for most people though.

Depending on my audience I introduce my gender identity differently. Usually in introductions in queer or progressive spaces I just boil it down to “I’m trans” and let them figure out what they think that means. Only in small trans or non-binary specific spaces do I bother to explain the whole thing.

Most of the time moving though the world though, I’m not introducing myself. People see me and they make an assumption of my gender, as we all do in our strongly gendered western society. 99% of the time they gender me as female. “Good morning Ma’am” “Thanks Miss” “Nice Lady” I get these all. the. time. every. single. day.

Twice now someone has greeted me as “Sir” and then “corrected” themselves to “Ma’am.” These interactions give me hope. I’m starting to confuse a few people. Confusion is better than being read as female all the damn time.

This is one of the only negative parts of my transition thus far. Each day being misgendered over and over starts to wear on you. You get tired and frustrated and sometimes I just need to go home and have a really big cry. I think any man walking though the world being called a woman non-stop would feel similarly frustrated. I expect many would react much more angrily in the moment, whereas most of the time I just grimace and move on.

Passing is complicated and problematic, but I would rather be read as a man than a woman if I had to choose. The lack of this out in the world can really get me down.

Let’s move on to the good stuff.

I’m happy. Overall I’m happy and less stressed and less anxious than I was a year ago. All of my close friends get my name right now and most of them get my pronouns correct (they/them). I love this. It makes me feel right inside. There are times people deadname me, and I honestly don’t realize they are talking to me. Changing my name to something not strongly gendered has allowed me to fully explore who I am with less baggage and expectations that come with a strongly gendered name.

I enjoy seeing myself in the mirror (at least above the chest) which is something I’ve never experienced before. I used to look in the mirror and see a stranger, I would stare at them and say “Who are you?” Now I see a boy hitting adolescence, just a bit later than most do and I smile. Even though my cowlicks frustrate me, I enjoy doing my hair. I love getting tips from other guys on how to style it. I have a reason to care for the person in the mirror, I like them. I want to be them. I want to be this version of me.

I need to shave now. I LOVE shaving. It’s one of the single most affirming things I’ve ever done.

My dad died so young I have very few memories of him, none of him shaving. But I remember strongly staying over at my cousin’s house at a young age and watching their dad shave in the morning. I was fascinated. I remember the smell of the shaving cream, the water running, him rinsing the razor and looking closely in the mirror. Now I have enough facial hair to need to do the same every few weeks or look like patchy 14 year old boy (which looks extra weird when you have a large chest ). I’m obsessed with my mustache stubble (the only part that feels like real stubble so far, just give me another year or two) and I’m looking forward to being able to really rock the full stubble look.

I love the way my relationship with my partner has changed. This might be the most wonderful and fulfilling part of it everything so far. She understands what I need better than anyone in the world. She knows when to throw those masculine terms in to just make me perk up and help me feel great. She also understands that most of the time I feel best with neutral terms and pronouns. She just gets it, and the way we interact has changed a lot, for the better. We are constantly checking in with each other about gender stuff, and looking out for each other. We communicate well and affirm each other in new and wonderful ways.

There is something different about the energy I exude now. It just feels very masculine and just… right. I know that sounds woo as shit, but I really don’t know how else to explain it. It’s taken me a long time to allow myself space to feel and express myself in this way becuase its always always felt off limits. The space I inhabit mentally feels like it’s less work now, less of a performance and more natural. I can just be.

More practically speaking (and the question most often asked), is about how I feel physically. Being on Testosterone has made me hungry, horny, hot, and hairy. Also pimply. The acne is getting really bad, but it comes in waves. One week it will be awful and painful and everywhere, and the next week will be mostly ok. From what I understand this will get worse over the coming months, and then, hopefully, slowly better. I have a routine and it seems to be helping, but it’s just part of the process of going through some extra puberty.

I’m so hungry that some days I feel like I can’t stop eating. I’ve definitely gained weight, and gotten larger in both my gut and my shoulders. I’ve gone up a shirt size, but my pants still fit fine. I’m not a gym rat, but I try to do full body strength training at home a few times a week and I went from barely being able to do pushups to doing ten quite easily in a very short while. I’m looking forward to continuing to gain strength and very much looking forward to some fat redistribution, even if it means a bigger belly.

I don’t want to go too deep on the horny part except to say it’s confusing and hard to work though and somehow good all at once. My whole experience of sexuality is shifting so massively despite the fact that I don’t experience much in the way of sexual attraction. It seems like something that’s still evolving rapidly at this point.

I’m hotter. I’m just straight up warmer than I used to be. I’m not in hoodies and shivering all the time. I’m sweating at the skatepark when its 65 degrees, and then I come home to our 70 degree house and it feels like a furnace. I wake up sweaty at night and pull of all my blankets. I’m very worried about summer, as I already don’t do well in heat. I will be getting our pool fixed before any hot days come and probably have the AC on more often!

Lastly, the hair. I already talked about shaving above, but I’ve already got more body hair, and I love it. Every time I get out of the shower I take stock of how much its grown and I revel in it. At least one trans friend of mine is jealous (haha, sorry dude). Lots of trans guys want body hair and struggle to grow it. That’s not gonna be a problem for me, the men in my family tend to be pretty hairy, so it’s in my genes and I can literally see the progress every week. I’m going be a short bear before you know it.

Overall, I’m so happy with where I am and where I am going. There are growing pains along the way, but no real growth comes easily.



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I Also Make Youtube Videos Sometimes

I’ve made a few videos while I’m doing my Testosterone shot at home. I’ve actually started to enjoy this. I don’t edit them or script them. I turn on my camera on my phone and talk for 5-10 minutes. Today I made a thumbnail for the first time!

So sit down and watch some trans thoughts™ if that sounds interesting to you.

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Don’t Grieve Me

Coming out is a slow hard process.

I started doing it slowly, but eventually had to kind of do it all at once when I decided I needed everyone in my life to call me AJ.

There are a lot of peripheral people in my life I don’t see very often. Some I haven’t seen in years. They don’t necessarily read my blog or follow my instagram or my youtube channel.

The word is getting around. They are finding out I am trans, they are finding out I’m changing my name and pronouns. They are finding out I am on testosterone. They are finding out I want top surgery.

They are finding out from family and friends. They aren’t talking to me or asking me questions.

They are reacting. And the reactions are mixed.

Today I heard about one family member who cried. She cried tears of loss in hearing I’m transitioning. She told my mom she was sorry for her loss.

My Mom had a bit of hard time at the beginning of all this, but now she’s an incredible ally. She tells people, “My kid is happy, why would I be sad?”

Today we talked openly about names. I said “I want to go by AJ, but when I legally change my name I want to write a full name and I want your opinion on what that should be.” She suggested “Al” becuase that’s what she’s called me for much of my life. I don’t want to put “Al” on my legal documents. Maybe Alex, becuase Al could be short for that. I told her I liked Adam, which is what I know she would have named me if I had been assigned male at birth.

She was worried about me picking a name that belonged to one of my cousins. I reminded her I wouldn’t be going by that new name necessarily, I really like AJ, and even if I did, I haven’t been in the same room as one of those cousins in probably 10 years.

We didn’t discuss this, but I literally have two sisters both named Sam (blended families ya’ll). People having the same name isn’t that big of a deal.

The difference between my mom, and those other people who cried, is that she is celebrating with me. She is choosing to listen, directly to me, and learn both from me and from other resources about trans people and trans experinces. She’s also known me my whole life and isn’t terribly surprised. I spent most of my childhood trying to be one of the boys.

Not every trans person pushed against their assigned gender from a young age. But I definitely did.


Grieving me when you aren’t even listening to me is the worst thing I can hear. If you care, call. If you care, listen. If you care, learn.

People aren’t bothering to even learn the very basics of trans identities and it fucking hurts.

I’m still me. I’m the exact same person I’ve always been. I’m the best version of myself yet. I’ve had so much time to grow and learn. I’ve moved though careers and life stages and I even run my own damn business now!

I love my life. I love it so much.


I can’t imagine still holding on to the role of woman that was so uncomfortable for so long. It just wasn’t right. It never was. Not when I was 3 or 13 or 33.

I’m learning to love myself as a trans person, and I wish you could learn to love me too.

Don’t grieve me. Celebrate me. Because for the first time in my entire life, I’m starting to do that. I’m celebrating myself, I’m celebrating myself as a trans man and I just want my family and friends to get to know me and celebrate with me.

I like myself enough now that I take regular selfies. I never would have thought I could like a picture of myself a year ago! Now I love almost all of them!