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I wrote this for Pride last year, and I've been thinking about it, so resharing here.
Being trans means growing up knowing that words run through your core that can never be said. It means building a shell around those words, and knowing that this shell is all people want from you. It is watching yourself die inside as you live in a way that makes others comfortable. If these things sound familiar, you are probably gay, or trans, or some other flavor of queer. /1
Being trans and closeted means looking in the mirror every day and watching someone else grow old there. Waiting for time to pass. Your eyes go dead, your smiles are hollow. Your wife asks you why you are depressed and you can't say the words. Not to her, not to your therapist, not to anyone. Once they are spoken they can't be unsaid. They burn down everything. /2
Being trans means at some point the shell wears thin, the words get said, once, to yourself, twice to a friend, eventually to those you love. You fall into space. If you are very lucky, hands catch you. I got lucky. I was caught and held, first by my wife, then my family, and friends. Only my parents stood by as I fell from their view. /3
Being trans means knowing that one day long after you are dead, should your story be told, a bitter and wrinkled voice will say "She wasn't a woman", but it won't matter, because everyone you loved and everyone who ever truly loved you knew who you were, and that can never be taken away. /fin
