More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
One moment a trans woman is before you, solid, alive, laughing, then you hear she was spotted sleeping in Port Authority, or you get a call from a psych ward, or worse.
There is simply no knowing a thing if it is self-secret, perhaps because that thing refuses to know itself in your presence. It is like a valley, spread out before you, hiding in plain sight.
“There are only two reasons I’ve ever heard people give for desisting: not getting work and not getting touched.”
The outer transition is well-marked—name change, hair, wardrobe, medical steps, coming out, etc. But the inner transition, the thousand gateless gates, and the somatic permission that blesses you from within, is something I’d never heard about.
Until we are out, our lives are completely defined by others. We are afraid to ask for things, such as a job, or more appropriate clothing or pronouns—or a college recommendation. We are afraid to take up space.
If I do this back flip there’s no telling what I’ll do next. Or maybe I’ll keep it a secret, and remain an ordinary civilian, humble and quiet as I’ve been, though with the knowledge of what I’m capable of buzzing inside me.
But I have yet to meet a trans person of any age who isn’t filled with regret for not transitioning sooner.
if you saw that you were trans, you’d be powerfully compelled to transition, and if you did that you would be in danger from those who regard you as subhuman.
if you were offered everything you wanted, in exchange for being unable to live in your gender, you wouldn’t take that deal, which is the deal forced on every trans person at birth.
