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How Must it Feel To Be Trans?
How Must it Feel To Be Trans?
Written November 2024, two year after coming out
Next time someone's pronouns inconvenience you, ask yourself how they must feel. Ask yourself, what it must feel like to wake one day, a stranger in your own body, and realize you’ve been playing some role your whole life–that the person you thought you were, that you’ve been living as your whole life, doesn’t exist. Will you one day realize that no one you’ve ever loved has even met you, and now, you don’t even know who that is?
How must it feel to be trans, each time some fourteen-year-old trans girl is found dismembered at the bottom of a lake? Or beaten to death by their parents? Or sexually abused in their shelter after they were disowned? Or bullied into suicide? Or killed themselves, finding that preferable to living life as themself? How must it feel to be trans in a world where spreading conspiracy theories makes monsters millions and wins them office? How must it feel to feel out of place in your body, then mocked for it? To grow up being told you're not really a man, then be bullied for not trying to fake it.
Ask yourself how it must feel to wake and wonder when the only name you’ve ever known became a slur--that hearing it would become a reminder you aren’t seen as who you are? What would it feel like to live in stranger’s skin? Breath a stranger's breath? See through a stranger’s eyes? Dress a stranger’s body each day in the dark, one leg at a time?
Do you worry that you’ll never become yourself--the person you could have been if the world just let you be? Do you worry there’s not a person alive who could possibly ever truly know you, including you? Do you worry that your family, friends, and anyone else you’ll ever love could only ever know the image you’ve been forced to embody for your safety? Do you wonder if you’ll ever be loved for who you truly are?
Have you lost internships and jobs because some new regime requires conversion therapy for trans personnel? Have you had every opportunity you've ever earned disregarded as diversity obligation?
How must it feel to be reminded every single day, by strangers and loved ones alike, that you will only ever be perceived as someone you’ve never been. Ask yourself how humiliating and degrading it must feel to have to constantly ask for others to treat you as you are.
Next time you roll your eyes at my pronouns, complain about neo pronouns, find yourself bothered by someone you think is a "diversity hire," or whine about someone's use of the singular they, ask yourself how must it feel to be trans in this world.
Selfie taken in my freshman dorm bathroom in Ozanam Hall the day I turned 18 (above).
Pirates and Planets
Pirates and Planets
Written April 6, 2023, my last day of childhood*
Was I really just too optimistic?I really thought I’d be OdysseusI was going to be mysterious and party like Dionysus,but maybe I was oblivious to what was really realistic.Is growing up realizing I can’t do it all? That my time here issimply too finite—80 years, if I’m lucky?
I was going to be this capricious pirate, a pilot, a tyrant.I was going to start riots and protest for the climate.I was going to be a delinquent, a scoundrel, a hero, an outlaw.I wanted to be a mystic, stylistic, a novelist, an anarchist.I’d wake a refined aristocrat and be Robin Hood by noon.I’d have been an actor, an artist, an animal handler, and an astronaut.
I’d be the smartest. I’d talk like stardust, and walk with lustI’d write poems and insist hijinks always be a must.I’d be the center of focus, a famous dissenter, a notorious offender.I'd prove the Riemann Hypothesis the Collatz conjectures easily, and get mai tais after.
But to the great thiefs called time and decay, must I surrender?Is this it? Work away my life--seeing friends at the fringes and sleeping in when I'm old? What no one seemed to understand is that I wasn’t kidding when I said I’ddo it all—that I’d be the first child to walk on Mars,the greatest pianist to have ever lived, president of the free world, and the solver of every millennium problem.
And you know what? I still might.80 years is 4,160 weeks. That's 29,120 days, which is 698,880hours, 41,932,800 minutes, or 2,515,968,000 seconds packed tothe brink with adventure. Whoever said that’s not long enough tosail the skies, raise the seas, move mountains, live in the Amazon, and lead arevolution misplaced their creativity and breathed no life intotheir dreams.
After all, there’s still wine to taste, treasure to find, physics tostudy, medicine to learn, languages to know, disciplines tomaster, tragedies to mourn, people to meet, heartbreak to feel,eyes to swim in, trees to climb, friends to make, art toshare, and so many more adventures to be had.
Take my hand and come with me for the ride of a lifetime. Otherwise, you’ll see me in the stars, the news, and the history books.
I was going to be this capricious pirate, a pilot, a tyrant.I was going to start riots and protest for the climate.I was going to be a delinquent, a scoundrel, a hero, an outlaw.I wanted to be a mystic, stylistic, a novelist, an anarchist.I’d wake a refined aristocrat and be Robin Hood by noon.I’d have been an actor, an artist, an animal handler, and an astronaut.
I’d be the smartest. I’d talk like stardust, and walk with lustI’d write poems and insist hijinks always be a must.I’d be the center of focus, a famous dissenter, a notorious offender.I'd prove the Riemann Hypothesis the Collatz conjectures easily, and get mai tais after.
But to the great thiefs called time and decay, must I surrender?Is this it? Work away my life--seeing friends at the fringes and sleeping in when I'm old? What no one seemed to understand is that I wasn’t kidding when I said I’ddo it all—that I’d be the first child to walk on Mars,the greatest pianist to have ever lived, president of the free world, and the solver of every millennium problem.
And you know what? I still might.80 years is 4,160 weeks. That's 29,120 days, which is 698,880hours, 41,932,800 minutes, or 2,515,968,000 seconds packed tothe brink with adventure. Whoever said that’s not long enough tosail the skies, raise the seas, move mountains, live in the Amazon, and lead arevolution misplaced their creativity and breathed no life intotheir dreams.
After all, there’s still wine to taste, treasure to find, physics tostudy, medicine to learn, languages to know, disciplines tomaster, tragedies to mourn, people to meet, heartbreak to feel,eyes to swim in, trees to climb, friends to make, art toshare, and so many more adventures to be had.
Take my hand and come with me for the ride of a lifetime. Otherwise, you’ll see me in the stars, the news, and the history books.
*technifically, I became an adult in 2018 at my Bar Mitzvah.
If You Could See Me Now
If You Could See Me Now
Written Sunday, January 28 2025, the second day of a National Physics Conference
I tour national laboratories, gazing wide-eyed with your eyesI travel the country, speaking at conferences with your voice I build community, teaching my friends your card gamesI excel in school, channeling your work ethicI persevere, embodying your mental fortitude,And I love with all the heart you gave me
When I am sick and my body fights the infection or I bite my lip in worry and blood starts to clot, I know it’s because you’re in me, fighting.Any time I love myself, it’s you loving me through my blood, bones, veins, and spiritensuring I am cared for, ensuring I go on.
Because of you, I am less self-conscious that my right eye opens just slightly more than my left.You were the most beautiful person I’ve ever met, and your right eye opened just slightly more than your left.I love with your gaze and cry through your eyes.
The comfort of finding your trace in me only makes me miss you more.I miss you in each game of cards and in each warm day with a gentle breeze.I miss you in each loving hug and witty remark.I miss you in each family gathering, hearing your accent in Paul’s and soothing words in Mom’s.
Occasionally, I sit out on some patio and close my eyes. I feel the sun on my face and a gentle breeze grasping my arms. On special days, if I listen really close and concentrate so deeply, I can almost hear your voice telling me, “It is what it is,” and asking, “What can you do?” A silent and peaceful pause comes, and we both take in the beautiful day. A lazy gust of wind comes by, bringing the familiar rush of palm trees rushing--your words still, and forever, hanging in the air, "I love you, a bushel and a peck."
I miss you terribly, Ellie
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