Lizard’s Meme Cave

i see it now, too, in the girls around me. i'll ask if they want care – a home-cooked meal, relaxed company, sex without the expectation of reciprocation – and they say no, no, thank you, i don't need it; what would you like, what do you want, because in their head they're still doing that awful calculus, still training themselves to disappear in the eyes of the people around them.

i don't think i'd have died without transition – not in the conventional sense, at least – but to take that leap, i had to stop thinking of myself as a human experiment in fuel-efficient living and start nurturing the anemic, atrophied flame of desire in my heart. i had to learn to eat well, to exercise, to style myself beautiful, but harder than that, i had to learn to ask the people around me to work on my behalf in order to enrich my life and give me the things i wanted.

and i did it; i learned. and it was agony, but courage is a muscle you can train, and every day i get better at accepting gifts with the hungry gratitude i never learned in my years and years as a sad, scared, lonely boy.

so be patient with the trans girls in your life. better than that: be proactive, attentive, generous; be forceful, if you have to, and learn to distinguish real discomfort from the terrified reflex of self-denial that so many of us once learned to rely on.

so many of my siblings, especially those who are awaiting or beginning transition, step into transgender life as fragile, apathetic beings who have spent their lives being coerced, beaten, and tricked into winnowing themselves to nothing, doing the work of the murderers for them, because they have been taught to believe that trans people deserve to live suspended, half-dead lives as punishment for their abhorrence.

they do not. you do not.

Gender dysphoria, to me, almost felt spiritual. Like my soul was burning away with the shame and guilt of merely existing in such a deviant, wrong state. I kept trying to make up for it, or dissociate away from it, or pray to God for forgiveness for a sin I couldn’t name.

Honestly, I felt like I had lived past my expiration date, that I had to give people everything they wanted, that I could never be good enough to get away from it all. I didn’t think I’d make it past 30. I was barely gonna make it past 25 tbh.

Then I did the most selfish thing I’ve ever done and I saved myself, first by coming out and then by asking for so much help. I needed help to pay for FFS, I needed help with pronouns and a name, I needed help and support with starting HRT and learning how to dress like I was born in a hospital and not in a paper bag. I needed to learn to eat and dress and clean up after myself like I cared about *me,* instead of trying to avoid disappointing others. I asked for advice from trans people, I asked for support from my family and friends, I asked for ideas from store employees, I had to talk to professors about my identity and asked them for support in calling me by my new name and pronouns in classes, I had to remake myself.

It was all worth it. Yesterday I woke up from bottom surgery covered by insurance. I have 6 weeks of FMLA because I asked my boss for help and he gave me the number of the person who manages FMLA requests. I’m being cared for by my beautiful, patient, generous wife ( @cintailed ) and I’ve accepted financial, physical, and emotional support from others. I am so glad I made it, so lucky I found the words, so grateful I had the support I needed.

Asking for help can be so scary, especially when it feels as if you were born with burning shame coursing through your blood. But please do it! Learn how! Start with small things, practice therapy skills like decision, acceptance, and cognitive reframing, and allow others to be a part of you, allow their kindness to become a part of your soul. If you water the seeds of kindness planted by others enough, eventually you can even be kind to yourself.

I sniffed her. and she smelled like. no penis.