Allusions To Illusions

In the past few years on TDOV I've just made some blithe joke about it, about visibility, and about being over both. But this year I can't find much to joke about, and I've found myself much more pensive.

Last Friday I laid my best friend to rest. She was a trans woman, and one of the boldest voices I've ever heard for trans people. I met her very early in my transition, and she was so crucial to my own process. Seeing her being openly trans, fierce and fiery, showed me that I too could realize myself and be happy in doing so.

While transphobia was not a direct part of her passing, it was a stone in the path. And we can see those same stones are a currently building highways in the US with increasing pace. I know people there, proud amazing trans people, who now have to make choices about their visibility. They worry about their jobs, their safety. Some are even considering fleeing, if they can. I worry for them, for what might happen as things progress. Even living here, in Canada, shielded by an assortment of privileges and ostensible protection of law, I worry what might happen here. As tolerant as Canada purports to be anything that grows in the US creeps across the border like mold. I can already see it starting to.

Its my friend's spirit that finds me today though. One that met the anxieties of visibility with a laugh. One that would extol the joys of being trans, the peace of fulfillment, the beauty in self-creation. One for who transness, even with its challenges, was still a blessing in its own.

Its that spirit I want to celebrate; to lift up and carry forward like a torch in these times that grow darker. I don't want that fire to get drowned out by fear.

So hi, I'm C.

I'm trans.