MOSTLY I FEEL GRATEFUL | THE GOTTMAN'S ON INSTAGRAM

When I think about those weeks and months before coming out as trans, my body goes back to this state of panic and fear. My chest tightens, my face flushes, I get that pit in my stomach. I can actually feel my shoulders rise to touch my ears. I was in such agony.

Not because I was afraid to transition. Not because I was scared I was making the wrong choices for my body, or that I didn’t know who I was. The idea of transition was euphoric.

TRANSITION WASN’T THE PROBLEM, PEOPLE’S REACTION TO MY TRANSITION WAS.

I was terrified because I thought that coming out as transgender, and actually walking through the world as I was meant to would mean that my worst fears would be true.

I would be unlovable.

My whole life, I was sure I was the only person like me, until I wasn’t.

And then when I did start to see transfolks in the media they were strong, and beautiful and fierce, but they were often oppressed, doing sex work to survive, and lonely, ultimately ending up murdered.

These stories are important too, because these are realities our community lives with, the epidemic of black trans women being murdered in the USA is being quietly swept under the rug, it’s still illegal to be queer in 69 countries in the world, and I’m still just trying to pee in a bathroom comfortably.

BUT WE ARE MAKING CHANGES.

We are seeing more representation of queer and trans folks everywhere. From Janet Mock rocking things over at Netflix to Silas Howard over at Amazon, representation is sprouting up all over the place, one tiny wildflower in fields of grass.

So when yesterday The Gottman Institute shared my blogpost “#CoupleGoals Where All My Role Models At?”

I felt all sorts of feels.

I was excited and thrilled of course, but mostly I felt GRATEFUL.

I felt grateful that my big, beautiful, queer family gets to show all sorts of people a different way to live, and love, and thrive in the world. We get to show all sorts of people that they can be whoever they are and find love.

And it shows trans kids, folks, their partners, their parents and their friends that they aren’t alone, they aren’t broken, they can and will be loved, and not just crappy settling for someone kind of love, but the BIG WONDERFUL BADASS KIND OF LOVE!

The fact that I’m trans is the least important part of the story, it’s just this little fun fact. A fun fact that’s not even included in the blogpost.

So thanks John and Julia.

Thank you.

Not just from me but from so many of us in the community who are empowered by seeing themselves represented in the mainstream.