When I speak with new friends about their perception of me, I often hear this feeling of assuredness, control, and purpose. 

I had a laugh with a colleague of mine recently, who was in disbelief when I disclosed my astrological sign, Cancer.

When I asked how I read, they said, Leo. You’re someone who naturally, and silently commands respect. 

I’m always in awe with such interactions. From my vantage, I’m still that queer kid from Alabama.

The one who was regularly bullied. Who was never sure of their place, or how others viewed them. 

To this date, I still check in with myself.

Do I feel comfortable in my skin? Am I making this choice for me, or for the approval of others?  

Up until recently, this unknowing was a real detriment in my life. 

Managing the misalignment between my sense of self and other peoples’ expectations has felt inescapable at times, in turn, manifesting into multiple bouts of mental illness over the years, including diagnoses of anxiety disorder and depression. 

The panic attacks began somewhere around 2021.

Amplified by the pressures of ‘pursuing the dream,’ of moving to a new city, graduate school, working multiple jobs, and being financially independent for the first time in life. 

I have engaged in many forms of care to address my mental health. I journal, have regular check-ins with friends, exercise, and practice mindfulness and yoga.

I’ve gone through four or five therapists, and have tried antidepressants.

I made it about a year on Lexopro, but could never stomach how it hollowed me out and deprived me of feeling joyful in the present moment. 

A remedy which I loved but stopped recently is ketamine therapy.

I would say ketamine was successful, but only addressed symptoms, and never the root cause. Ketamine brought my physical and mental into alignment. 

Creating brief windows in time, where, for only a moment, I could be present-minded, intentional about identifying spaces within my mind, body, and spirit that need restoration. 

But still, it was not enough. 

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The past two years have been pivotal for me in reclaiming my mental health and restoring my confidence. 

In therapy I have been on a long journey of unpacking and unlearning all the ways my environment has compromised my own personal sense of free will.

To channel that version of myself that is the child. The child that, for many reasons, I felt I was not allowed to be.

Gender affirming care has been most effective in addressing my mental health, because it intercepts at this place. 

The softening of my features, which have come from hormone replacement therapy, has allowed people to see me in ways that feel more affirming, including the way I see myself. 

Manifested, not only through changes from HRT, but also through social transition, acts such as growing my hair, changing my wardrobe, and going by Opal. 

All of these things have worked in alignment to build my self esteem and make me feel more mentally well.

They help me feel more comfortable in social environments so I can build healthy relationships. 

Even if it’s misguided, gender affirming care has expanded people’s idea of who I can be, and, in that way, has liberated the child.

To once again dream and explore, to feel entitled to a path that is uniquely their own. 

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I feel called to speak out about my gender affirming care journey for multiple reasons. 

For one, the current political administration has a vested interest in dismantling care for gender non-conforming people. 

I want folks to know this is genuine healthcare. Treatment which actively boosts my wellbeing.

However, I also wrote this piece to clear a common misconception. 

I regularly hear trans people argue, being born in the wrong body, and, at least for me, this is furthest from true.

I also believe this narrative does little to address the real issue at hand.

All the time, well-meaning people, allies, family, and friends bring me this script as a means of empathy.

But, I redirect. 

If I must answer for my bodily dysphoria, I will do so exclusively to make the problem more certain. 

I answer to seduce the aspects of any individual’s character, those parts which have been regulated to the underbelly of public life.

To remind them that we are invited to a greater project. 

Recognizing, at least within the realm of my supervision, that any society which sustains itself from an unchanging way of being, is a certain danger to us all.  

For me, being trans is not about having ‘the wrong parts,’ or being a woman born in a man’s body.

I am in no way regretful of the body God has given me. 

Being trans is simply an acknowledgement. 

That the relationship between my body and its capacity to enact itself, something, probably related to neurological pathways, the technical thing inside of me which produces an essence, has become moderated by something beyond my control. 

A fixed set of images and practices assigned habitually from childbirth to death.

From hospitals, to schools, and most certainly in our homes and places of work, notions of what it means to be legitimate or normal are often regulated by force. 

A social apparatus so omnipresent, roles become interpreted as “clearly” derived from anatomic, genetic, and biological predispositions. 

And as a guiding principle of this structure, deviations from one’s pre-assigned role is discerned in public consciousness as aversions to nature.

An offense so great, it is routinely punished by means of scorn, violence, or death. 

Alternatively to the wrong-body hypothesis, I name my bodily dysphoria as a response to these conditions.  

Such a position feeds a more essential mission.

That, in fact, if our necks were freed from this hostile mode of living, perhaps we may all live freely. 

Let gender be a metaphor.

Let it be the individual, somewhat, and only a little more certainly, at the helm of their destination.

Of figuring out what is best for oneself and their families of choosing.