Note to a 20 Year Old Tranny

To a list participant:

You see things clearly, and that is a gift. 

You see where others are holding their defenses, the twists in their thinking, the way that they self-sabotage and more,

One of the hard things about emerging later as a transperson is the amount of un-learning to be done, re-evaluating all that energy and sweat and treasure invested in denial.   That can easily make us crazy.

You have the burning light in you, that sight from the liminal spaces between that reveals.  It is a blessing, and like any blessing it is a curse.

I understand your frustration with people who don’t think about what they say, who just blurt out their own twists, so clearly cockamamie.

You have vision now, and you will have vision in thirty years from now, in ways that old people like me can’t even imagine.  Heck, I’m not sure that even you can imagine your future, because all the best things that happened to me were unimaginable before they happened.  The road curves, and around that bend lies the new.

Keep the passion, the enthusiasm, the challenge and the light. 

I just remember the best advice I got as a young, bright person, even with my trans buried deep: don’t spit into the wind.  Fight the fights that get what you need, sure, but if I just picked fights with everyone I knew had it wrong, I would have no time for me.

You are a treasure, a young and vibrant flower in a wilting garden.  I hope you have the calm to just let your presence transform the world around you, your beauty make the world new, and not have to fight all the time like I felt I needed to.

But it’s your life and you have decades to get it right.

I’m sure you will make a great job of it.