After my parents’ divorce in 2001, I struggled to find anywhere that felt like home. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t had great living situations since then, just that it always felt rather temporary. People have been my home, not places. As time passed, I moved from place to place with my mother while she was trying to find her way post-divorce. Then I moved to the “Big City”-literally how my family refers to my large town of 40,000 people, where I reside. I have lived in about 14 apartments in 12 years. In 2020, I moved three times in just that one year. All of this is to paint you a picture of where I landed. Literally, since I can remember, at least some of my stuff has permanently lived in boxes. I’ve just never had the heart to unpack them. What’s the use? I’m just going to pack up and leave anyway, right?

Well, some things have changed. Mainly, I am absolutely ass over teakettle in love. Like IN LOVE. Like what poets write about. And that has me reevaluating the way I’ve been living, which has been mostly in boxes. I moved in with my girlfriend, Morgan, in February. And yes, it’s June, and I haven’t unpacked all my boxes yet. Slowly but surely, I keep chipping away at it, determined to make my stuff find its own home in our house. And I think mostly the reflection here is that, about a year and a half ago, I would have never thought that I would find myself unpacking all my shit to stay.

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For starters, I’m reintroducing myself. My name is Ava. I can explain where the name change came from and why, but I want to acknowledge something first. I’ve been thrown into and embracing a lot of change recently. I quit my job suddenly without explanation. I moved in with and started working with my partner, relying solely on my own means to make money. It’s been hard and stressful, to say the least, and I am learning to trust myself a lot. And, I might pick up a random job at a corporate hardware store for the summer. I’m letting the breeze blow me places. Letting life take me where it wants to take me. And I understand that for the average outsider, it can be concerning. But I can assure you I feel pretty in control most of the time, and though I’ve had some hard times mentally recently, I am thriving. Or I feel like I’m thriving, and that’s great.

I called this a guide to crashing out in your mid-30s because yesterday, I celebrated my 35th birthday. I didn’t crash out on my birthday, but I have been throwing a lot of caution to the wind lately because ultimately, I am leaning into learning to trust the process. We are all on this planet for a short yet long time. I want to enjoy it. I want to savour it. I want to really grab the reins and hold tight. I feel like every step I am making gets me closer to my final form. Who I truly am. But it can feel like, and maybe from what I’ve heard from others, that on the outside, it can not appear to be very graceful. But hey, I’m human. Allow me to fuck up if I want to.

Ava came to me after toying around with the name Eve for a while. But I know a lot of people with that name or a name that sounds similar, and I wanted to have a short yet feminine name. I started using it first to make spicy content with, then decided I liked it so much, I wanted to use it full-time. I think it really fits me, especially where I am at right now in my life. I have toyed around quite a bit internally about changing my name, and yesterday, I decided to take the plunge. I know it’ll take a while for it to stick, but I think it’s really pretty and I really like it. It’s also so powerful to lean into the changes that you’re acknowledging as a trans person. I’ve been on HRT for two years, and I look very different from how I used to, which is, ultimately, what I wanted with hormones. I feel very much centered in my womanhood and femininity these days.

I feel like there’s no need to wrap this up in a pretty or thoughtful way. I feel very much in the liminal zone right now. I’m floating, I’m learning, I’m evolving, I’m growing. Part of that is painful. Sometimes you have to leave people behind who don’t understand. Some relationships do not grow with you, and that’s okay. I’m about to go to my hometown for the weekend and introduce my family to my girlfriend for the first time. And with my new name. And it will be a little weird and kinda messy, probably. But that’s life. It could also be a beautiful, affirming experience. I guess, for another time, I will let go and lean into trust. As always, thanks for reading.

I got my first job right after my fourteenth birthday. It was at this little diner in my hometown, Perry’s Main Street Eatery, and the owners were friends of my parents. I remember being resentful that my parents were forcing me to get a job, while other teens my age got to seemingly just enjoy their childhood. The job lasted the summer, and then when it started to pick up in the winter, they let me go because I was too slow. When I turned 15, my parents told me it was time to get a part-time job, something I could work on the weekends and maybe a shift or two during the week. I was told many times during this era of my life, my entry to the workforce, that my family were workers. That we worked for our lives and that was it. There was no protesting, no fighting back. I took what the adults in my life were telling me as gospel, and landed my second job shortly after my fifteenth birthday- working at Dunkin Donuts.

As I grew older, I started to understand the situation more clearly. My family weren’t workers because they wanted to be; they had to be. I grew up really poor. Like way more poor than a lot of white women in their 30s who claim they grew up poor. My mom struggled with money for most of my childhood. After she divorced my father, she seemed to move from job to job. Working as a pharmacist, a gas station attendant, and an HR Manager, respectively. My mom worked her ass off until I started to work, which lessened the financial burden on her a little. There were definitely periods when she was working multiple jobs, and we still didn’t have money for food or to heat the house. I always thought that was so unfair, how she was working so hard but never seemed to get very far. I remember thinking about how I felt like I was still a child, unprepared to work for the rest of my life.

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I remember something my stepmom told me in response to talking about my father’s death and how I hadn’t been home in years. “Some people just aren’t the type for families, you’re like that, and that’s okay”. While that statement might be true about me, what she didn’t know was the history of my childhood and what led me to “leave my family behind” or whatever their narrative is.

I’m at my girlfriend’s father’s house in Western Massachusetts for my first time actually observing Thanksgiving in well over a decade. Nothing too crazy, just the usual suspects at a dinner table and my girlfriend saying grace over the meal, in which I couldn’t stop beaming at her in awe the whole time. How holy to witness.

Her family is warm and inviting, something we were both a little nervous about, and I’ve sincerely enjoyed the two days I’ve been here.

I’m not close with my family at all. Something I told Morgan when we first started dating. I said something along the lines of “I couldn’t imagine dating someone who was close with their family”. Yet, here I am on the couch at her dad’s, stoned and writing this essay with her dog sister, Penny.

And though my head and nose are stuffy from unfamiliar pet dander, I’ve grown comfortable in the house.

On the train later in our matching tracksuits, we sit stoned side by side, each doing our preferred activities; hers- playing on her switch, mine- reading beautiful words strung together to help make sense of this maddening world, then continuing to write my own, as the outside world slowly drifts into the black oblivion of New England Winter Past 4 pm. It couldn’t be darker out if it tried.

Some TikTok famous song that blends banjo with droning ambient (A Quick One Before The Eternal Worm Devours Appalachia) plays while I finish reading my friend Anna’s new piece on Substack: Here, and I am reminded of why we are friends and why we love each other’s writing. We find some sense of home in each other. Anna grew up a rural queer just like me, my partner, and a lot of people I’m friends with. And because of that, we understand each other and speak the same language.

In a previous post of mine, I talked about what it felt like to go home while being publicly obviously trans. There’s something almost unspeakable about how it feels to be trans in public right now. I was nervous to meet the grandparents this weekend. What if they could tell? What if they were disgusted by it? What if I become the butt of a bad joke? The possibilities go on and on. But instead what I was met with was grace, acceptance and hospitality. Morgan’s grandfather told her he liked her ‘friend’. I felt immediately gender affirmed. Her grandfather saw us as two women who loved each other, and he accepted it. He even presented us with the grace of acknowledgement by not being able to call us girlfriends. Something he’s not used to. Her grandmother looked me dead in my eyes and told me I was beautiful. I immediately felt accepted and even beloved.

I’m not going to sit here and drag my family through the mud. That doesn’t sit right with me, but I can say this. I’ve been distancing myself from my family for the past decade, at least. Nobody has reached out. Nobody has asked why. To bring it back to what I reflected on previously, maybe I am just not the type for family. Or, maybe, I never got the love that I needed and deserved from the family I was born into, so I’ve spent years meticulously collecting humans with love and compassion in their hearts who actually care about me. And who’s to say, because half of this is in my court as well. I don’t reach out, or call that often, or update anybody on my whereabouts or what I’m even up to, really. But no one asks, so instead I go with my girlfriend to her family’s house.

I think we hold too much weight on most of the relationships we have in our lives when the truth of the matter is, we are only on this planet for a brief and usually somewhat banal period of time, and I can’t keep chasing people begging for them to make me feel like I am wanted. I have family that I love, I have family that I don’t talk to, and I have family that I would like to never talk to again. Just as I have chosen family, I feel the same way about them. So maybe I am not the type meant for family. But rather, I am the type meant to make my own. And as my girlfriend and I travel back to the tiny city we live in and love with our friends and chosen family, I can say I have a lot of love in my life, and that’s really all that matters.

And I don’t have much of a sense of home anymore, but we just got off the train to head back to her (soon to be our) apartment, and all I am missing is my little orange cat and all my besties coming over to visit.

goes unnoticed, is barely discussed, and becomes a shareable meme. Lia Smith, first missing, then found dead by suicide. I still go to work and smile while I think about the atrocities abound. I wonder when death will mean something to people. It’s not with children in school shootings. It’s not with children on the streets in foreign countries. Christ, it’s not even the scapegoat they found in a racist fascist puppet who liked visiting colleges and gaslighting 18-year-olds.

I don’t want all my writing to be about my gender identity; I don’t want it to seem like the only thing interesting about me is my gender identity. I am transgender first, however.

I don’t think cis people understand. Every day of 2025, I’ve thought about my gender identity. I think about what would happen if they took my hormones away. I keep thinking about what would happen if the local Planned Parenthood closed. I keep thinking about what Lia must have been thinking about the moments before she ended her life. I wonder if those thoughts are similar to mine. I don’t want to mislead you in any way. I am here to stay. I’ve tried everything in my power to erase myself when I was in my 20s and have since decided to stay. But I have to say that I understand the temptation and that will always be at the forefront of my mind.

Lia was local to me. She was attending Middlebury College, which is about a 45-minute drive from me. They found her in a field. There was no question it was self-inflicted, but let me offer you this: would a trans woman want to kill herself if we lived in a world that didn’t complicate her existence? Every fucking day there’s a new news story, a new quote from fascist leaders. They want to eradicate us. They want us all to die. I don’t blame Lia. I don’t think her death was selfish. It’s hard. It’s hard to want to continue to live a life full of abuse from the government. Lia probably didn’t feel safe. And neither do I.

What I need the cis people reading this to understand is that it’s only going to get worse. If you have a trans friend in your life, I urge you to check on them. To ask if they’re okay. If they need anything. If they need someone to walk with, talk to, or release frustrations with. I need cis people to start talking to their transphobic family members. I need cis people to start bringing up the atrocities that this government is currently serving to us. I NEED CIS PEOPLE TO ACT LIKE THEY FUCKING CARE. Because Lia probably didn’t feel like anybody cared. Sometimes I feel like if I didn’t throw myself in everyone’s face, I would feel that hollow loneliness too.

Every trans woman’s suicide or murder was committed by the government. I hold Lia’s death against this regime. How dare you let my sister die on your cold, hard ground. How dare the cis people in her life not step in. How dare the fascists of this country create such inhospitable living. I’m so wildly sick of living like this. About thinking about my fucking gender identity all the time. Thinking about my safety. My livelihood.

I want you to realize that being transgender is normal. Natural. It’s the longest truth I’ve known about myself. The first thing I came to realize as a child. I want you to know the damage caused by being denied my truth my whole life. I want you to feel the rage and hurt that’s burning inside of my chest. For Lia. For all of us. Trans people deserve to live long, beautiful lives. What are you going to do to protect us?

Before the pandemic, you might have seen me performing poetry around town. I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, and in 2017, right after I came out as trans, I started performing my writing around town. My poems explored themes of grief, witchcraft, nature, sexuality, and gender identity. I became quite skilled at reading them aloud after a short while and received recognition from artists and musicians alike around town. I was literally your favorite musician’s favorite poet for a minute there, collaborating with ambient and drone musicians to create soundscapes of spoken word and music. It was a lot of fun, and in 2019, I felt a sense of accomplishment in releasing a zine that my friend Lauren helped me create, featuring 31 poems I wrote in October, and performing the poems alongside a woman who played the musical saw.

Then we all know what happens. The 2020 Covid Lockdown. I kept writing throughout the first year or so, posting long sprawling poems on my grid on my Instagram, participating in a couple of online shows over Zoom, but I started feeling like the person I was when I was writing the poems was not the person I was as I was performing them. I started writing less and less. I started saying no to people when they asked me to read for a show they were putting on. I still wrote sporadically, but I was feeling like I was trying to get back to where I was before, and that it wasn’t working the same way. The poems came to me, but they sounded quiet. I no longer felt the need to bear my soul on stage like I used to. It used to feel cathartic, but then it felt suffocating. I started to think that maybe this thing that I loved was coming to an end. I vowed I would no longer be that townie famous poet performing heartbreaking poems in bars before bands came on. I wanted to bring joy, laughter, and excitement to the world. I still wanted to be on stage, but I wasn’t sure how without my crutch of poetry.

I recall feeling very lost at this time. It was late 2022, leading into 2023, when I finally let go of the pressure I was putting on myself. I decided it was okay that I didn’t want to perform anymore. I decided it was okay that I had mostly stopped writing. Artists go through droughts of work, after all. I was still performing slightly here and there, but nothing like I used to. And it was all old poems because I really hadn’t been writing. In October of 2023, a friend asked me if I wanted to be part of a Rocky Horror Picture Show cabaret. The show would play in the background as local performers would perform alongside the show. I was immediately drawn to say yes, remembering the few times I went to see Rocky Horror live as a teenager and had such a blast doing so. My favorite song from Rocky Horror was Science Fiction/Double Feature, so I chose that song to perform to and started preparing for my debut.

I tried cancelling twice. I was scared to take my performance to the next level like that. I’ve performed poems about being sexually assaulted to a crowd of people before, but taking my clothes off was a new level of vulnerability that I wasn’t sure I was ready for. My friend Yvie, who was hosting the Rocky Horror Cabaret, however, would not let me back out. They knew how bad I wanted to do something like this, and they wouldn’t let me back out. I had to do this. I borrowed some clothes from friends, an apron, and a feather duster from the costume shop of the theatre I was working for at the time. I listened to the song obsessively, because even though I knew all of the lyrics, I HAD to memorize them. I practiced a few times in my bedroom in the days leading up to the show, nervous as all hell to get everything perfect, which was a self-imposed standard (the same self-imposed standard that took me a month to write this post). And then, it was the night of the show. I felt incredibly nervous, which was silly compared to how many times I had been on stage at that point in time, but I was as ready as I could be.

I was opening the show, if you’re familiar with Rocky Horror (if not, please take this as a sign to watch the Rocky Horror Picture Show as homework). Which meant the pressure was on. The crowd was PACKED into the studio space, and it was raucous with excited chatter. And then, it happened. I entered the stage in a teal fake fur jacket and sunglasses from behind the crowd while lip-syncing. And almost as soon as it began, it was over, and the crowd erupted in cheer and applause, and the movie went on from there. There were so many other incredible performances that evening, and I’m still proud of what we did. It was so much fun, it was so weird, it was so special. I actually performed in the cabaret again a year later, once my career as a performer had started to fully bloom.

I had an absolute blast, and I felt so liberated and powerful. It was exhilarating, sexy, and incredibly fun, and I was definitely hooked from then on. A month and a half later, I was asked to do another performance at Queer Takeover, a variety show of queers happening monthly at the Radio Bean. I was told that I could do the same performance as I did for Rocky Horror, or I could choose a new song to perform to. I was still a baby performer, using my real name instead of a performer alias. I decided to perform “Gibson Girl” by Ethel Cain, a song about the power exchange between a stripper and a dangerous client.

Fast forward a few months, and I decided by my fourth performance that I was going to debut my performer alias. A name that I had come up with YEARS ago in my early 20s. I was saving it for “if I ever became a drag queen”, but decided a burlesque performer was close enough. Plus, what I was doing (and continue to do) really toes the line between drag and burlesque anyway. Her name is Indi Gestion, and she came with the tagline “Does anybody have a Tums?”. It felt funny, evocative, stupid, and creative. A choice that I have stuck with to this day.

So, that’s how my career as a burlesque performer started. I’ve been doing this for almost two years now, and honestly, it’s one of the favorite things I have ever done in my life. I have never felt so free, sexy, confident, and cool. I have never felt more love for myself or my body before. I’ve never had so many strangers come up and tell me how sexy I am. And really, I do it for interactions like these: A while into performing, I was back at Radio Bean for another Queer Takeover. After the show, I was at the bar ordering a non- alcoholic beer when another trans woman approached me. She thanked me for showing her that trans women can get up on stage and do what I do. That it was important work that I was doing, showing the world my fat trans body and bringing joy and humor to it as well. She said she was really inspired and wanted me to know. And that’s why I am here, I think. To show people who look like me or fit into the same categories as me that we deserve to be here. Trans people deserve to feel hot, sexy, and in control.

Okay, so, I think the posed question I have hanging here is, am I ever going to write and perform poetry again? And the answer feels murky, currently. I feel like poetry got me to a really beautiful point in my life. I think I’ll literally always be a writer, and I’m sure you’ve gathered my love for poetry throughout all of my writing for Substack. I’ll always speak in prose because that’s my favorite language. I’ll always open my notes app and write down a line, seeing if it goes anywhere. But the world feels much less gentle than it did when I first started sharing my work. And with rigidity comes resistance. I no longer want to box myself into the space in which I used to call home. I am a writer, not a poet. I am a burlesque performer, not a poet. But even that is not really true. These personal essays are my poems. Taking my clothes off on stage feels like a poem. I’ve written many times begging society to accept my fat trans body. And isn’t existence poetry of some sort anyway? And at that, I suppose I will always be writing poems. Just for now, not the kind of one’s folks think of when they think of what a poem could look like. Rather, my body is a poem that I reveal as I take the stanzas off.

Being trans has never felt like anything but normal to me. As a child, I remember telling my parents and anyone else who would listen that I was not, in fact, the boy they were dressing me as and treating me as, but I was actually a girl. It seemed like a simple mistake to me at the time, something that probably happened to everyone. I was a girl. I knew that in the depths of my chest and stomach. But it seemed like the rest of the world would need to catch up. I was raised in rural Vermont in the early 90s. I don’t blame my parents for not listening to me. I’m pretty sure neither of them even knew what the word transgender meant until I came out much later. I blame the system of oppression for most of these shortcomings. Though I will say, my parents could have listened to me a little more. Because what was once a whimper of declaration became the song most sung inside of my chest; I am a woman.

I believe I’ve stated this in a previous post, but I came out as trans in 2016, right before Tr*mp was elected for the first time. It was a time of naivety for me, thinking there was no possible way that he could win. I remember then, as now, my gender identity was used as some sort of pawn in his game. I knew coming out was going to be risky, but I didn’t realize that this debate would last almost 10 years. Do trans people exist? Have they existed? Do they deserve to continue to exist? These are the talking points of the right. I’m pretty sure I exist. I am extremely certain trans people have existed before me. I am hopeful that we will continue to. But it’s scary out there. I can say with full confidence that having your identity questioned at every moment does tend to creep inside, but having loved ones and family continue to affirm, uplift, and support you is what keeps the darkness at bay.

I first discovered what a transgender person was in high school. I was probably 15, and once I learned what it was, I tested out the waters. I started telling my friends that I had a transgender cousin, named Chrissy. I talked about her gender journey of getting on hormones and how she “looked so much like a real woman” that it was crazy that she ever used to be a boy. My friends never interrogated me. They asked questions about Chrissy that I made up on the spot. An invisible shield to cover myself with. If I were closer to the people I went to high school with, I would reach out and ask them if they remember my trans cousin Chrissy. I would also ask them if they knew that Chrissy was me, seeking, yearning to come out, but too scared. Then, a friend whom I refuse to name because of past emotional abuse came out as transgender right at the end of high school. I was so happy for him, and I told my parents. Again, testing the water, taking the temperature of their reactions to calculate my next move. My father acted with confusion and disgust, which made sense. My mom was pretty fine with it. It seemed almost that my community was at odds. Most people didn’t understand, but some tried to. Some were disgusted. I took notes of the reactions and used them to suppress the feeling for longer.

If you read my last post about sobriety, you know where this is heading. It was easy to suppress my feelings behind the weighted blanket of alcohol. I somehow even forgot who I was for a minute, as I was wrapped up in losing myself. When I finally came to, it almost felt too late. But something inside of me was ready to explode. So I let it out in a Facebook post that I was transgender. It was met with mixed reviews coming from family members, but ultimately, it was a positive experience. My friends all understood, and that was all I really cared about, since pretty much from the beginning of my life, I knew my family wasn’t shit. That was about 9 years ago now. My family hasn’t really caught up in that decade either. There are still members of my family who consider me a man. That considers me “doing all this for attention”. That considers me invalid for the mere concept of existence. But they never knew me. They didn’t know the young girl who tried convincing everyone that they were a girl and not a boy. They didn’t know the girl who told her friends about a fake cousin who was transitioning. They never got a chance to know who I really was, only who they wanted me to be.

And the belief is this is where the problem lies. Most of the people who are alt-right don’t know a trans person. They most likely ostracize any person who doesn’t fit into their little box of what they know and are comfortable with. But then again, there’s my family. They know me, they saw me as a little boy begging her parents to let her play with dolls and Barbies. They saw her wanting to wear her best friend's Princess Jasmine dress whenever she could. They knew she was getting called a faggot at 10 years old. They know all this, but still say I’m doing it for attention. And I know I’m not the only trans person on the planet who has to face this dilemma. Many of us have stories of disapproving family. So what is it? Is it fear of the unknown? An exploration of boundaries they never knew could be pushed? An act of divinity so sacred they’ll never know quite how close to get to godliness?

I suppose it’s not my job to find out. Though I do want to know what the problem is. You know, my mother told me when I was younger, that I could be whoever I wanted to be as long as I wasn’t hurting anybody, not even myself. But I tried to be what the world wanted me to be. And I hurt myself and many of those around me while doing so. So I finally let myself be free. And now I’m being persecuted for it? For what? Most of the people in my life know me as nothing but a delight to be around. I take care of myself AND my community. I am a vital resource of queer and trans history. I am an artist. A performer. A magician. I provide so much, and yet the news tells me I don’t even have a right to exist. But the people telling me that do nothing for their community. They want the houseless dead and off the streets. They want people with dicks to wear pants and be men. But they don’t know the holiness of trans sex. They don’t see how much light is in my eyes, watching myself perform and seeing how much my body has changed. How the curves that were never there suddenly appear, and I get to see myself as I’ve always known.

So I pose the question: what happens when your identity is used as a political debate? I know who I am. Who I’ve literally always wanted to be. I know the road I took to get here was scary. I know that I almost lost myself a few times along the way. I know that I am loved, that I am seen and understood by my community, of which I am a part. I know that I am scared of losing what progress I have made if something even more extreme happens. But mostly, I know that I am going to be okay. That I am going to be seen and held, no matter what rich white men who fuck this country up have to say about me. And I know that I am dancing. That I am getting up on stage and taking my clothes off for fun and money, and artistry. And ultimately, I don’t care. I’ve never been this happy to be myself. I’ll keep dancing on stage and telling the world how free it is to accept yourself and live for yourself. I’ll keep writing about my experience and letting the public read about it. And that, for the moment, is good enough for me. So while they try to figure out if transgender people deserve the right to exist, I’ll just be living my life.

If you are reading this, that means that today, August 17, 2025, I am two years sober from alcohol. The following summary of my experience will be raw, unfiltered, and potentially troubling to read. CW: addiction and suicidal thoughts. Thank you for being here. Thank you for holding me through this.

The first time I drank, I was probably 10 years old. It was peach schnapps, and I mixed it with peach Snapple. It was summer, and I was bored. My parents somehow caught me, probably because I was a child and I was acting strangely. I got in a lot of trouble, but not enough to take away the slow numbing comfort that alcohol brought me. The second time, I was maybe 12. My cousin's friend stole peach schnapps again from my older cousin, and we mixed it with Fresca. I got moderately scolded by my older cousin, but it was again not enough to keep me away from the tight grip of booze. I continued into being a rebellious teenager, stealing alcohol from adults, replacing it with water or tea, depending on the color of the poison. I learned from a young age that alcohol was fun, it made you feel warm and good, and that alcoholism, like many other ailments, ran in my family. But even the tales of my grandfather beating my grandmother, drunk on cream ale, could keep me away. Not even witnessing some of my older family members literally dying in front of my eyes from complications due to alcohol could have made me realize what my future would be. The alcohol was delicious and fun. It made the sharp edges of the world turn blurry. It was a way to escape the dull ache of boredom that my rural hometown was seeping with.

You know where this leads- by the time I was 21, I was drinking almost every night. That continued for about a decade. I was wrapped up in the warm embrace of numbness, and I didn’t see anything wrong with that. I was having a good time. My friends were too. Sure, I saw some of my friends slip in and out of having a bad time. I myself was at war with who I wanted to become and who I was turning out to be, but booze was there for that. Sad? Drink. Happy? Celebrate and drink. Upset? Drink. Mad? Drink some whiskey and get into an argument. There was always an excuse. There were always options. Beer, vodka, tequila, bourbon, wine, gin, there wasn’t much I disliked. I started figuring out how to get away with drinking at work. I learned how to cure a hangover by continuing to drink. I realized that working early was the best because then I could get out of work, take a nap, and then get up and start drinking with my friends. I started doing coke, molly, acid, and mushrooms with much more frequency, too. I was losing myself slowly. Poisoning myself over time. I convinced myself this is normal, what everyone does.

By the time I was 25, I was sure I was going to die soon. I couldn’t picture myself making it to my 30s. I was a total burnout, working in a natural food store and drinking so heavily I could rarely afford rent. I was living in a one-bedroom apartment with two other people. One person lived in what would have been the living room, one person lived in what would have been the dining room, and I slept on a mattress on the floor in the bedroom. I still couldn’t really afford rent. We were behind on bills, and we were so sloppy you could barely see the floor. I can barely remember making myself a meal in that apartment. It was rough living, but I was comforted by booze. It didn’t matter if I died; I would sink into oblivion with a smile on my face and a drink in my hand. I was miserable, I was toxic, I would black out and yell at my friends and wake up in the morning with no recollection of it, then I would get up and go to work, then I would drink on the way home and start it over again. I was drowning myself from the inside out. Almost like there was something under the surface I was hiding from. I began writing poetry and performing it. I needed to drink to calm my nerves. I needed a drink to inspire me to write. My poetry was raw and unfiltered, usually covering topics of gender and being fat, relating myself to the natural world, and grief. I was drinking, reliving relationships of my youth, and haunting myself with it all.

When I officially came out as transgender (it almost always comes back to this), I felt a need to continue to live. To see this through. To see if I could live out loud the way I always wanted to. But something was in the way. I couldn’t stop drinking. I would drink two bottles of wine a night and write horror poetry over a former lover stalking me in the shadows of my bedroom. I would envision myself as a woman, but see in every reflection, every glance at myself, the man I was trying to escape. I was at war with myself. I knew things needed to change, but I was scared. And you know what calms the fear inside? Booze. I continued to drink almost every night well into my late 20s. Then, in 2018, things became real in a way that I would never have imagined.

After not talking to him for well over a year, due to difficulties in our relationship directly attributed to my coming out as transgender, my father called me to let me know he was dying. I knew he was sick with pulmonary fibrosis, a disease that slowly turns the lungs into scar tissue, but I had no idea how serious it had gotten since we last spoke. I had about two months with him before he passed, and in that time, we tried to patch up our relationship as much as possible. I may write later in more intimate detail the experience of my father dying, but after he passed, I noticed myself slipping away. Comforted by the Jack Daniels that my father left behind, I started drinking heavily every single night. I was grief-stricken, lost, and confused. I felt like a child wanting their daddy over and over. I felt like the only thing that I could turn to was drinking. So I drank, and drank, and drank some more. By December, only a month after he passed, I knew I had a problem. I made a promise to myself to stop drinking. I convinced myself that if I could just take a month off, I would be better, so I decided that I was going to participate in Dry January. The month I took off, I was able to gain some clarity, but there was still so much inside of me that I couldn’t deal with, so I went back to drinking right where I left off. Convincing myself it's fine, that everyone does it, so I slipped back in.

For the next four or so years, I flirted with sobriety. I continued to participate in Dry January, but then I would always go back to drinking. But in 2023, something finally clicked. I decided to participate in an extended Dry January, abstaining from drinking for 90 days. After the 90 days were up and I was feeling refreshed, I decided to see if I could handle having a casual relationship with drinking. I went back tentatively, only drinking here and there at first. But of course, you know how this goes already. During the summer, I fluctuated from drinking heavily, then promising myself that I would stay sober for a bit, then I would do it all again. I found myself obsessively thinking about drinking, convincing myself that if I drank the night before, I shouldn’t drink again that night, but then I would drink, and then I would shame myself. It was a heavy back and forth with myself, trying to excuse drinking, then make an excuse, then drink again, then feel bad. I was driving myself insane. Then, in August, after a summer of tug of war in my mind, I went to a house party. There was unlimited booze there because everybody had brought something to drink, and it was a huge party. I thrive on parties and partying, so I was right in my element. I just kept drinking, and drinking, and drinking. The night got hazy, and when we ended up going out to dance, I fell because I was wearing platform shoes and was trying to get up on the stage to dance. I decided it was probably time for me to go home, and my friend could tell how drunk I was, so they walked me back to my house. I then realized that I locked myself out and had to call my roommate, who was at her partner's house, to come let me in. I must have half passed out on the porch waiting for her, because I remember slowly coming back into consciousness when she arrived. I went inside and slept it off.

When I woke up the next morning, I wanted to die. Not particularly in the hungover sense either. I felt embarrassed to the extreme after getting so drunk that I fell over. That hadn’t happened since my mid-20s, and it wasn’t cute then, either. I knew then that an ultimatum needed to be made. Because if I didn’t, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep living like that. I knew I couldn’t keep trying to quit, but then convince myself that it was okay to keep drinking. Something had to give, and it had to give quickly, because my mental health was taking so much of a toll that I began to think of all of the ways that I could take myself out so I wouldn’t have to worry about it. A few days later, I found myself on a date. He asked me if he could get me a home-brewed beer or hard cider. I hadn’t fully committed to quitting, so I had a homemade hard cider. Just one, but I instantly felt a sense of regret. I felt the poison in my system. I felt like I was letting myself down. I felt sick and sad and knew something like this could never happen again. A few more days later, I found myself in therapy and I said, “I think it's finally time that I quit drinking. I can’t do this anymore”. My therapist agreed and let me know that I was very brave to take this first step. And that was it. August 17, 2023, I right then and there quit drinking alcohol.

And I never looked back, either, because as it stands, today, August 17th, I am two years sober from alcohol. I can’t say it’s been easy, honestly. The first year of my sobriety, I spent in therapy trying to get a grasp on my emotions. But, it’s been worth it beyond words that I could use to express it. I have never felt more like myself. It turns out that when you abuse a substance for over 15 years, some shit becomes really clear once you stop abusing it. In the two years since I stopped drinking, I have come out as a trans woman, started hormone replacement therapy, started doing drag and burlesque, started this very substack, and started dating someone seriously for the first time in my life. And those are just the surface changes. I feel more in my body, more present with the moment. I get to wake up every single day, not be hungover, and decide to choose myself over and over and prove to myself that my life is valuable. I matter. My life matters. My sobriety matters.

Do I still smoke weed? Absolutely. And honestly, I probably always will. I love weed and being stoned. It turns the harsh edges of this world into something softer and palatable. Do I think I have a dependence? Sometimes. But I also think that it’s okay for me to. This world is vicious, and if I like to do something to help cushion the blow, that’s on me. I’m not hurting anyone by being a stoner. So I can never claim that I am “sober” because I still do drugs sometimes and smoke weed frequently. But the biggest vice I had is now gone from my life. And I’m pretty sure it’s permanent. I don’t think I can ever see myself drinking ever again. To me, it’s simply not worth it. I would rather have the life I have now after alcohol than any life I had during alcohol. So that’s where I am today. Fulfilled to keep going, which is something I couldn’t have said over two years ago. And I’ll take that.

If you are struggling with substance abuse, I hope you see this. I hope you know you are loved, and life is better without it. I love you. Thank you for being here.

It is not just the stares, though, that is a big part of it. I grew up in a small town in the most conservative part of Vermont. I know when you hear and think about Vermont, the word conservative rarely comes to mind, but I can tell you right now, there are corners of this state even the streetlights forgot, and you do not want to get caught out there after sundown if you are a marginalized person. I am not even being dramatic. There are still, to this day, “Take Back Vermont” signs on decaying barns on the side of the roads—a statement from the past when Vermont legalized same-sex partnerships, also known as Civil Unions. I grew up feeling like an alien, like I did not belong, but of course, as humans long to do, I found community. I found my people among the artists, the stoner burnouts, and the punks. For my late teens, I somehow survived.

My current home is here in Burlington. A large college town full of life and vibrancy. Though most of the time this place feels stifling in many ways, I have shaped the life I mostly want to live with the people I want to be around, and most days, it feels right. Some days I ache to be in a larger city with more people, but more frequently, I long for simpler, slower living. I yearn for a backyard. I crave the sensation of sitting on my porch watching a storm roll in. I want a house that belongs to me. I would love to adopt a dog. A bathtub that I could fit in would be nice. Hell, maybe even an in-house washer and dryer. A luxury considered here in Burlington. I require a space where I can just exist in comfort. I need, as the prophetic group The Chicks said back in 1998 through their hit song, Wide Open Spaces.

When I came out as trans in 2016, about 5 years after I flew the coop and landed in “the big city of Burlington”- yes, that is literally how my family refers to the large town I currently reside in I still had a relatively good connection to my hometown. That all changed that year, though. I learned that most of my family were violently conservative, racist, and transphobic. I began to unravel the past 25 years of my life, picking apart all the unsavory things that had been said to me, about me, or around me, and realized… I come from staunch conservatives. It’s not that I hadn’t talked about politics with them before, it’s that until I gained the sentience of my difference- I was always gay and feminine, but to name that as trans was an entirely different story- I realized that the people who raised me were not my friends. They were actively voting for people who wanted to strip the sliver of rights my friends and I had away from us.

Then, most of the community I had made followed me to Burlington, or left Vermont completely. The rest of my connections to my hometown dwindled with time, especially when I junked my car and lost my driver’s license. When my father died in 2018, the tether grew fainter. I already felt alienated and unaccepted, but now, my only parent remaining in that area was no longer there. Sure, my stepmother and the house I grew up in were still there, but my childhood bedroom was knocked down to create a larger living room, and I had never really felt at home there since then. The only place that I still have any sense of what home feels like is at my cousin’s house in Hubbardton. Hubbardton, Vermont, with a population of 735 (as of 2020).

The house was purchased by my great-grandparents, then my grandparents bought it from them, my aunt and uncle bought it from my grandparents, and now my cousin bought it from her parents. Four generations of family under one roof. In a two-story, ever-changing number of bedrooms farmhouse on a plot of land with the closest neighbors being about a mile away. Total isolation. Total freedom. The land is rich and grows veggies, flowers, and recently, marijuana. We have seen deer, raccoons, woodchucks, and bears on the property, along with a gaggle of Canadian Geese which come back each year named Mork and Mindy (and their children, which I think are nameless). This is where I spent a good chunk of my childhood. Living there sporadically when I either got kicked out of the house or my mother went through another divorce. My cousins who grew up there and now live there are the closest family members I have. I try to see them as frequently as I can, though it is hard to be down in that area at times.

Of course, I miss my homeland. Every time I am back, I romanticize living there. Living off the land, helping my cousin raise her child, growing weed, and helping her run a bakery. It’s perfect and I would move back there if I could, but I can’t. I simply cannot move to an even smaller town. The confines of Burlington are even starting to feel too tight. Plus, I can’t even find a person to date in this town as a fat trans woman. To try to date there could end in death. I know you think I’m being dramatic, so I offer you this:

It's 2017, Tr*mp has just been elected, and you just came out as transgender on social media. It’s Christmas, and you are home for the first time in a while. You have pink hair and a septum piercing; you’re wearing a flowy dress and a long sweater, and a little makeup. You feel cute without feeling like you’re looking too crazy to go out to eat with your family at a restaurant in the next town over. One that has a little bit more life in it. You walk in with your family, and you almost hear a record scratch. You try to brush it off as paranoia, so you sit down with your large group of family and friends to eat dinner. You’re talking to somebody across from you when you notice an older woman staring at you. You look up to meet her gaze, only to realize that at least 15 people are doing the same thing. Just staring at you. You mention something to your family, but they pass it off. You do have pink hair and are reading like a boy wearing a dress, one tries to confirm. Like it’s my fault. Like I asked for this. Like I hadn’t stuck my claws in the walls and clawed out of wanting to kill myself just to feel okay as a human being.

This is a real story. It doesn’t stop there.

As I began to express myself even more femininely as I got comfortable with my gender presentation, I started going home less. I got asked weird, intrusive questions and got relentlessly misgendered, then after a while, I was told that some family members believed I was just saying I was trans for attention. A belief they still hold true to this day. The stares remain when I go out in public, though now I am mostly used to them. There still is this burning ache inside of me. A wounded animal looking for her pack. I so desperately want to belong in the place that created me. Though most of the time that I am there, it feels nothing short of violent. My homeland does not hold me. Well, honestly, my homeland has nothing to do with it.

The trees, the rolling foothills. The great big sky and the mountains. The streams, creeks, and rivers. The ever-sprawling nothingness, the void of civilization. That holds me. It does not stare. It does not snicker. It asks if I am okay, and I say no, then I lie down heavily in it. It provides medicine and introspection. It makes me feel whole when most of the world makes me feel isolated. It does not invalidate my identity. It does not misgender me and claim that I am seeking attention. It tends to my wounds and makes me tea. The land is my biggest ally. That and the fearless people fighting to make my home feel like home for me and people who look like me. With them, maybe one day I will feel fully welcome at home. But until then. I will visit infrequently. I will try to avoid eye contact and keep to myself in the grocery store. I will hold my breath and pray somebody doesn’t recognize me at the gas station. I will marvel at the beauty of the land I grew up in and do what I can to preserve it. I will process my trauma in therapy. I will eventually be set free.

I’ve always loved women. I’ve always gotten along with them better than men. In elementary school, my first best friend was named Amanda. I was obsessed with her. She was tall for a girl, with naturally light blonde hair, glasses, and an adorable gap in her teeth. I remember gravitating toward her instantly. Then the nagging started. “Shawny, is that your girlfriend?” the adults in my life would ask in a tone that made me hot-cheeked and embarrassed. The pressure of cisgender heterosexuality already lay on my freshly formed shoulders. I continued to mostly befriend girls throughout the rest of my life, a trend that persists to this day, where it takes a minute to think of one male friend I have, who happens to be my best friend's husband.

Though my obvious obsession with women stayed prevalent in my life, while I was trying to understand what the FUCK my problem was when I was younger, I discovered what it meant to be gay. I suppose I should let the cat out of the bag here before I get too ahead of myself. Dear Reader, I used to be a boy. I know, I know, it's a shocking detail that I can barely even believe myself, but it’s true. I was born and raised as a boy. So when I discovered homosexuality through ruthless bullying and torment at age 12, I decided that was my ailment. I was a faggot, a sissy, a pansy, a nelly. I was a little gay boy who had 20 girlfriends. And that’s how my identity remained until I was 25, when the sky opened up and god herself was like, “Baby, you’re not a man,” and then my whole woman-loving life came back to me again because I figured out that, actually, I was a girl.

But being sapphic didn’t come to me quickly. It took years of realizing over and over again that I was a trans woman. My gender journey will most likely be its own topic of discussion on this platform, so I will skip most of the details, but realizing that I was a trans woman, over non-binary, then later just “trans,” took me a while to get to. But here I am, a year and three months on HRT, and wildly, and vastly in love with another femme, for the first time in my life. I won’t say it has been easy to get here. Dating in 2025 presents a multitude of challenges. ESPECIALLY as a trans woman. ESPECIALLY in a tiny ass town. Then two men I dated/had gone on dates with really ran my heart through the wringer. From leading me on, making promises they can’t keep, saying they’d eventually move to Vermont, then taking it back. It had been a rough road. I remember saying to my best friend at the time, “I literally CANNOT date another man.” I needed somebody who was in touch with their emotions. I needed somebody who understood me. I needed someone who didn’t think I was too needy or too much. I needed another woman who understands what it felt like.

Morgan came to me like divine intervention. A whisper in the dark, if you will. I had been dating for over two years, after taking a LONG time off after a very toxic relationship in my early 20s. I had dated other femmes, mostly of the nonbinary assigned female at birth persuasion, and some trans men, so I was experienced with… well… the equipment. It wasn’t anything I was afraid of or grossed out by. I had seen many vaginas in my life, growing up as a boy who didn’t care about girls in that way. But most of the femmes, women, assigned female at birth people I connected with, I didn’t feel a spark with. I wasn’t immediately romantically attracted to them. So I assumed that women and other femmes were off the table for me, until about four months ago.

The start of our history goes something like this: Morgan came to a drag show I was performing in last June. I immediately saw her. Bleach blonde, short, alternative style. She was wearing a neon green mesh shirt with a black tank top underneath. She reminded me of Tiffany from the Chucky series, whom I’ve adored since I was a kid. As I was saying, I was performing, so we didn’t connect. But she followed me on Instagram, and I remember scrolling through all of her old posts, being so interested. I didn’t recognize her, which is a rarity for me in this town, so I was immediately like “who the fuck is this”? I was intrigued, as she shared links to her OnlyFans and X, and talked openly and honestly about sex work in her stories. Again, I was like “who the fuck is this person? She seems so cool.” Though I was soon to find out.

In October, a friend of mine asked me to help put an event together that mixed poetry, spirituality, and earth cycle worship called Rot & Soul. The event was the intersection of compost, altar building, and poetry. An ode to Rot, to death, to life cycles. I was tasked with getting together a bunch of performers to put on a variety show. Morgan was tasked with building an altar, as an offering to the rot we were celebrating. It was the first time we got to really chat with each other in person. I was immediately drawn to them because they showed up in a pinstripe suit with a Betsy Johnson Sacred Heart necklace, and I thought that was such an interesting choice. She’s heavily tattooed, with a huge piece going across and down her chest, with these enchanting green sleepy eyes. They looked really stylish and cool, and I really wanted to connect with them, especially because at that moment, I was questioning my spirituality, and I wanted this confident femme who was tasked to build a sacred altar to give me some perspective. She gave me more questions than answers, though. I found them to be such a fascinating human, with such a cool perspective. We had a meeting, and she ended up coming to my house. I showed her my bedroom. I showed her my perfumes. She left with our mutual friend, then the event happened. I was left with this feeling of what I then called a “friend crush”. Which turned out to be an actual crush later on.

After the event, we sort of went back to how things were before. Basically strangers, liking each other's Instagram stories and replying occasionally. While she was commenting things like “you’re beautiful”, “stunning,” and heart-eyed emojis, I still had no clue as to what was happening from her perspective. To give you some more history and context here, I don’t think, other than this one specific time, I can recall ever being hit on. That certainly doesn’t mean I had never been hit on; it mostly just means that I was generally oblivious to most people paying any sort of attention to me like that. I was inexperienced and honestly, a little terrified to fall in love, but it was what I wanted the most for myself deep down inside.

Fast forward to January 2025. I had another drag show which Morgan was in attendance at, and after the show, we hung out and danced for a bit. She gave me poppers, then I dropped my weed vape on the floor and broke the cartridge. Then, all of a sudden, Morgan was gone. I was a little sad. I was enjoying her company, and I felt strange that she just suddenly left. What I now realize is that she was so nervous to be around me and assumed I was upset because I had broken my weed vape, but I was high on the poppers, which they gave me. I wasn’t upset at all, shit happens, and I was left even more curious about her than I was before.

In March, I had yet another show. Things had maybe started to click in my brain that there was something more than friendship happening between us, but I was still so clouded by the fact that I assumed nobody found me attractive that the decisions I was making and things I was feeling still felt friendly. For the show, I decided to perform Charli XCX’s ‘Party 4 U’, one of my all-time favorite songs from her, which was having a bit of a viral moment on TikTok. I was excited to perform the song because it felt really special and topical. I planned to come out wearing sunglasses, holding a cake and a bottle of (fake) wine to chug and eat on stage during the performance. For some reason, which made itself clear to me a few weeks later, I had really wanted Morgan to be at the show. I just knew that they already loved the song and would find my performance to be cool. I ended up deciding I wanted to finger the cake because I wanted to

portray my drag persona as being a lesbian (should have been a sign), and I still was hoping my “friend” Morgan was going to be there to bear witness to me doing such an act. Again, dear reader, I want you to remember that at this moment I was still under the assumption that I was not attracted to women even in the slightest. Morgan happened to show up to that show, and she did love the performance. She left immediately after, and I was unable to see them, but it was important to me that they were there, so that’s all I cared about.

About two weeks later, Morgan asked me over for dinner. I said yes, and we made a plan. The morning of the day of plans, I woke up with a migraine. I had to cancel, but it was important to me to reschedule, so we made plans for the following week. The night before our plans, my cat wouldn’t stop throwing up. I woke up the next morning, called out of work to monitor my sweet orange prince, and once again, had to cancel plans. I thought I was kind of blowing whatever was happening, but both things very much felt out of my control. I think we were in the midst of trying to plan another dinner soon, which I found out later she was planning on telling me she had a crush on me. A few days later, I was on Tinder, scrolling through the people, when I found Morgan and swiped right. It was an instant match. I sent something like “hahahahaha heyyyy” or something stupid like that because, ONCE AGAIN, dear reader, I thought we matched as friends. On a dating site. Good Lord. Morgan responded not too long after with “hahahahaha finally”, which I found confusing.

A few hours later, Morgan texted me: “Now that we matched on Tinder, can I finally take you out on a date?” It sort of finally clicked, but only sort of. She could have meant a friend date. They could just be being nice. I wasn't sure. I replied “yes, of course you can!” and left it at that. We made plans to meet up that weekend. Our first date. During the date, Morgan clarified, as though she could tell that I wasn’t picking up on the vibes, that we were on a date date. We went to get tacos, then went to the corner store, got dessert, and played a game in my living room. After the game, she asked if she could kiss me. We kissed. It was one of the best first kisses I had ever had with someone. I wanted more. We kissed for 45 minutes, then she went home. After that, I knew. There was no mistaking. We scheduled a second date for a few days later. After our second date, I knew that I was for certain in love with her. Signed, sealed, delivered, I was hers. I immediately started calling her my girlfriend in my head. Turns out, they were doing the same thing with me. We confessed to each other over FaceTime a few days after our second date. And then we were girlfriends. When we had sex on our third date (modest, I know) and it was kind of awkward. I was incredibly nervous, and she was incredibly sexy. She drove me crazy, and still does to this day. Our second round of sex was MUCH better. The awkwardness was gone, and all that was left was pure desire.

So, here we are. We’ve been together for four months now, and are wildly and deeply in love. It’s not like things have been a walk in the park. We started our relationship knowing a fundamental difference between us. Morgan is polyamorous, and I am not. After a lot of talks about feelings, rules, and structures, however, we have finally met at a place that feels good to us. I will write more about relationship styles at a later date. I’m just getting back to work and back to this piece after a long weekend spent celebrating her birthday and our four months together, and I am still dripping in relationship bliss.

Morgan’s love is something I have never experienced before in many ways. I have never felt more seen, more understood, and more supported in my whole life. Morgan is very affirming when it comes to my gender and has no problems reassuring me that she loves me as many

times as I need. I feel known. I feel loved. I feel like I have met my person, dear reader. And that’s a lot of pressure to put on something, to put on someone… but it’s true. If I can receive love like this from this person for the rest of my life, I am lucky. If I can receive love from this person for a few years, I am lucky. I am in love, and I am in love with the experience of being in love. And I certainly don’t miss men.

So you may be asking yourself, “Is this Shawny’s coming out as a lesbian post? Has she ditched men completely and totally switched to being a muffin-diving dyke?” And the short answer is, I don’t know. I know that a man has NEVER made me feel like this. A man has NEVER made me feel heard, or understood, or like I wasn’t asking for the world when all I wanted was some affection. I can tell you that I still find men attractive, unfortunately, but I

learned that I don’t need approval from men in order to be a valid human in this life. And that’s huge. But with Morgan, I’m just like “yeah, I could do this with this person for a very long time”. And I’ll take that. I look forward to us moving in. I look forward to us getting engaged and married. And hell, maybe we’ll even have a kid or two. Which is something I could NEVER picture myself saying until meeting her. There’s also a trope here that would be a disservice to ignore. The U-Hauling. Lesbians have a reputation for moving quickly, loving intensely, and deciding to make a life with each other within months of dating. Why do you think this is? To circle back to a thought I had a few times during this piece, the answer, at least for me, seems to be quite obvious. Women understand each other. We know what the other one wants because we crave it too. Especially coming from dating men, like myself, within the first few weeks, I realized I would never get treated like this if I were with a man. It’s really just that simple.

So, I don’t know. This might be my life now. It also might not be. But I am enjoying the ride, for sure.

I could use label descriptors to further alienate myself from the main modern culture. I am a millennial. I am a trans woman, I am fat, I grew up poor, I am a survivor of multiple sexual assaults. I am a writer, a performer, a witch, a tarot reader, a social and political organizer. I have not left the state I grew up in. I am a college dropout. I am somewhere between an anarchist and a socialist I think-I hate politics but acknowledge that they are important to pay attention to though I remain fairly lawless. I could talk endlessly about identity politics and using descriptors as weapons of alienation while also using them as tools to find community, but I actually just wrote that down as a topic to cover in an op-ed later on.

I keep using conditional tense because I am stalling. Like I said, I feel bad at introductions. But here I am still telling you about myself all the same. As it stands currently I am in my artist collective that I am a member of, playing a playlist called ‘Liminal Ambient’. It feels fitting because I feel like I am at a very liminal time of my life. I’ve been a rogue DIY artist and writer for the past decade but now I feel like being taken seriously and actually publishing my work. It feels like a punk band making a commercial pop album.

So, I know that I am here in what has felt like the end of the world for a long time. I am here because when I speak people like to listen. I am here because in times like these, joy needs to be as prioritized as resistance. You can expect op-eds, poetry, reviews on media and products, personal essays and whatever else I see fits it this space from me. Also if you’re reading this, I love you. I hope some day things will feel less like they do right now. But until then- you can find me here, being an over opinionated trans woman, I am happy to be of service.