It was a dreary March 31st in 2020, and I was stressed out.

I had just brought my workstation home to begin working remotely full-time in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. I was trying to keep work and personal lives separate. That wasn’t the primary cause of the stress, though.

My trans egg had fully cracked a couple of weeks before, after 30+ years of denial and suppression. The hammer blow was a combination of a major relationship ending and the sudden onset of lockdowns all over the world. With the shutdown of most in-person social avenues, I now had an abundance of time to sit with my thoughts.

As I reflected, memories from my past that I had tried to hide began resurfacing. They were hazy from being locked away so long:

The time I was told at a playground recess by a teacher of all people that I needed to stop crying so much because boys don’t do that, and I would be bullied if I didn’t stop. Because I was perceived as a boy.

The times that I wanted to change my name so bad in 4th grade, because I hated my birth name with an almost visceral reaction.

The times I snuck into my mother’s dresser and tried on clothes and shoes when she wasn’t home, even though they were oversized on me.

The times I quietly lamented about cutting my long hair because other kids had teased me about it.

I desperately buried these memories because I felt shame in each of them in the moment. I built up such impenetrable walls around them over the years. I leaned so hard into being “the most boy” and rarely let anyone in completely for fear that they might discover any part of what I was hiding.

If I can just fade into the background until I die. In hindsight, that was no way to live.

The more I sat and thought about all of these events flooding back, the clearer things became. It was as if one was twisting a camera lens and looking through the viewfinder at the same time as the visual image sharpens.

The fleeting thought that shattered it all was, in retrospect, quite simple and poetic.

“I don’t know exactly what I am yet, but I’m not a man, and I can’t keep pretending that I am one.”

Immediately, a long exhale followed along with a very audible “FUCK”.

So there I was, sitting in front of my computer, on that fateful day in March.

Sure, I’ve heard of Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV) before, but was that really who I was? Transgender?

I spent about 6 hours trying to encapsulate what had just happened to me a few weeks prior. I furiously typed character after character, and each time it looked like word salad. I tried to convey the thoughts I had in my head; I rewrote words like a howling windstorm until I finally sat back in my chair, defeated.

What in the absolute fuck am I doing? I had spent all this time trying to stay out of the way, and now you’re just going to tell people that what, you’re not a man? What the fuck does that even mean?

The engine I had built for decades was in its death throes, hastily trying to put the walls back up. In a moment of rash decision, I closed the browser; the words I had written vanished into the ether. I shut down my computer, collapsed onto my bed, and cried for a long time.

I wasn’t ready.

I wasn’t ready for several more months after that.

I kept being pulled between the struggle of “I can’t continue this charade any longer” and “just fade into the background again, it’s not too late”. It was futile, though. The walls I had built over the years were now obliterated, and there was no going back to the facade I had been performing.

I told five friends that I was questioning my gender. These women had known me for a while, as far back as high school, and were the ones with whom I felt the most comfortable telling.

I made a little group on Facebook. It was called The Hedgehog Diaries because I love hedgehogs, and I would post myself in more feminine clothing. I asked to be referred to with feminine terms. In response, I would get glowing comments about how cute I looked. I instantly loved being called cute, in contrast to the loathing I had for traditional masculine equivalents such as dapper or handsome. Looking back, those early days laid the groundwork for the confidence in my newly unwrapped authenticity.

A few months later, in July of 2020, the rising cacophony of not telling the world reached a fever pitch for me and dragged me back in front of that blank slate of a post box again. I had to say something this time. I knew I had to.

Keep it simple, I told myself.

I wrote a little bit. A little more after that. And eventually, there it was staring back at me:

So, hey friends. I'm not exactly sure how to write something like this, but here goes. I changed my pronouns from he/him to they/them for a public audience a couple of weeks ago, which was around the time I really acknowledged that I have been gender questioning for a while. I'm trying to come up with bad puns, as I often do, to end this rather serious post, and I'm utterly failing. If you're reading, thank you for making me feel comfortable enough to say this.

I wasn’t quite ready to fully send she/her. I knew that was the end goal. But I made the post, it made relative sense, and in the end, that’s what mattered. I hit send.

The outpouring of support from that one post startled me, and I came to the realization that a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I was no longer trying to hide myself or project a version of me that was palatable. I was just me.

In the months that followed, I felt more confident to experiment with clothing, publicly, instead of just in the private group. I tried on several new names. A few sounded really pretty, but weren’t quite me.

And then all of a sudden, there it was.

Saoirse.

Freedom in Irish.

My mother’s side of the family was a mix of Italian and Irish, and aside from the obvious maternal connection, it just felt right. Like a glove you discover after years of thinking it's lost and have it fit your hand perfectly again.

I changed it publicly and never looked back. Akin to my namesake, it was one of the most freeing things I’d ever done.

So, every year, TDOV is always a touch more special to me because of that story. To celebrate this year in particular:

And it was nice to exist, given all that’s going on currently.

There are a lot of words being thrown around in public spaces about trans people. They are cruel at best and downright genocidal at worst. So, as you can imagine, that takes an immense toll on us.

Cisgender people might ask what the singular best way to help trans people in the current climate is, and the answer I always give them is very simple.

Give them money directly.

Give them money for food, rent, medication, gender care, or a little thing they’re interested in.

I’ve spoken about my fundraiser for medical gender care before on this blog, and I’d be remiss not to mention it again. As I was writing this, however, I learned that a dear friend of mine had a fundraiser of her own to rescue an old motorhome. She’s raised, at the time of this post, $280 out of the $1.6k she’s asking for, and I’d humbly ask my audience to consider sending some money her way because I know how much this would mean to her.

It is equally hard to view trans spaces online and not see someone needing to find enough for rent, for food, to cover the costs of medical care. These things disproportionately affect trans people, particularly trans people of color.

I am speaking to the cisgender folks in my audience right now. If you can afford to, talk to the trans people in your life about what they need or seek out one of the many spaces offering mutual aid directly to trans people. Please make it a little easier for someone to exist.

With all that TDOV means to me, I recognize, through other out trans folks telling their stories, what it means for them to be visible today too. It’s a beautiful and joyful thing to witness, and I recognize, too, how privileged I am to be able to tell my story in this manner.

So today, I think of the people who can’t be out as I am because of safety; there are currently a multitude of US states that have active laws that directly harm trans people and threaten them with criminal charges for simply having authentic documentation or using the bathroom that aligns with their gender identity. Not to mention the over 700 pieces of legislation in the entire US last year alone targeting trans people, a mere 1% of the US population.

I also think about the people who were like me back on that dreary day, just trying to figure things out and not finding the right words to do so. Maybe they’ll be ready to emerge tomorrow, but they’re not ready today. And that’s alright.

For my trans siblings, both out and concealed, I see you and love you deeply. I am so proud of the journey you’ve made so far and the steps you still have to take down the road.

If you are cloaked today (I will forever be a Trekkie until my last day on this planet), I gift you the visibility you deserve for the day you do finally emerge as the triumphant butterfly that you are, whenever that may be.

You deserve to exist, and you deserve love.

Rachaimid tríd seo le chéile | We will get through this together.

💜