So much has changed in the short time since I came out. Young trans people today will have always seen people like them on the covers of magazines, get to see a few positive depictions on television. But they also have to see places like North Carolina paint us as predators who deserve neither safety nor dignity. Visibility has its benefits, but so did invisibility. She’s so excited to transition though, and it makes me remember my own enthusiasm. Being laughed at, chased, spit on, none of it gave me pause in my early days. The joy of finally being myself outshone all else.
The compass of myself is spinning madly. I watch the tutorial twice. I decide I’ll test the durability of a BB cream by Tarte at thousands of feet in the air, then feel ashamed at worrying so much about how I look, then feel the dread again, that all this might go completely wrong, not because I’ll fall to my death, but because I’ll be reduced to my past.
Gabrielle Bellot, Skydiving in Two Genders: An Essay on Trans Visibility
