Thankfulness 2025

A few years ago, I began a tradition of contemplating what I’m thankful for in the past year. I missed last year, unable to focus on anything other than the disastrous election earlier that month. This year, a year into that disaster, a number of things come to mind easily.

I am thankful for chosen family. My church family. My chorus family. All the people in my life who give me the daily resilience to carry on during a time in which I could be profoundly depressed all day, every day, over the state of our country. I hesitated to say “our country“ because there have been a number of times this past year when I wished deeply that I had been born elsewhere.

This is sounding so depressing, yet there are so many things in my life that uplift me and give me hope for the future, reminding me, “This, too, shall pass.”

PGMC’s holiday concert is coming up in a few weeks. When I look at the set list of songs we’re going to perform, I’m given great hope by the fact that the same set list could’ve comprised any concert I’ve sung in the chorus since I joined in 2008. Nothing in the politics of the day has changed the exuberant, dynamic energy we will bring to our audience this December. In keeping with Portland’s general reaction to the politics of the day, PGMC is also living the attitude, “We’re here, we’re not going away, and we’re not changing. Get used to it!”

I belong to an Episcopal church. I have come to realize that this denomination perfectly suits introverts. It’s a denomination of introspection, discernment, and quiet grace moving through the world. This extrovert has been very gratified that a number of my introverted churchmates have quietly come up to me in the past year, saying some variation of, “I just want you to know that I support you, and I’m so sorry that your identity is under attack right now.”

I am grateful there is only one member of my biological family I feel estranged from at the moment. She voted for Trump, and has never changed her view that he was sent by God to save the country and the world. As for the rest of my family, this incident is a good illustration of their attitude…

Not long ago, we had dinner with one of our nieces (on my wife’s side of the family) and her girlfriend. Our niece asked me, “Do you want me to call you Uncle Reid? I call Cristina ‘Aunt Cristina,’ and I just wondered what you wanted to be called.” Her partner immediately saw the potential confusion in that question, and offered clarification, “You mean, ‘do you want to be called Uncle Reid or just Reid,’ right?” Given my trans identity and that I spent the first 40 years of my life living female, this clarification meant that my niece wasn’t asking did I want to be called Aunt Reid. This possibility would never have occurred to my niece, so it didn’t occur to her that there was a potential point of confusion in her original question.

We all laughed, and I was so gratified that (a) it never would’ve occurred to my niece that I might go there with it because that wasn’t even close to what she had in mind, and (b) her partner understood immediately that clarification was a good idea.

I am so thankful that there are a number of people in my biological family that I would also choose to be part of my logical family. And I am thankful to have had the opportunity to become logical family to a number of people I dearly love. We will get through this time, family! One of these years, I will be able to write, “We survived and thrived and got through it.“ And, I will be using the past tense.

How Many Trans People Are There?

“Is it my imagination, or are there more trans people now than there used to be?” Henry asked me recently over Zoom. Henry is a fifty-something black cisgender gay man; a fellow therapist, Henry and I have compared notes about client issues for years. He took several classes I taught years ago, preparing himself to work with trans clients.

Henry’s question isn’t easy to answer. We were never counted before, so how can we know how many of us there have been? And even now, we don’t all want to be counted, so how can we know how many of us there are today?

I had to come out to everyone in my world when I transitioned, asking them to change names and pronouns for me. On the other side of that process, I had a choice of coming out or not. If I didn’t, no one would ever know I wasn’t a cisgender man. Every use of the right name and pronoun affirmed my identity, and for a year or so I reveled in that, not coming out much to people who didn’t already know. I was out of the fishbowl of early transition. I have words to express this feeling now, though I couldn’t articulate my feelings so clearly at the time: it was the transition process itself that was marginalizing, not the identity on the other side of transition.

There is a dividing line in trans experience, and that is marked by the advent of the internet. Prior to that time, it wasn’t easy to form connections with others who had also transitioned. Invisible within the larger culture, happily living our lives, we were also invisible to each other. The concept of transition at that time was: “I have always hated my birth gender assignment, so now I’m going to happily ever after be a man (or woman).” Putting on my therapist hat for a moment: if a trans person expressed a desire to connect with others of their own identity, this wasn’t seen as seeking community; it was seen as regression to an earlier stage of transition. We were supposed to want to become men or women and blend into the binary, never looking back. (The logical extension of this view: there was no such thing as a non-binary, in-between identity at that time.)

The advent of the internet made it possible for us to more easily find each other, bypassing therapists who saw us as regressing. This was the beginnings of forming community. But many came before us. With little incentive to come out, living in authenticity while also being private, how in the world can we ever know how many people have transitioned since the process became medically possible some 70 years ago?

Another factor to consider is the cultural effect of second-wave feminism. The messages of that brand of feminism: Respect yourself. Be true to yourself. Don’t let others define you. Several generations down the road from the women who defined feminism, we are seeing youth growing up with these messages internalized. They are coming of age much younger, respecting their own and their peers’ search for identity. It would never occur to them to be in the closet, unless forced by family or life circumstance. (In part, it is this openness of identity that has conservatives scared for the future. But that’s a whole ’nother topic.) These youth have formed community under the common umbrella Q=queer, embracing all kinds of various sexual and gender identities in a fluid manner that defies pigeonholes, making it appear there are far more such youth than in previous generations.

In fact, it appears to me that there is far more freedom of self-definition and self-expresioin than in previous generations. The elders among us fought hard and long, stalwart in our determination to carve out cultural space for our L, G, B, and T identities at a time when we were mocked and beaten down for doing so.

Trade union activist Nicholas Klein said in a 1918 speech, “First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.” Trans people were happy to be ignored for several decades. When we started coming out, ridicule was the initial result, leading to being attacked. We haven’t reached the monument stage yet, but we have established a place for ourselves among the people who have included our letter in the acronym for quite awhile without fully understanding what it means to do so.

So, there may or may not be more trans people these days, that’s impossible to say. But I can say with confidence that many more of us are out about our identities, willing to be counted.

This Too Shall Pass

A few weeks ago I went to the DMV to renew my driver license. I chose not to get a real ID, knowing that it would probably come back to me with an F on it instead of an M. I’ll use my passport for travel — it says M, and doesn’t expire until 2033. I have to hope these ID/gender issues will be in the rear view mirror by then.

Several decades ago, I chose not to change my birth certificate from F to M when I transitioned. I was born in California; I could have gotten a new birth certificate, with access to the old one sealed, so no one else would have access to the previous version. (That might not hold true today, what with federal meddling…)

I chose not to go that route — it felt revisionist of my history, and the journey I had to go on to become who I am. We all make different decisions about things like that, and that was mine. Who knew that 30 years later I would have to worry about that 1995 decision affecting my current ID?

Back to the current-day scenario… I was on pins and needles sitting at the DMV, awaiting my turn at the counter. I had brought with me two pieces of mail addressed to me, to prove my current address. I brought my passport. I didn’t know if I would need any or none of that documentation. I made sure my phone was fully charged up, in case I needed to contact someone in a big hurry.

I know intellectually that the current negative state of affairs regarding trans people is much more of an issue at the federal level than it is at the level of the state of Oregon. Nevertheless, the current negativity has instilled an edginess to my life that I haven’t felt since the early days of the anti-gay ballot measure era. And even then, living as a lesbian and not as a trans person, I would not have been so on edge going to the DMV to renew my driver license. The anxiety this administration has instilled among trans and non-binary people will be a long time dissipating.

I have seen our culture move forward as the decades have gone by. Those of us who are part of Q+ community in some way have seen tremendous gains in our civil rights, and our social acceptance, making it all the harder to feel that we’re going backwards.

Though it may feel like going backwards, I don’t believe that’s what’s really going on. We’re not being pulled backward. Those who are so deadset against our identities are not pulling us backward; they are digging their heels in to prevent us from moving forward any further.

The current administration has led them to believe we can move backward. But history only goes in one direction, though the path can certainly be convoluted! We will survive, we will thrive, and we will emerge from this all the stronger. Having just celebrated my 70th birthday, I have long history of observation to bolster my belief that unity in strength is our true trajectory.

I keep Martin Luther King’s observation firmly in mind, as it emboldens me to undertake life tasks, such as going to the DMV: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

And by the way – the clerk at the DMV merely asked, “Has anything changed in the information we have on record?“ No. My new driver license arrived in the mail yesterday.

By contrast…

Here’s an example of what a DMV process looked like a generation ago…

I acquired my first driver license when I was in my ‘40s. Prior to that time, I had always bicycled everywhere, or taken the bus if the bike wasn’t an option that day. I walked all over Portland.

I did have an Oregon ID card, which I rarely used. When I changed my name legally, that card was about to expire, so I changed my name to Reid in the DMV system. However, that was several years before I started taking hormones. So the gender still said F.

In 1998, several years into transition, I moved to California for three years for graduate school. It was during this time that I acquired my first driver license. It said Reid, with the gender M.

When I moved back to Oregon in 2001, I went into the DMV to acquire an Oregon driver license. I didn’t think anything of it, as it’s not hard to change your driver license from one state to another. However, I had forgotten that I had that old ID card in the Oregon DMV system.

The guy behind the counter started laughing when he entered my name into the computer. He said, “Wow, someone sure made a mistake when they gave you that ID card back in the day! It says F on it! Let me change that for you!”

Thoroughly taken aback, I managed to say, “Well, thank you!“

It can be easier to transition when your identity is on the cultural radar, with more services available if you live in a place like Portland. And it can feel a lot more peaceful if it’s not on the radar at all. I was taken aback at that DMV 24 years ago — but I had no fear. Time to stick together, be there for ourselves and each other.

Wisdom from Far Along the Road

June 20, 1997 is my second birthday, the day I received my first shot of testosterone. December 9, 1997 is also my second birthday – the day I had chest reconstruction surgery. What a ride it’s been!

I had no mentors back then. There was only one peer support group in Portland, and my ex-partner (long, largely-irrelevant story there) found it first, so I couldn’t join. At the time, this left me feeling bereft, as internet support was pretty rudimentary then and I felt isolated.

What helped me most then? Kate Bornstein’s book Gender Outlaw provided me with a different way of looking at transition. Kate’s light-hearted approach helped me take myself seriously for the first time in my life. Nothing else at that time did. So what would have helped me to know back then? I would have loved it had a wise mentor told me the following:

• You can do this. Yes, you come from a family where no one takes you seriously because you’re the youngest. Yes, you come from people who expect you to have all the answers in place before you ask the questions. But it’s your life, not theirs. So – live it. You’re not responsible for their feelings, but you are responsible for taking charge of your life.

• You are enough. Your transition might not look exactly like the next guy’s, you might have different ways of viewing gender, you might take longer than your trans friends to start hormones – none of that matters. It’s your transition, it’s yours to define.

• You will act and feel like an adolescent for awhile after you start hormones. This is normal, so take a deep breath when you feel that cockiness coming on a bit too strong, back off a little. Your friends are not all 14-year-old boys, especially if they’re not transguys recently on hormones, and they’re not going to appreciate this energy.

• It’s fine to be single through this process. Then you can be as self-centered as you need to be while you reinvent yourself.

• The Standards of Care aren’t the be-all and end-all way for a therapist to interpret your transition. You’re entitled to find a therapist who views transition as an issue of identity emergence. You’re entitled to find a therapist who will work with you to help you clarify who you are, and will then help you become that person, as you navigate your way through this process that changes everything in your life. If your choice is between a therapist who doesn’t get it at all, who puts roadblocks in your way through lack of understanding, or a few good friends to see you through it – go with the friends.

• Don’t try to map out your long-term future too concretely. You can’t really know where this will lead you beyond the next step. Try the hormones, then ask, “Is this enough?” Make surgery decisions after you’ve been living “guy” for awhile. There is no right or wrong way to transition, so it’s fine if you want hormones and no surgery, or chest surgery and no hormones. Whatever. Just take what feels right to you as the next step, without worrying too much about what the step after might look like. Internalize AA’s Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

• You can be loved. Back in 1997, how could you know you would get married on Feb. 5, 2009?

• Get over viewing this as a psychological disorder, despite what the DSM says. Take in what a good friend once told me: “What a gift, to be able to live as more than one sex in the same lifetime.” Yeah.

• Let yourself be all you can be, don’t hold yourself back out of fear of your family’s reaction. You are family to them as they are family to you. It’s going to be hard to watch them grieve the loss of what you’re moving away from as fast as you can. They have to go through a transition process with you, but it’s different from yours. They have to let go of “daughter,” “sister,” and “niece,” only seeing what they are losing. They can’t yet see what they might gain – a happier, more centered family member that they now have a much better chance to know. To them, it’s almost as if you died. It’s hard to watch, and feels unsupportive, but that’s not where they’re coming from. But watch out for your brother-in-law – he is going to remain unsupportive. Rush Limbaugh has had too great an influence on his world view. The others will come around, over time. And believe it or not, eventually you’ll just laugh at your brother-in-law. He will one day look like an ass when he calls you “she” at a restaurant and the waiter doesn’t look at you, but looks at him like he’s got Alzheimer’s. Enjoy the moment, when it comes.

• Let yourself feel lonely. You’re losing your lesbian community, and you don’t yet have community to replace it. That’s okay. You didn’t fit that identity, and now that you know it, you really can’t stay. Know that in the future, your individual lesbian friends are still going to be there, but it’s not going to be the same. They knew you when, you will have shared history, but you may not feel like you have shared future. Don’t worry about it – other friends will come along who understand gender as you’ve come to. They will understand you, and your journey, better than your lesbian friends can. Eventually, you will feel like you’ve grown and your lesbian friends have not. But that’s not quite it – it’s just that you’ve grown beyond that community, while to them, it’s still home.

• Keep in mind what a magnificent thing you’ve done, reinventing your entire self and life from the ground up. What courage that took! It’s not a courageous thing to have been born trans, you had no control over that. But you do have control over what you do about it. You’re taking control, and here’s what you will accomplish: You’ll go back to school, get your BA in psychology, move 700 miles to get your MA in counseling psychology, move back to Portland, open up your therapy practice, work with a supervisor for over three years accruing your hours, get your therapist license, publish a book, and become widely respected as a trans therapist and writer. You’ll retire as a therapist, write another book, and eventually, you’ll write your memoir. Oh yeah, and you’ll get married to a wonderful woman and become a step-father to a 16 year old daughter.

That’s it for now, but I may have a whole other list for you in the future, because that’s my last piece of advice: Don’t expect the journey to end.

Take care,
Reid

Thankfulness 2024

I started this tradition some years ago: rather than celebrating Thanksgiving, I celebrate what I’m thankful for in the preceding year. It has become difficult for me to celebrate the colonization of this continent, which is how I have come to perceive the holiday we call Thanksgiving.

This past year… I am so grateful for the continued presence of my neograndson Theo in my life. Now living in Manchester, thriving at Manchester Metropolitan University, he and I continue to Zoom regularly. We are family. (if you are new to this story, read past blogs in which I posted about needing Team Tim, nearly 2 years ago now!)

I am grateful to have a loving partner. We sustain each other as we move on this journey through life together.

I continue to be grateful, after 38 years, for the opportunity to participate in GALA choruses. I attended my 10th GALA festival in Minneapolis this past summer, singing with the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus, after a drought of eight years. 7500 of us blew the roof off Minneapolis! And we will do so again in four years. (GALA used to stand for Gay and Lesbian Choral Association; with the expansion of the possibility of identities, the letters ‘GALA’ are now the name of the organization, no longer an acronym.)

I am grateful to be a member of St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church. Such a welcoming family! I am thankful for our new Rector, Joseph Wallace-Williams. This parish chose a gay man as the rector back in 2002, at a time when that was even more controversial than it is today. Now the vestry has chosen another gay man to lead us spiritually, and I feel very much at home.

Despite the results of this past election, I feel a strong sense of community and family that will sustain me. Though an unfortunate way to find out, I now know precisely who is for me and who is not. I am thankful to be surrounded by family of choice, both Q+ and allies, in this tumultuous time. I am so thankful that most of my biological family is also family of choice.

Can’t wait to see what I have to say about thankfulness in 2025! Stay tuned!

The Bonds of Music

Even at 69, I occasionally surprise myself. Today’s insight came during a conversation about chorus, a subject near and dear to my heart. I was talking with a member of my chorus who is neurodivergent, on the autism spectrum. I was curious, and asked him, “Why does it appeal to you to be in this really large group, with all this energy in this room? I would’ve thought it would be too much for you.”

He replied, “This is the only group thing I feel completely comfortable participating in. We’re all converging to a unison note, singing together, and it gives me a sense of belonging with other people. And I don’t have to look at them or talk to them in order to feel this strong connection. It’s perfect for me.”

This comment struck me, and hit home. It took me awhile to be able to articulate why I could identify with what this person had said. I am not neurodivergent myself, so why did I connect so strongly with his viewpoint?

In 1986, I was a founding member of the Portland Lesbian Choir. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that I understood I wasn’t really a lesbian, but was a transman. Prior to this realization, I had always had anxiety and some level of depression participating in lesbian community. I didn’t understand these feelings at all, and worried and fretted about them constantly in my journals.

When my autistic friend told me why he felt comfortable in chorus, I understood for the first time that chorus had served the same purpose for me back in my lesbian community days: a place where I could bond with people through singing, a very powerful means of bringing us all together, and — I didn’t have to look at anyone, I didn’t have to interact with anyone, I could just be and feel a part of it all.

Now I sing in the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus. I transitioned nearly 30 years ago, and do feel a strong sense of connection to the world around me. I don’t have any trouble bonding with people now. And still, the bonds of singing together in a chorus are among the most powerful I experience. I wish choral singing was a bigger part of the larger culture. It has such power to bring us together.

Round and Around We Go

Today marks the first time I have felt able to write since the election just over a week ago. I’ve had numerous conversations with various folks, all of us processing the traumatic grief we are feeling over the election results.

I have felt rocketed back to the 1990s anti-gay ballot measure era here in Oregon. The feelings this past election have evoked in me are similar, and more profound because they extend across the entire country. And they extend across my family – no one in my family voted in favor of anti-gay ballot measures in the 1990s. These days, I feel betrayed by a few folks I have considered family.

All this said… We did survive the anti-gay ballot measures, emerging stronger as a community and with a greater sense of power. I have hope that the same can hold true this time around.

One constant for me is the presence of the Portland LGBTQ+ choruses — beacons of hope into the future. A story from 30 years ago… the Portland Lesbian Choir and Portland Gay Men’s Chorus ventured forth, sometimes individually and sometimes jointly, into small towns in various parts of Oregon. In one town, we performed in the auditorium of a community college. There were right-wing picketers outside the concert, holding up anti-gay signs.

The picketers followed us into the auditorium and sat in the back, holding up their signs so those of us on stage could see them. Halfway through the concert, several people put their signs down. My thought at the time was, “They got tired of holding those signs up; they will pick them up when we get ready to leave.” But they didn’t. We changed a few hearts and minds that day.

The power of music. There is a reason choral singing originated in spiritual traditions. Sharing the air in song thins the barriers between us all, making our interconnection all the more palpable. This was the effect we had on a few picketers that day back in the 1990s. And this is the effect we can have for our community, helping us all remember our interconnection, empowering us all, and lessening our feelings of isolation. Take every opportunity you can find to be sustained by the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus and Portland Lesbian Choir this season, helping us all support each other through this difficult time.

Eight Years’ Drought

In July of 1989, with the rest of the three-year old Portland Lesbian Choir, I carpooled up to Seattle for the third GALA choral festival. GALA is the Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses. (Well… the acronym used to stand for that – a few years ago, the organization changed the name to BE the acronym, in recognition that we are far more than ‘lesbian and gay’ these days!) Our thought at the time was, “The Portland Gay Men’s Chorus has been going on and on about this event for months now, we might as well go see what all the fuss is about! We can drive to Seattle. The next one will be in Denver and there’s no way we’re going to Denver!” By the end of that magical week, we were plotting and scheming how to get to Denver. The PLC has never missed a GALA choral festival since, nor has PGMC.

So what made it so special? A women’s chorus workshop with Bernice Johnson Reagon, teaching us to approximate sounding like Sweet Honey in the Rock? The closing ceremony, 3,000 of us forming a ring in a huge outdoor plaza, holding hands as Holly Near stood in the center, leading us in singing “We are a gentle, angry people”? Rehearsing for a women’s festival chorus, meeting singers from all over, realizing the dynamic of diva first soprano and butch second alto was not unique to the PLC? Yes. Yes. And yes!

And singing for each other weeklong. There is no audience like GALA, all of us choral singers, all of us having the same conversation for months. “Who can take the time off work? Who needs financial aid to get there? What can we do to make sure all of us are there who can possibly make the trek?” And the directors – “What should we sing for each other??? What should I pick for us to sing that will showcase who we are, and that no other chorus will also be singing???”

1992, Denver. 1996, Tampa Bay. 2000, San Jose. 2004, Montreal. 2008, Miami. 2012, Denver. 2016, Denver. 2020 – well, we all know what happened to 2020… 2024, Minneapolis. I haven’t missed any of them, singing in one chorus or another. If you are a fan of the Portland Lesbian Choir, or the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus (hopefully both!), then you know what these choruses bring to your life. Sustaining hope, building community, singing for our lives. It’s no accident choral singing originated in spiritual traditions. Converging on a single note of unison thins the barriers between us, making our interconnection so palpable, for singer and audience alike. Converging at GALA strengthens the power of the choruses, an energy we bring right back to you.

We blew the roof off Minneapolis, over 7,000 of us converging in six square blocks. Eight years of drought lifted, singing in unison once again. This screen shot from the GALA Choruses website says it all, the countdown to 2028:

Let’s Talk

Some years ago, I participated in a project sponsored by the Portland Art Museum, creating an intergenerational LGBTQ+ exhibit. One aspect of the exhibit paired people from different generations, allowing an opportunity for questions and answers in both directions.

I was paired with a 17-year-old non-binary high school student. I was gifted with the opportunity to learn what it was like to live a non-binary identity in high school. And they said to me, “I’m so glad I get to ask you questions, I don’t know anything about the history of this community I’m part of!”

This comment struck me, as it occurred to me, “How could you? How much LGBTQ+ history is taught in any high school?” Upon further inquiry, it turned out they had read a one-paragraph summary of the Stonewall riots at some point. They knew there had been an AIDS epidemic. That was it.

We had a wonderful several-hour conversation as I caught them up on some community history based in my own personal experience; in turn, I learned a lot about navigating high school while living in authenticity with a queer identity.

If we don’t transmit our own community history, it will be lost to history. I have participated in several interviews for Queer archives. I talk about intergenerational communication in presentations. I take advantage of random opportunities to have deep conversations intergenerationally with folks I meet, learning from them as they learn from me.

If we are accurately informed about the past, we will have a better sense of where we came from, and more respect for the elders who helped us get where we are today. And we can avoid rewriting our own history. As an example, I recently heard a young non-binary person refer to the term ‘FTM’ (female-to-male) as a binary slur intended to demean those who transition away from a female birth assignment. In fact, this was a term that came of age when I transitioned in the mid-1990s, one of the first community-created terms to replace ‘transsexual.’ It was a first attempt at trans people taking over our own terminology, not allowing others to define who we were. We felt empowered by the term FTM. I was quite taken aback to hear it described as a slur.

Our communities build and thrive and grow because of the efforts of previous generations. And this includes my own generation. I came out as a lesbian at 19, in 1974. It didn’t occur to me at the time that the blossoming community development of my generation was built on the efforts of a World War II generation that began taking very cautious steps out of the closet. I now wish I’d had an opportunity to talk with someone from that generation as I was coming out.

We all of us come into the middle of history. There’s no such thing as the beginning or the end. We move forward from what has come before, and others come after us to carry on. Respect and story-telling across generations can help our communities be more united in our support of each other, especially in these times of conservative backlash against who we are.

Why Be Visible?

In 1999, trans folks began commemorating trans people who had been murdered because of their identity. November 20 became Trans Day of Remembrance. In 2010, a different idea came into fruition – let’s celebrate our lives as well as commemorating those who have died. Today is Trans Day of Visibility.

Trans people have nothing in common beyond not being okay with the gender we were assigned at birth. Race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, age, political affiliation – nothing else is common ground. If you think about it, the same applies to cisgender people – they have nothing automatically in common except that they’re okay with the gender they were assigned at birth. So, when I talk about the importance of visibility, I’m speaking only for myself.

I’m as out as possible for a transman 28 years on hormones. We transmen are an invisible population unless we deliberately come out. I’d have to wear a neon sign around my neck for folks to know I’m trans just by looking at me. So, I do presentations, write for ShoutOut, talk to various groups – whatever I can do to put a face to the identity ‘transman.’ I published my memoir. For me, every day is Trans Day of Visibility.

Why do I feel so strongly about coming out? Because I didn’t know who I was until June of 1995. I had thought I was a lesbian; I was increasingly unhappy and anxious as the years went by, though I had no idea why. I don’t know if I would ever have figured out who I really was if a partner hadn’t come out to me, saying, “I’ve always felt like a man inside and if I had the money, I’d have an operation tomorrow.” This put my identity in my face so prominently, my denial could no longer function.

My partner was 37 at the time. I was 39. Neither of us had ever heard of a transman; neither of us knew anyone who was trans, and would not have been able to accurately define the identity if you’d asked us. My partner happened to see a magazine article about a transman and thus found out transition this direction was even possible. Though my partner had always had the self-knowledge, he had never known transition this direction was a thing. (I say ‘he’ now, though it took a long time for me to use the correct pronoun without bitterness and anger)

I repeat: neither of us had ever heard of a transman. And this is precisely why I come out now at any opportunity, why I welcome visibility – I look to the day when no one will have to wait until 39 to find out their identity exists. The day when people will have an opportunity to understand their identity at young ages because they see themselves reflected in movies, on television, in books.

I see this day on the imminent horizon, far more trans visibility culturally. And this has led to a sharp uptick in anti-trans reactions, from legislation to violence, from people who don’t want us to exist; they see us as polluting U.S. culture, seducing their children away from the literal straight and narrow. What keeps me going, gives me hope for the future, is a saying I keep firmly in mind as I live my life: first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you – then you win.

Author: reidpdx