it strikes me that internalized cissexism^[1] plagues our communities. we try to prove to ourselves that we are trans by asking ourselves if we would, in the press of a button, bring our selves and bodies into alignment, and in that act, make ourselves cis. we wonder and we obsess, pondering the question, “am I trans?” but we never ask “am I cis?”

but this self-directed transphobia runs much deeper. how many grieve for the selves they lost, for the person that might have been, had they been born cis? in this, we never stop to ask ourselves, “what would I have lost?”

for myself: everything I cherish, all I value most. to be cis, I must give up the experiences that have shaped me most, and in so doing, I’d make of myself someone else. there are many painful things I might have wished to avoid but, looking back, I see a clear trajectory of necessary action taken quietly and without fanfare to survive what had to be survived until freedom was within reach. to dream of living some other life would be a critique of that person inside who worked so hard to bring us to this point of inner tranquility and outer safety. and really, what do I have to critique? should I castigate the child for repressing in an unsafe home, especially after learning now, as an adult, that my father would hurt or kill me if he learns I’m trans? or should I reprimand the young woman for learning to endure, internally divided, and oh so alone? but, one might ask, “what of your body? do you not transition to make it as cis as possible?” to this: no. my trans body has endured so much, with both strength and grace, and it will weather so much more; I dare the coming storms.

rather, I transition now to make this body habitable for her, for the scarred and indomitable woman who would leave her mark on the world. I transition because a little remodeling frees her from repressive chains. I remake tomorrow, not yesterday. if instead, I chased a platonically perfect body, if I rumimated on the experience of a cis childhood, lost to the circumstances of my birth, if I obsessed over the impossible, I’d forget the diamond, dreaming of a reprieve from the heat of her makers’ forge. I do not wish I were cis.

[1] the notion that we are all cis, with perhaps an asterisk to note the disquieting, uncomfortable, growing population of exceptions who wish they were cis, and must be helped to it.