I love women in every way it’s possible to do so. I love specific women, in the familial, platonic, and romantic senses, depending on who they are. I love all women, as a collective set of people. I want health and joy and success and self-determination for all women everywhere – including even women I personally dislike and avoid. I believe all women have an inherent dignity and worth which cannot be reduced to economic terms, and I believe a woman’s right to her autonomy is sacrosanct. I will risk my own life and safety to secure and defend that right for all women. These things form the bedrock of what I mean when I say I’m a feminist.
I am a woman myself. I don’t think my experiences are universal, and in some cases may not be relatable for anyone else. But I’m also not exceptional. I get thirsty, I get tired. I breathe air and feel feelings and laugh when I think something’s funny. I make mistakes and sometimes I don’t learn everything I could from them. I snore. I have favorite foods and foods I won’t touch with a ten foot pole. I want to be left alone when I go to the bathroom, so I can make embarrassing sounds in peace.
I’m queer, as you may have inferred from my both loving women romantically and being one myself. I’m not interested in apologizing for any of that. Socially, in any context, I prefer the company of women and non-binary people; I find it restful and relaxing, as well as fun, interesting, rewarding, and productive. If I practically could, I’d only ever be around women and non-binary people. For these reasons I call myself a radical separatist dyke.
I was born, and continue to reside, in the United States of America. My father has Scottish and Irish ancestry, and my mother has Finnish and Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. For some of my childhood, I lived in a very multi-ethnic environment, and for some of it I was awash in a sea of Whiteness. At no point in any of that was I made to feel by my age peers that I belonged, so I grew up in the strange state of being both part of the empowered White class-group and set apart from those around me.
I’m transgender. Although in looking back over my life, I can now point to clear signs that this was the case from my earliest memories, it wasn’t until I was in my 40s that I reached a crisis point I couldn’t turn away from, and chose to transition and live fully as myself rather than stay closeted and die. And those literally were the stakes; I didn’t transition for funsies or to follow the cool kids, or get that big big transgender money and power and influence Fox News seems to think exists.
So, why am I telling you all this? Simply put, it contextualizes my perspective. I am, as are we all, the product of my biology, environment, circumstances, and choices. There are things I can’t know or speak about, and other things I can, and I will do my utmost to keep to the latter.
The prevalence of rhetoric about trans women in today’s American media landscape is huge and inescapable. Notably absent from most such conversations are trans women ourselves, as though we are zoo animals or the national debt, topically interesting but not something you’d invite to the table. And so, despite my disposition to keep myself to myself, I feel compelled to speak in this time and place, to make clear who it is I am, what it is I want, and what it is I think I’m doing. It may be that I’m the only person anywhere who thinks and feels the specific things I do, but as I definitely am a trans woman, I can speak with some authority on my own experiences.
First off: my identity, my life, my self-expression are my own. They’re not about you. I’m not interested in telling anyone else how to live their lives, how to experience the numinous, how to love or eat or play or be in community with others. You do you. I’ll do me. I’m not an exemplar, I’m not the One True Anything, I’m literally just one lady making her way in the world.
Second: as I mentioned before, I WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE WHEN I GO TO THE BATHROOM. I cannot stress this enough. I am not going to assault your friends and family under the guise of needing to pee, and if I could wave a magic wand and make all bathrooms everywhere single-occupant with locking soundproof privacy doors I would.
Up to now I’ve avoided mentioning men in any way, because I feel like men are centered far too often as it is, but it has become inevitable, so here goes. I am fundamentally opposed to patriarchy, and I will struggle against it with my dying breath. I’m not eager to lay down my life. It’s a coin that can only be spent once. But the day I came out as trans was the day I was done being forced into the closet by the fear of death or violence. Those are the tools of patriarchy, and while they might break my body, they will never break my spirit. They cannot.
In the new year of 2026, I’m renewing my commitment to being the antithesis of the fascist trends in U.S. politics. This looks like noncompliance with the dehumanization of others. It looks like speaking up loudly when injustice is being done anywhere, and obstructing that in any way I can. It looks like standing in solidarity with my neighbors when they are being bullied or intimidated. It looks like sharing my food, my resources, and my labor with those who need it. I don’t know if I’ll survive the year. But while there’s breath in my lungs and strength in my limbs, I’ll be using them to be fiercely, defiantly loving, to prevent harm to others, and to actively create the just world I want to live in.