In Texas Observer

“You have to go the way your blood beats,” James Baldwin said in an interview. “If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all.” Belatedly, I’m coming to grips with this. My attempts to cope with gender dissonance have consumed much of my life, taking hours away from each day, isolating me from loved ones, alienating me from my body, leading to bouts of depression, ideations of suicide, and alcohol abuse. It doesn’t go away. In middle age, I’m forced to recognize that nothing short of being who I am will resolve my profound inner conflict. The word “transition” is terrifying but, however catastrophic the process of coming out may be, I’ll not be much good to those I love if I’m burned out, incapacitated, or dead.

Knowledge is power. If I had simply known more, I would have been spared some suffering. The idea that I’ve been converted by the “gender cult” is preposterous. My starting point was my own experience, going back years before I could even articulate it. I simply was what I now call “transgender.” My brain and flesh and bones told me so. And peace could never be mine until I had uncovered its nature and found a way to live with it.

The many bills trying to prevent youth from learning about trans identity trouble me deeply. They seek to condemn another generation to the deathly dysphoria that has burdened me in the belief that people like me are misbegotten or perverted, and that state-imposed ignorance can prevent children from turning out like us.