There was a time when I felt lost—scared, confused, and desperate to just be a girl. I wished I could have been born that way, spared the struggle, the doubt, the fight. But instead, I buried those feelings deep down, convincing myself that if I tried hard enough, I could be the "manliest man" possible. I thought if I could just perform masculinity well enough, maybe I could silence the ache inside me.
But the truth has a way of breaking through, no matter how much you try to suppress it. Eventually, I realised I couldn’t keep it up. The weight of pretending was crushing me, and when I finally admitted who I was, I was met with a new kind of fear—one that came with stepping into the unknown, with coming out, with facing the world as my real self.
That first year was brutal. The self-doubt, the pain, the moments when I wondered if I’d made a mistake, if I was strong enough to do this. But I kept going. And now, I refuse to live any way other than authentically.
I am a trans woman. I am still here. And I will keep fighting for myself and for others who have struggled, who are struggling. Because we deserve to exist, to thrive, to be true to ourselves.
Soon, I’ll be getting a tattoo based on The Simpsons episode with the “Do it for her” sign. Except for me, her is me—the version of myself who fought so hard to get here. But her is also every trans woman who didn’t make it, whose life was taken from them—whether by violence or because the world made it too hard for them to go on. This is my reminder that I keep going not just for me, but for them too.
This is about survival. This is about resilience. This is about being me.
Death before Detransition. Do it for her.
