Top surgery

January 2021

Perhaps the other largest responsibility of my life is something else that I took on this year: the project of coming out to my family as trans, and pursuing top surgery. Both of these prospects were utterly terrifying and had long-term effects, but I knew that both of them were also necessary for me to grow and move into the next chapter of my life. And -- not to knock classroom experience -- it was a test of all the personal work I had been doing over the last four years trying to get a feel for who I was, how to trust and stand up for myself, and how to be OK with running headlong into fear knowing that a life of heady, risky joy is on the other side. I’d never felt daring before, but I think it’s what this felt like.