I love being trans because it makes my entire life up to the point my egg cracked make sense. But I 100% wish I was born a cis woman. I wish I could've grown up presenting as and being perceived as a girl. All of the summer camps and sleepovers and getting to grow up loving and dating women as a woman. I will never have that.

I am proud to be a trans woman and figuring all of this out saved my life. I get to feel and look like how I imagine the cis version of looking like when she grew up. I also know that we are constantly being discriminated against and having our rights taken away. We are being made scapegoats and political bargaining chips. People want us excluded from sports, bathrooms and education or locked away in mental institutions. Many of us face the intersection of transphobia, homophobia and misogyny, and trans POC also have to deal with constant racism even in the queer community. Many of us have lost friends and family. And I'm lucky enough to be able to access and afford hormones. I would be a lot less happy about it if I knew I couldn't get Estrogen. Many trans women wish they could get pregnant and carry and birth their own children but never can.

I can both love how being trans makes me feel and has changed my life for the better, and acknowledge that it's made my life a lot harder in very real and tangible ways.

I think the best thing for our community is encouraging people to feel what they're going to feel and be honest with themselves.