Tenderhearted Rebels

Short Stories and Other Temptations From a Native New Yorker

It’s been eleven years.

My hair is receding just like my father’s. He died in the mid-eighties, so it's unknown if he would have gone completely bald. If I do, I will “rock the baldness,” as my tenderhearted doctor said to me one day. She retired a few years ago. We were the same age. More letting go and moving on into the future.

These days we are in a quagmire. Or more accurately, we’re in several quagmires. By we, I mean everyone on the planet. That’s why some are hellbent on a rocket to Mars. Sure hope they go. The sooner the better.

This increasingly unlivable political climate has me thinking about adults and young adults who may be deciding to just sit tight and coast instead of beginning their wild beautiful ride of a gender journey. Some who choose to not medically transition may be able to tolerate their feelings of gender and social gender dysphoria. They may revel in newer more fabulous ways of gender expression, build up their queer friend groups for support and affirmation of their gender identity, join creative groups with other queers, get more politically committed to protesting in all its forms and express a helluva lot more rage at the machine. Never forget, SILENCE = DEATH.

And some adults may decide to run and jump headlong into the deep end of the pool, yolo style. Nothing will ever stop trans people from being and feeling who they are deep in their souls. No government can do that.

Still other people, not as well connected with peers or not able to connect for a variety of reasons, will not do as well. For them tolerating feelings of dysphoria may unfold as dissociation, addiction, more risk taking behaviors and suicide attempts.

For youth under eighteen years old, twenty six states have already banned gender healthcare since 2021. As we all know, SCOTUS has just ruled against trans youth accessing needed transition related healthcare in a massive setback. That thought hurts my heart. These realities of the movement toward the goals of Project 2025 are spurring families to move from their homes to safer, more progressive states that legally still allow their youth the ability to choose self-actualization with their parents, therapists and doctor’s guidance.

I remember eleven years ago, meeting other middle aged people at the start of their new life too, there was a feeling that we were all jumping through a portal that had just opened wider and was about to close. Maybe we felt the coming storm, this political storm. Maybe we felt that too, in our cells.

Sometimes I wonder if trans people are capable of sensing things about the greater world in their bodies too. Not good or bad, just a different lived experience. I know that’s been my life experience. The messages I felt were crystal clear. I felt who I was in my cells, beyond the thinking mind, as long as I can remember. The body is alive with information. If we are willing and able to listen.

I jumped through the portal after fifty years of knowing the information that my cells were telling me. For me, it was all about timing. And the increasing access to transgender medical and mental healthcare. It finally felt like everything was exactly as it was meant to be, not a minute too early or a minute too late. That moment was graciously waiting for me and I had finally arrived.

Share your thoughts. Kind hearted souls dwell here.