Where the Whale Crashed
Long Beach, Washington, outside of Cape Disappointment on the Luis and Clark Trail (2024)
During Covid, we had apartments together so we ate, hung out, took Covid tests together.
My friends back home were amazing. They are amazing. We held cooking and baking competitions and argued over the definition of a casserole while marathoning Nicolas Cage. We painted dinosaurs and figurines, created D&D magic, and pranced around San Francisco as pirates.
Honestly, part of me is scared to have a fun adventure out here in Spain.
I keep coming up with excuses on why I haven’t explored more.
A part of me doesn’t want to have fun. Say witty things. Be in the moment. Be here.
I’ve had about 9 years of amazing friends—truly amazing friends.
We were there when Adnan met Rithvik. It was super cute and adorable. I got to watch as Adnan first started blushing about a guy he had met. Watch them dance together after a geeky showing of Hackers(1995) at DNALounge. And years later, Adnan found the courage to come out to his parents because he loved so big. They both love so big—Rithvik being cute fattening up the once gym-rat Adnan. Adnan smiles so big when he hears that. I got to share the excitement and search for wedding ring inspirations online with them. Smile at their desire to one day start a family together. I want so badly to see how this story unfolds!
Tom—I was roommates with Tom. Tom reminds me a lot of myself. Things going great, amazing even— and then something happens. It feels so sudden but maybe it was growing for a while unnoticed? And just like that—this isn’t what was in the play-by-play. I’m not sure we enjoy playing when we only play to win and I was only taught how to play to win. Play was for other kids outside. I think you and I both come from a place of following scripts. Tom, I genuinely enjoyed being your roommate and it felt good having you there. I hope you had as much fun as I did dancing making weird noises—a reminder to return to our bodies and be safe enough to be goofy. Thank you for all your support.
Joe and Kati, are the parents I wish I had. Is that crazy to say as a friend? I really learned love watching them. I love how they support each other and play together. I know you two would be amazing parents—get out the board games, teach calculus, and all the queer icons and pop references. Kati is so zany and any cool kid would immediately steal her multi-decade wardrobe and accessories. Joe is my friend I hoped every day I could go over to his house to play with. My neighborhood friend. I wanted to build all the things with him. Talk about how things worked, chat about crushes, and play pirates with. And the cool thing is, I’m 34 and I’ve done all those cool things with him—with them. With all of them.
We kept moving to try to continue to be neighbors. That’s how much fun we had together. That’s how much we loved each other. God, at the end of the day, getting the bestest best hug from them, especially Kati—I couldn’t be the more luckiest person. Kati has the energy of a kindergarten teacher, a mom, a klutzy fairy godmother—all in one. Kati is genuinely there for you—especially when you’ve had surgery. God, I’ve had a ton of surgeries and she was always there with soup or stew—we’d binge all the shows. She’s so fucking cool and fearless! I wish I had the courage to dress like that every day!
Kati makes the world how she would love to see it.
We need more Kati’s in the world. Joe and Kati balance each other out. It’s not always easy. I’ve seen their hard times and it’s so cool to see their commitment to support and play together.
Living these past 9 years with them, it’s like living in your favorite tv show. I always wished I had friends like that and after years, I realized I did. And it’s scary as one year goes by and then another. Joe and Kati came married, Adnan and Rithvik are getting married, and you just hope being neighborhood best friends—will always be true.
You’re not ready to grow up. You’re not ready for the tale we watch over and over again—about people separating, moving on, make memories without you. You’re not ready to feel them peel away as they maybe have kids and then… you don’t.
It’s almost like you’re 12 again and you’re friends have moved away and you’re the only one left on the block. So, you move first—too scared to watch it play out again.
Because of them, I now know why people don’t leave their hometowns. You have so much history together. You can still remember all the drag shows, halloweens, thanksgivings, dungeons and dragons campaigns, hunting aliens together at 4am. I’m 34—and I still see magic! I don’t want to miss all the significant parts of their lives. It kills me when they’re away for a week and now I’ve nearly been away 2 years.
I never imagined I’d settle down and remain in San Francisco. I don’t even think I imagine settling down here in Estepona, Spain. I think I love the mountains and forests too much for that. But to be so lucky to have such amazing friends… who taught you all the good things all over again, the things you’ve forgotten along the way. They are who I want to return to again and again—for lessons, for growing, for support. Home. Family. In them, I found family. I found home.
I don’t want to miss it.
And while I’ve always dreamed of being an explorer, I don’t want to have fun here because I’m afraid of making things permanent. But I’m afraid I might have to. I’m scared of where things are going for trans people—for people like me.
But I’m more scared of being in that dark hole of suicidal depression from estrogen and never seeing, being blinded, in a fog of depression. Losing the ability to be with my friends and having fun. To be with them and play and make jokes and HAVE SPACE to share in each other’s pain and sadness. Because when you’re depressed, you don’t get those things.
You don’t get to live. That’s why suicide feels quicker when you already feel dead… just with prolonged, intense, heavy, suffocating pain. I wouldn’t wish that pain on my worst enemy.
And the thing is, I’ve been friends with Joe and Kati for 9 years. I could have had more time with them if I hadn’t been depressed the first 5.
A depression for over a decade. My doctor worried I only had enough strength for another year of failing treatments.
Being transgender isn’t about just a kid being sad they don’t get to dress up in clothes.
Being transgender is about joy.
Finally being able to see the skirt go spinny-spinny or finally belonging in the boys club in shitty cargo shorts or being that sassy gay you always knew you were. It’s about finally seeing yourself, being able to see others, and others finally, finally seeing you.
All the dreams expected of me never fit.
I was stuck living out someone else’s dream—my nightmare.
Being trans is isolating. While the girls are painting their nails and showing off their flowing, arguably very pretty dresses… those same dresses somehow looked and became the most awkward, ill fitting, itchy straightjackets… hell, even a straightjacket would be cooler. At least then I could pretend to be Houdini.
All I wanted to do was wear cargo shorts or bright red skinny jeans in vans practicing kick-flips. I wanted to be the guy seducing someone passionately. Hike a mountain, sail, be dastardly, be a captain, grow a mustache, smoke cigars, hunt, argue politics in a study filled with maps and books. I wanted to learn to dance ballroom, tango, and swing—to ask someone to dance and be apart of creating a magical night. I signed myself up for ettiequte and dance classes. I learned those dances…on the wrong foot, on the wrong side.
Reading and playing dungeons and dragons with my friends—
With Tom, Adnan, Rithvik, Joe, and Kati—
I was reminded of all the things I dreamt about.
What I really wanted to do.
Even if I never got to do them walking the world, I was able to do them with each other—
In our imaginations.
Dungeons and Dragons allowed me to be me. To dream and be dastardly and remind me who I always wanted to be. To try it there. In a safe space. With my friends. I got to go through all that remembering and learning and loving—with them.
And when I came out to them as trans, just shy of 30, they were there crying tears of joy along side me. Especially Kati, who I swear cried harder than I did. She somehow knew how much that meant and what I had to go through to get there.
And now—while I’m finally living—this administration is trying to strip that away. They’re now going after gender-affirming binders on their latest tirade. The FDA has issued tons of letters, pages of letters, to remove the use of the words “gender-affirming care”.
Putting on my first binder—a safe compression sports-bra like garment that flattens the chest— in a small town of Gilbert, Arizona in the 2000’s with a church on every corner and my dad, my best friend—who included me in all the dude stuff despite arguments with my mom—telling me being gay is an abomination… how the hell do you have a conversation?
How do you confide in your dad—the man who taught you how to shoot, how to change oil, how to build circuits—being a girl doesn’t fit? It’s not fitting and it has never fit.
That you wake up daily, expecting hair growth on your…chest-boob thingies? That you’re scared to fantasize because you can’t see yourself in the stories and if you do, well, you got blobby chest things in your way.
That you’re so fucking frustrated with your body—so goddamn uncomfortable. That you saw yourself as Aladdin at 7—quick, clever, daring— running around in a cut-up open shirt. (Reminder this was the 90’s) And you’re still mad your mom forced you into a Jasmine costume—brave and beautiful—but not you.
You were meant for Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn adventures. Having those adventures as Isabella Bird or Amelia Earhart… just wasn’t the same.
I felt bad! I felt guilty for not wanting to be a girl.
I have mad respect for women. All the shit and hoops you have to go through. Goddamn!
Those periods would hit you like a truck. The mood swings. I’ve vomited and passed out from the pain. The sheer rage I had. It’s exhausting! And no one believes you!
Fucking no one believes in you. You’re always trying to be ahead—to prove to yourself that men like you for your mind—not your body. That they’re your friend, not because they want something, but because there’s mutual respect.
And these guys out there? So stupid. They make themselves so physically big while claiming themselves thought leaders when all they do is rage-bait instead of picking up a goddamn book or really just showing up with curiosity. And you want to scream at them because you’ve been taught to be small, take up zero space, physically and audibly.
And why do men walk so fucking fast?
Why can’t they slow down and talk to us?
I’m fucking interesting—walk with me.
Maybe we’re both interesting—
Why aren’t we walking together?
How do you explain to your dad, or just people, vaginal sex always somehow felt so yucky you felt like crying afterwards? That this had nothing to do with other traumas? Before all the other traumas happened. Even if you loved that person and desired them? Can you imagine? Can you imagine how your lover must feel? How do you build a relationship when that’s your starting point?
And how do you tell your dad you’ve avoided the bathrooms the entire school day and the girl’s locker room feels like a place you don’t belong. In fact, you’ve avoided the public bathrooms the entire year… as well as gym class.
That instead of seeing women with the beautiful bodies they have, you feel this nauseating revulsion in horror that that was your destiny. How do you tell your dad it’s difficult peeing and something about it feels off?
Your first memory isn’t something heartwarming but demanding why you don’t have one and can’t pee standing up. I still remember being in our jack-and-jill upstairs bathroom, a boy my age, maybe four or five, peeing in front of me and realizing something was wrong. The knowledge you’re crying in that photo as a kid because you’re in a fucking dress and it’s hanging up as a cute reminder in our hallway. How do you tell your dad pregnancy seems like this massive betrayal— an alien leech.
I no longer have a relationship with my dad—a fear I only managed to delay.
And yet somehow, I told my feminist witchy sister, as she nursed her newborn baby, I was going to get my chest-icles lobed off. The distress she had. She knew I wanted a family. Now, I’ve taken away the dream of shared experiences—of both horrifying and astounding beauty and solidarity of motherhood. And what of this future imaginary child—this imaginary baby? I had lost everything that mattered to me. I lost my dad. I lost a decade of my life. I was prepared to lose her. I was prepared to lose love. I was prepared to lose the dream of becoming a parent in order to finally, finally see me. In order to finally live.
I feel guilt not wanting to be a woman.
As a young woman, I was told I was stealing men’s jobs.
I was a woman in STEM—with scholarships.
A woman who was told growing up to serve men first.
Serve my insecure grandfather first—
Who threw a fit if someone sat down before him—
God forbid if no food was ready.
Then next oldest man, then my father, a distant younger cousin…
Before any woman.
I became a woman who had a seat at the table—
Solving problems at Apple Park in Cupertino.
A woman classical violinist who lost hearing in her ear—
Who volunteered, and strove for accessibility in design.
Yet, all my accomplishments fell short.
I was depressed.
Not just with my frustration my accomplishments somehow were worth more, and somehow much less, purely due to my sex—but because there was this lingering fake-ness.
Knowing, at best, I was only cosplaying a woman.
I know who I am.
I don’t belong in a woman’s bathroom and it behooves me we don’t install bathroom stalls that actually allow privacy. It’s wild we spend so much time separating the sexes instead of learning to respect each other, play with each other, and listen to each other. It’s wild we’d rather kill women than accept everything has a season and give women the right to choose the season of birth.
I’m in my 30’s and I get to be a teenager again. I got to play with my friends. I was lucky enough to be able to play almost every day with them. But I still wish I could have done that at 13. I think I’m a better person than I would have been if I was born a boy. I think I’m a kinder one.
I want to dig into mud, relish in pursuits, move gracefully in beauty with thick powerful, agile muscles.
I want to love with the steady heat of an ember furnace—enduring, powerful, slow burning.
I want to be the man, walking side by side, arm in arm, sharing in each other’s company. I want to be a man who makes room for others to speak and still carry weight.
I want to be a man who isn’t afraid to say “I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” I want to be a man who is decisive in decision-making and keeps wise, knowledgable, good people nearby—even if they’re not nice. People who can tell me when I’ve got my head up my own ass—or someone else’s. I want to be a man who speaks out for others—and for myself.
I want to be a man who has traveled a thousand worlds and still makes space for family—for love. I want to be a man who builds on a dream of a better tomorrow knowing you must be present to see it through fruition.
I want to be a man who one day walks arm in arm with his great love, slow dances next to a lake, and reads to each other under an oak tree. A man who notices blossoms falling and the smell of figs.
I’m sad for the kids growing up unable to see themselves—unable to live out their dreams. Unable to get the cargo shorts and the binder so that when they get called ‘sir’ alongside their dad, they can beam and say “One day, I’m going to be like you, dad.” And when you don’t accept that the world is wild and weird, that sometimes some people are bottled with a red wine label but they’re actually a white or a rose’—you don’t get those moments with your kid.
You don’t get your kid telling you—
“I want to be like you.”
And I always dreamed myself an explorer but I always imagined being able to come back home. When your passport can be in jeopardy of being revoked or made to show a label you clearly aren’t—so you could be someone’s cruel joke, or worse, a scapegoat. When you see your medical access, that made you alive again, be stripped away…how can you go back home to watch and hug the new Mr & Mr at their wedding? How can you watch them start a family and be the rock star parents you know they’ll be? How do you show up for the good times? How do I teach my nephew chemistry or calculus or how to build a fire? How do you show up when you’re not allowed the decency to even go to the bathroom? How do you show up together to make magic happen?
It’s not a phase. It’s a life-long journey of discovery and sharing in those moments together. Watching magic and being apart of things growing and transforming. I neglected my body for so long and now I get a chance to bloom too. I get a chance to be the person I want to be—the person I always knew I had in me.
Lately, these emotions have swirled into my dreams. Last night, I dreamt I was on a boat with my mom, my sister, and my dad. I spotted fish through the sparkling turquoise-blue waters. Then dolphins leaping. Then killer whales. At first everything seemed peaceful. Then as I let the water move around my hand, I look down below on the side of the boat and noticed a whale coming straight up towards me. It crashed into the side of the boat, water crashing upon us as I grabbed onto the railing. It came back at us and I was thrown from the boat. Briefly submerged, I climbed onto a floating board but, as the water settled, I saw the whale was coming back around.
“Come back to the boat!”
I can now see the whale’s teeth.
I clench my eyes, but instead, as if by magic, I find myself dry on the shore.
I walk into a western saloon and there’s a guy I know, playing a loot, asking if I’ll have a drink.
I decline and I go up to the library pulling and begin studying books—
On magic.
I know where I am in the dream.
I’m fortunate enough to be dry, in the library, with music and drinks and people in the saloon downstairs.
I’m fortunate to have dreamt this dream and to be living it.
I’ve lived as a passenger being carried by circumstances.
I’ve survived crashing whales—indifferent to my safety.
I’ve braced. I’ve adapted. And now—I’m here.
I know now: bravery doesn’t mean never being afraid.
It means being afraid, and still choosing to play.
It’s a choice—
A mental shift from fighting to playing.
When I fought, everything was a struggle.
When I play, the joy and passion returns—
Even when things don’t go as planned.
I don’t have to view Spain as a fight—as a struggle.
I don’t have to brace for impact.
This is the time for research, for writing, for processing.
I miss my friends in San Francisco.
My home lies with my family there—
My chosen family, my sister, and my nephew.
But—
An adventurer always meets their soon-to-be friends—
In the parlor or saloon,
Music in the background,
The call of a quest around the corner.
Right now, I’m choosing not to.
I’m choosing to be in the library
But I need only to remember—
They’re just downstairs—
When I’m ready for the next adventure—
For more magic.
I’ve been through so much.
I know what real problems look like.
I know how to tackle real problems.
I know how to get a sack of food down—
From a 20 foot tree.
I’ve rediscovered magic.
I’m not a level 1 rogue elf anymore—
I’m multi-classing.
A bard.
A druid.
A party member.
A world-builder.
A dungeon master.
Magic is made up of 3 things: Language, art, and consciousness.
Language—to cast the spell.
Creativity—to shape what the soul sees.
Finally, consciousness—knowing one’s true soul.
But this legislation, this violence?
It threatens to lock the door behind me.
If I can’t return—
Not safely, not legally, not as myself—
Then I don’t just lose healthcare.
I lose them.
The table. The story. The next campaign.
That is the cost.
And still—
I choose magic.
I choose joy.
I choose this form, this path, this life.
Transformation.
What a beautiful thing.
#ProtectTranskids
https://www.them.us/story/trump-administration-chest-binders-trans-nonbinary-warning-tomboyx-gc2b
https://www.instagram.com/p/DSlKR39k0NL/?img_index=1&igsh=NjZiM2M3MzIxNA%3D%3D