“I’m always coming out. I live very out and proud. Whenever anyone ever asks me about the work I do in Trans Health and why I do it that ‘outs’ me. If anyone asks me where I went to college that ‘outs’ me because I went to a women’s college. Trans Health is what I want to do though. I want to build better access to healthcare for LGBTQ folks. At my work I’ve had some really invasive questions that are not okay. I’m usually pretty good at fielding those and telling them that it’s not okay. Questions like, “So have you had surgery?”,“What’s in your pants?”, “What was your previous name?” It’s shocking to me because even in some of the most liberal spaces that will still happen, and a lot of the time it’s other queer, cisgender people that are asking these questions because they feel entitled to ask them. Trans people are treated like an object. It can get exhausting but I’ve dedicated my life to that and the good outweighs the bad. I’m really lucky where I’m at, what I do and the support that I have. If your family isn’t accepting and you don’t feel safe my advice would be to avoid the situation. You don’t need your family to be your support system; you can get that other ways through chosen family. You can build your own family, your own support system. That’s why the queer community is so tight in some ways; we’re all here to support each other and we should support each other.”