To be proud you must have a deep feeling of pleasure or satisfaction. So where is my comment card because I have something to say.

The current pandemic has taken so many things from us including our favorite distractions. Last year I was in New York with millions of people. The glitz and glamour were plentiful for celebrations but its sequins is yet another distraction. It is hard to see the dark truth of black trans women being murdered when everything looks like a rainbow. Pride started as a protest began by Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. Trans women of color! You see, it wasn’t always rainbows and confetti. When did it become this big gay distraction? When did it become more about the pride campaign for profit than the fight? Pride no longer seems to be a celebration for me and this year – I’m not proud. I’m not proud that black trans women are being murdered. I’m not proud that a network used me as their token villain and I’m not proud that as a trans women I could be rejected by my healthcare provider. I’m not proud because my community is suffering and when one of us is in such pain and oppression we all suffer.

On a very deep personal level I struggle with being proud of myself and the decisions that are made out of fear.

I recently started online dating where I met a wonderful soul. I struggled with revealing my truth as a trans woman. I found myself keeping my public trans life separate by not giving my full name or revealing my social platforms. I found it difficult for a guy to get to know me for ME – I didn’t want him to know me through a tabloid headline or the troll comments that decorate my page with hate. In the past, people I have dated would google me and decide my reality and public trans experience was too much for them. This led to relationships ending it before anything real could become known. Underneath this trans activist reality star is also just a small-town girl in L.A. looking for love.

So, this time I tried something different. I hid my trans public life.

Like my favorite fairy-tale character Cinderella, I too just wanted to be seen for me and all my glory. Like a wicked stepmother, society has turned us trans women into something we are not. Men treat us as if we are not worthy of a prince charming. This new guy and I only dated for a few months but those months leading up to my truth was like a magical ball, flirting our way through the farmers market, bike riding along the coast and hiking our way over the mountains. I was dancing in my own glass slippers forgetting I was hiding something. I was having so much fun just being me twirling in my femininity and I did not want the fairy-tale of love and acceptance to be over.

However, we all know this story, don’t we? Midnight struck. I quickly realized my fairy-tale was more like a horror movie, the dumb white girl (me) always running the wrong way, stopping to scream for help hoping someone will save her only to end up silenced and stabbed through the heart by her prince. For him, the glass slipper no longer fits. For the first time since coming out as a proud trans woman, I felt deep shame. His rejection ripped right through all the gratitude and spiritual healing I worked so hard for. The journey to self-love and acceptance slashed away. Someone I liked so unconditionally had conditions. His societal perception dominated our spiritual experience and I was left bleeding out with shame.

“Shame is the intensely painful feeling that we are unworthy of love.” Brene Brown

I questioned everything and my trust in the universe dissipated. Why was I born in the wrong body? Why do I feel so bad about it? The tragic victim (my ego) moved right in ready to wallow in shame and sadness.

The thing is, I took those little pieces of love and acceptance he gave me and I built my fairy-tale castle. I collected all these expectations and personal desires and built a foundation. However, castles quickly crumble when they are built on the acceptance of someone else. Why do we risk moving in and surviving on the foundation of someone else’s acceptance? He was not ready for the societal pressures that come with being with a trans woman. It was my responsibility to live in truth and not fantasy. It is my responsibility to build my castle on my own love and acceptance and not someone else’s. If I am being honest – my fantasy is a world where trans women are beautiful and worthy and our Prince Charming is not afraid to admit his queen is a trans women.

Thank you for believing in me even when I am not proud.

P.S. Where your damn mask and ALL black lives matter.

Period.

xx