I first started questioning my gender identity in the summer of 2014, on a backpacking trip that changed my life. From the moment of my realization that Something Could Be Up, as gendered errata from a storied past slowly clicked into place, I began researching—constantly, obsessively.

And in the online communities I encountered on my journey, and still follow today, I see the same question, repeated over and over, as sweet scared humans pour their vulnerability into a text box, entrusting a group of strangers to help them make the decision of a lifetime:

What if this is just a fetish?

What if starting every morning with the wish for a new body —

pulling up that loose floorboard to squirrel away those clothes —

sounding out names that aren’t yours, to find one that is —

packing —

stuffing —

tilting your face in the mirror, trying to catch the light just so —

is a fiction and a sham, a bawdy tale, simply because it sends a thrill through your body that takes you places you’ve learned are impure?

To which I say, lovingly, fiercely:

So. fucking. what?

What is wrong, exactly, about being your own fantasy? To possess that which brings you to your knees? And why should that kind of inner bliss feel so wrong to allow yourself?

I think our bodies, for all their competence and in all their innocence, have only the vocabulary we give them. We may be unaccustomed, in the lives we’ve lived, to skin that writes poetry; we force those visceral affinities into boxes with dirty words, because that is what excitement means to us.

But if you dig deeper, I think you might find that your arousal has a richer texture than you give it credit for — and nuances of identity and aspiration live in the thrill of your fantasy. Start picking it apart, without judgment, and remain aware that there is no wrong way to be yourself.

Because you just might be on to something. And think about how amazing, that possibility: to be capable of deriving such validation, such pleasure from something as indelible as your own existence.

Then ask yourself — why are you afraid to wield such power?

And what would happen if you did?