“As long as I lived, I would have to make my own way. Perhaps it was at that moment I realized that mine is a war with no end in view; I might as well fight it cheerfully or I would spend my life waiting for some distant victory in order to be happy.” —Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

One night a few weeks ago, my dear friend and soul sister Kama La Mackerel and I decided to take selfies atop the ruby-red stairs of the TKTS booth in Times Square. We were in New York City for the weekend to perform at a benefit fundraiser for the Audre Lorde Project, a nonprofit organization that supports LGBTQ people of color.

Hanging in Times Square isn’t my exactly my idea of a good time — I like to think that I am a Sophisticated Lady who is above all that tourist cliché nonsense. But Kama, whose social media game is fierce beyond measure, was determined to get a photo of us on those stairs (#TWOCsistas #transgirlsinnyc #femme4femme #whathappensinnewyork). And what La Mackerel wants, La Mackerel gets.

Engulfed in the throng of tourists and street performers, we disappeared — just two more girls amid the crowd. This is unusual for us, because as trans women of color, we are used to standing out wherever we go. To being pointed at, laughed at, cursed at. Threatened. Touched, grabbed, groped without our consent. To being both crudely and subtly degraded in the streets, on the subway, at work, in the bedrooms of our supposed lovers.

Sitting on that glowing red staircase under the artificial lights of the Times Square billboards, though, I felt totally and unexpectedly at peace with the universe. There, in the center of the Western world, Kama and I (apparently not so sophisticated after all) clung to each other and shrieked and giggled and gawked like the small-town girls we are at heart.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked me, after we had both calmed down somewhat. I opened my mouth to answer, but a lump caught in my throat. Tears prickled at the back of my eyes.

“I’m thinking about how far we’ve come,” I said finally. “I’m thinking about how just a few years ago, I never thought I would be here. Or even alive. I never believed I could be this happy.”