What a difference a fucking year makes. (In my next post I explain this picture, but for now have a smoking image of me). This time last year, I posted a few images about trans visibility and that was it. I never originally had any intention to be visible, I wanted to hide in the shadows and pretend that my transition wasn’t important.
Then things spiral out of control. This 366 days (leap year not typo) have made me become visible. I’ve said many MANY times that my blog was always about me just ranting to myself and friends about shit that grinds my gears. It then blew the fuck up and I became a tiny face in the pool of visible queers.
I (and Kai) became the admin for Homo’s, Heteros and a whole lot more. We reached today 25,000 people. I became a huge face of FTMBrighton and I became a small face in the internet. My transition started to become scrutinized by people I didn’t know. People thousands of fucking miles away. I started getting thank you’s from America, Asia and Australia for posting stuff that I only ever felt applied to me. I have been lucky that in the UK I can do this. I can be visible, I can be queer and trans and that we are edging slowly towards equality. Do you know how weird it is that people message you to say thank you and you don’t even know who they are half the time. I’m not writing this to be egotistical, it still fucks me up that something so small in my life and my identity blew up so quickly and so fast.
We hit a year here yesterday
With all of this has come at a cost. I’ve lost people in my life that I used to feel bad about loosing. I don’t anymore. I still have a bitter outlook in life because whilst I have had positive comments, I still receive transphobic or queerphobic abuse often. I had tried to keep my relationships with Kai and Steph as quiet as possible, to little success and rather than people bullshit about things, it was easier to come out with it.
I take no pride in being visible, I don’t want to be the face of trans people. What I want is just educate people as much as possible and then when its finally ok to be who you are without getting abuse, I want to fade into the shadows once more.
Tyler Charles Austen 