That “type” is often people with histories of trauma or chronic stress. People with highly activated or dysregulated nervous systems. I want to be very careful here, because I do not mean that in a blaming or pathologizing way. It’s not about blame, but understanding the relationship between trauma, the nervous system, pain, and healing can help us better understand what is happening, and what may help.

I’m a transgender therapist who has worked with trans clients for the past twenty years. Several years ago, after healing from my own chronic pain, I shifted the focus of my work toward helping others heal from chronic symptoms and nervous system-related pain conditions. This post draws from my experience working at the intersection of both.

For those unfamiliar, trans people pursuing gender-affirming surgeries are often required to obtain what are commonly called “WPATH letters” from mental health professionals and medical providers. These evaluations are meant to confirm that a person meets criteria for gender dysphoria and is able to give informed consent for medical transition procedures.

It’s not uncommon for trans people to fear disclosing trauma histories, especially around sexual trauma to therapists or people in the role of evaluating their readiness to medically transition. Historically, some providers viewed trauma as evidence that a person was not “really” trans, or interpreted transition itself as a psychological response to trauma, vulnerability, shame, or distress around the body and sexuality. While standards of care have evolved significantly, there are still trans people who worry that disclosing trauma could jeopardize access to medical care.

People learn to protect themselves. This can look like downplaying, minimizing, or not sharing the parts of themselves that need care most.

Unfortunately, that means something important sometimes gets missed. To be clear: trauma does not disqualify someone from surgery. And because trauma can profoundly shape how the nervous system responds to surgery, pain, touch, vulnerability, and recovery, we need to be talking about it more.

Most of us learn to think about pain linearly: surgery causes tissue damage, tissue damage causes pain, tissue heals, and then the pain stops. But that’s not always how pain works.

Pain is your brain’s danger signal or alarm system, and is not a direct measure of damage in your body. It is the brain and nervous system’s interpretation of danger in the body. Usually, our brains do this very well. But sometimes the nervous system gets stuck in a protective response long after tissues themselves have healed, leading to continued pain/danger signals even after the danger has passed.

Chronic pain conditions that are generated or amplified by the brain and nervous system tend to follow trackable patterns: pain persists beyond expected healing timelines, intensifies without obvious cause, spreads, shifts, or otherwise does not follow the patterns of structural or acute pain. In the chronic pain world, this is often referred to as neuroplastic pain or learned pain.

Trauma can significantly influence these processes and we have the power to teach our nervous systems a different path.

Trauma, especially sexual trauma, can shape the nervous system in ways that become highly relevant during surgical recovery. It can increase threat sensitivity, amplify protective responses like tension and bracing, create learned associations around touch and vulnerability, and make it harder to remain present during intense body-based experiences. These are protective adaptations that the nervous system has learned to keep us safe. And for some trans people, years of intense genital dysphoria may itself function in trauma-like ways within the nervous system.

The problem is that after surgery, those same protective patterns can unintentionally make recovery harder. Aftercare tasks like dilation, wound care, examinations, or even using the bathroom may begin to feel emotionally overwhelming or neurologically threatening. Fear and vigilance increase muscle tension, the nervous system becomes more sensitized, pain signals amplify.

Sometimes people then become trapped in what pain specialists often describe as a fear-pain cycle: pain creates fear, fear increases nervous system activation, nervous system activation increases pain, which induces more fear and the cycle continues.

This does not mean the pain is “fake” or “all in your head.” The pain is very real. It means the nervous system is continuing to interpret the situation as threatening, even when healing has occurred and the danger has passed.

There are several things that can help before and after surgery and it’s not about becoming perfectly regulated or processing all of your trauma first.

But our nervous systems have an impact, and supporting them before surgery can make recovery easier afterward.

One of the most helpful things people can do before surgery is to begin reducing fear around the body itself. Learning how pain works changes the way the brain interprets sensation. Understanding that sensation does not automatically mean damage can reduce the level of alarm the nervous system attaches to discomfort during healing.

Similarly, gently working with triggers ahead of time can help reduce reactivity post-surgery. If certain forms of touch, vulnerability, exposure, or bodily sensation feel overwhelming, it can help to explore those experiences slowly and with support, rather than only encountering them for the first time during recovery.

Having fear about surgery and recovery is normal. But it helps if you can increase the nervous system’s ability to remain present without immediately escalating into shutdown, panic, or dissociation.

I encourage people to seek trauma-informed or somatically-oriented support when possible. In my experience, insight-oriented talk therapy by itself is often not enough for this kind of work. Surgery and recovery are deeply embodied experiences, and many people need support that helps the nervous system and body feel safer directly — not just support understanding their experiences intellectually. Sometimes what people need most is help learning how to remain connected to their bodies without immediately escalating into fear, shutdown, or overwhelm, which is something talking alone usually can’t access.

During recovery itself, taking care of your mental health matters more than you might realize. Finding and cultivating moments of safety, curiosity, groundedness, and self-compassion can significantly reduce pain amplification. Letting the feelings of fear move through you, rather than staying stuck in you, is also important and helpful.

One of the main principles in pain reprocessing therapy is to help your brain reframe pain to just a sensation, which has the impact of turning down the volume on the pain. Shifting our language from extreme to neutral terms helps.

Notice how it lands in your body to say:
“Something is terribly wrong”
vs.
“My nervous system is very activated right now.”

Or:
“I’ll never heal”
vs.
“This is an intense sensation that feels frightening.”

Or:

“This pain is excruciating”

vs.

“I feel an intense burning sensation”

Even small shifts in interpretation can help your brain turn down the volume on the pain.

Move slowly and gently with aftercare whenever possible. If dilation or touch feels overwhelming, breaking tasks into smaller steps, staying within your window of tolerance, and seeking support from trusted people can make a huge difference. At the same time, this is not a situation where avoiding care entirely is likely to help. Missing too many days of dilation or wound care can create additional medical and emotional challenges later on. Seek support early, if you need it, and it’s ok to need it. When we heal, we need to support our physical bodies and our nervous systems.

I also want to acknowledge that there are absolutely times when pain signals a genuine medical complication or problem requiring medical attention. Infection, surgical complications, and healing issues are real and important. The goal is not to dismiss pain, but rather to recognize that when pain persists beyond expected healing or becomes disproportionate to medical findings, the nervous system may also need support.

If you are a trans person with a trauma history who is considering surgery, I want to emphasize this:

A history of trauma does not mean you shouldn’t have surgery, nor does it mean anything about whether or not you are trans.

It simply means your nervous system may benefit from the same care and preparation that we give the rest of the body.

Working with trauma before surgery is about creating the best possible conditions for healing, comfort, embodiment, and long-term wellbeing

Pain after surgery is not only about what happened to the tissues of the body. It is also about how the brain and nervous system interpret, respond to, and learn from those experiences. Which is something we can work with.

If you’re new to pain science, these articles are a good starting point:

Pain Neuroscience Education for Acute Pain

Pain Neuroscience Education: Teaching People About Pain

The Fear-Avoidance Model of Chronic Pain

The Interaction of Threat and Chronic Pain

The idea that pain is influenced by the brain and nervous system is sometimes misunderstood as meaning that pain is “all in your head.” That isn’t what pain science suggests and it’s harmful to frame it that way. The pain is real. What modern pain science has helped us understand is that pain is influenced not only by tissue damage, but also by the nervous system’s interpretation of danger, safety, memory, stress, and context.

And if you’re wondering where you get started in healing from your own chronic pain, I’ve got a great resource page here:

Chronic Pain and Mind-Body Resources

Over the months, this newsletter has evolved from a place where I shared mental health education into a space where I write more broadly about trauma, healing, identity, chronic pain, parenting, and what it means to live fully in complicated bodies and complicated times. Paid subscriptions help make that writing possible and encourage me to keep showing up here.

If subscriptions aren’t your thing but you’d still like to support my work, you can also contribute directly via Venmo.

Mostly, thank you for reading. I’m grateful you’re here.

Nyle

Nyle Biondi is a transgender therapist and parent based in Colorado. His work focuses on trauma, chronic pain, and nervous system healing. In addition to his clinical work, he writes about gender, parenting, identity, and what it means to heal and remain human in a harsh world.

I started this newsletter a little over a year ago in response to the administrations immediate attacks on transgender people. The intention was to offer perspective, hope, and tips on reducing stress and nervous system regulation. And while those themes are still very much present in my writing, I’ve noticed myself moving toward something more personal, expansive, and human over time.

Lately, I’ve become less interested in offering “tips” for how to survive difficult systems and more interested in writing honestly about what it means to build a life inside of them. About identity, community, parenting, embodiment, attachment, grief, joy, healing, home, and the small ecosystems we create around ourselves in order to remain human.

So this piece, and likely many that follow, lives more in that space.

Thank you for being here, whether you’ve been reading for months or just found me recently. I’m glad you’re here.

This week’s rain on the Front Range has brought a needed pause, and with it, space for writing. The past several months have been very full. My therapy practice has grown significantly, and outside of work and parenting, I’ve spent most of my free time working in my yard.

Recently I realized that this is the first time in my life I’ve ever really laid down roots, both literally and otherwise.

We moved a lot when I was a kid, and I continued the pattern well into adulthood. When I got divorced and bought this house five years ago, I counted that I had lived in at least thirty-three places by age forty-one. Before moving to Colorado, I had never stayed anywhere longer than a year, as an adult.

When my daughter’s mother and I separated, we agreed that me staying close to her house geographically would make the transition easier for our daughter. The house I ended up buying is exactly one mile from her mom’s home. The moment it came on the market, I knew it was ours. It isn’t large or impressive. One bathroom. No basement. No garage. Smallish yard. But it works for us.

At first, though, I didn’t entirely allow myself to settle into it emotionally.

Part of that was practical. Divorce is expensive. Single parenthood is expensive. During that first year, there were moments where I caught myself imagining where I might go if I weren’t tied here. Part of me wondered whether my daughter’s mom and I might someday decide to leave Colorado altogether and move somewhere cheaper, somewhere where building community and stability might feel easier for all of us. Holding onto those possibilities kept me from fully settling in here.

And part of it ran deeper.

Many trans people struggle to imagine a future for themselves. Not just because the world can feel unstable or hostile, but because when something feels impossible for long enough, you eventually stop allowing yourself to want it. Sometimes we don’t just stop planning for the future, we stop imagining one altogether.

So when I first moved into this house, I approached it cautiously. I made it warm and colorful for my daughter. I planted a couple of raised beds. We added a peach tree and raspberries. I replaced part of the lawn with native plants through the county’s water-wise program. But emotionally, I think I was still tending the place like someone passing through. Planting things I liked, yes, but also things that felt safe. Things the neighbors wouldn’t mind. Things a future owner might appreciate someday.

Then, slowly, something began to change.

Last year, I started out slowly as I still worried I may feel forced to leave the country, but started taking more risks with the yard and becoming more intentional about what I actually wanted to create. I started a seating area before I injured myself two summers ago, that, after being frozen in time for nearly a year, got completed last summer. I started learning how to convert my sprinkler system to drip irrigation so I could plant more drought-tolerant medicinal and native plants. It turns out irrigation systems aren’t nearly as mysterious or expensive as they seem if you’re willing to learn as you go.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I stopped thinking so much about resale value and started thinking about ecosystems. Last year, I joked that our backyard had a sort of mad-scientist-meets-aspiring-hippie-permaculturist-meets-ambitious-ten-year-old-with-a-shovel vibe to it. That remains true this year, though I’m beginning to see the shape of something more cohesive emerging underneath it all.

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Late last winter, I mentioned to my neighbor that my daughter and I were hoping to get chickens sometime this summer. We’d been talking about it for months. She started texting me photos of abandoned coops she spotted around the neighborhood, suggesting I see whether the owners might be willing to sell them. Then one day she surprised me: a text with a link to a coop that was on sale online. She wanted to buy it for my daughter and me, if I would let her.

I sat with the offer longer than I probably needed to.

Accepting it made me uncomfortable in a way that had very little to do with her and everything to do with old stories about self-sufficiency, shame, and deservingness. Part of me felt that if I hadn’t already bought a coop myself, then accepting help somehow meant I had failed.

But after five years of living next to her, I also knew this wasn’t charity in the way my shame wanted to frame it. It was simply kindness. A neighbor who cares about us offering a gift.

So I accepted. I told her she’d get free eggs for life. Negotiations are ongoing, as the chickens are not yet laying. (chicken photos at the bottom, if you’re interested)

That coop quickly launched a chain reaction of projects: predator-proofing the run, hauling wood chips, planting garden beds, assembling infrastructure, learning as we go. The kind of sprawling, interconnected project where every completed task uncovers at least three more.

And honestly, I love it.

Because for the first time in my life, I’m not just decorating something temporary.

I recently moved the raspberries we’d planted over the past few summers to another part of the yard to make room for dwarf fruit trees and serviceberries. I’m expanding the medicinal garden. We’ve started making salves from some of the herbs we grow and selling them on Etsy. The chickens scratch through the yard while squirrels and wild birds move through the trees and raised beds. Landscaping, yes, but also participating in and creating small ecosystems that include neighbors, animals, plants, and community alongside us.

It’s surprised me how deeply connected imagining a future is to allowing yourself to root into a place.

We often frame attachment primarily as risking loss. And it is that, inevitably. But it is also allowing ourselves to choose something. To invest in it. To create it. Avoiding attachment may protect us from grief, but it also keeps us from fully inhabiting our own lives while we’re here.

Now, for the first time, I find myself imagining not just next year’s garden projects, but years further out. A privacy fence. Mature fruit trees. Bigger harvests to share with friends and neighbors. My daughter getting older here. And who knows, maybe even a pay-what-you-can urban farm stand someday, if we’re able to grow enough.

I am no longer building this yard for some hypothetical future owner.

I am building it for us. We are building it for us. A super cool thing about my daughter being ten now is that she can and wants to help, in meaningful ways.

And honestly, there is something profoundly grounding about this. Not metaphorically. Literally. There is something healing about planting roots into the earth while simultaneously allowing yourself to believe you may remain long enough to watch them grow.

I think many of us, and especially those of us who have spent years surviving, become cautious with our longing. Careful about attachment. Afraid to imagine permanence, safety, or abundance because we know how painful it is when those things disappear.

But maybe part of healing is allowing ourselves to imagine better futures again anyway.

And then, slowly, imperfectly, beginning to build them. Weeds and all.

In solidarity,

Nyle

I’ll be honest: I’ve considered turning off paid subscriptions because I’m no longer confident I can maintain the volume of newsletters I was putting out last year. At this point, I’m aiming for roughly two newsletters a month and trying to let this evolve into something more sustainable.

That said, paid subscriptions genuinely do help motivate me to keep writing and sharing these pieces. So if this work resonates with you and you’d like to support it, becoming or remaining a paid subscriber truly helps.

And if you’d rather contribute directly to our little urban homestead experiment: chickens, fruit trees, medicinal gardens, and all, you can also support us via Venmo.

Mostly, though, thank you. Thank you to everyone who has read, shared, encouraged, subscribed, or simply continued showing up here with me over the months.

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Buy the chickens a snack

The first was Mother’s Day when I was 6 or 7 years old. I don’t remember the planning, only waking up on a dreary, rainy morning and announcing to my mom that we were going fishing! She feigned excitement, finished the cheerios and orange juice we’d brought her in bed, gathered our things, and went down to the lake.

It was only years later that I learned how much she dislikes fishing. And if you already dislike fishing, doing it in cold rain with children is unlikely to improve the experience. But at the time, she let us have our version of Mother’s Day: spending time with her doing something we loved.

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That same summer, my brother and his friend took our fishing poles down to the lake, cast their lines, and set the fishing poles on the dock while they shifted their attention to who knows what. A fish grabbed the line attached to my pole and took off with it. I was devastated.

Weeks later, my brother’s friend’s mom pulled up in her Jeep while I was playing outside. “I heard my son lost something of yours,” she said, “and I brought something for you today.”

I lit up with excitement imagining my replacement fishing pole when she handed me a box. Confused and curious, I opened it.

A denim dress.

My heart sank.

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I wanted to cry, but politely mustered a thank you and confirmed that yes, I liked it. I went inside and threw it in the back of my closet. I have a handful of memories that mark the gradual ending of what little boyhood I was allowed to have. That was one of them.

A year or two later, also on Mothers Day, someone asked whether or not I thought I wanted to have kids someday. I said I absolutely, but that I never wanted to be pregnant.

I was told I’d change my mind.

I didn’t.

Mother’s Day has always felt emotionally complicated to me in ways that are hard to pinpoint. I think part of it is that so much of parenthood gets framed through rigid ideas about gender: what mothers are supposed to be, what fathers are supposed to be, which roles belong to whom.

And yet, when I think about the people who loved me well growing up, what stands out isn’t how well they performed gender. It’s whether I was allowed to be myself, safely, in their presence.

Sometimes I think about the version of my life where I never transitioned. Especially lately, when there is so much cultural and political energy devoted to insisting that trans people should return to the genders assigned to us, as though doing so would somehow restore order to the world.

Without transitioning, it’s hard to say if I would have become a parent or not—it was getting harder and harder to imagine any sort of future. But assuming I had, I probably would have loved my child in many of the same ways I do now. But I also know something essential would have been dimmer. Before I transitioned, I felt flat. And like my world was getting smaller and quieter little by little. I was present, but less fully alive inside myself. Dull. Muted.

Transition brought color back. It didn’t change my capacity to love, but it changed how fully I could inhabit my own life while doing it.

My daughter is ten now. She is kind, perceptive, funny, and deeply herself. She knows she is loved and safe with both of her parents. She talks openly with us about things that upset or worry her, and she knows she’s allowed to have her own thoughts and feelings, even when they involve us.

The thing that confuses her isn’t having a trans parent. The thing that confuses her is why adults spend so much energy trying to harm people like me.

Recently she told me, “You’re one of the kindest and most loving people I know, Dada.” I hope that remains true for the rest of her life.

So those are my thoughts this Mother’s Day. Happy Mother’s Day to all the parents who don’t fit neatly into the categories we’ve built around motherhood and fatherhood, but who show up every day loving their kids anyway. And thank you to the parents who make room for their children to become fully themselves, even when that journey looks different than expected.

And thank you to my own mother, who didn’t have a roadmap for raising a trans kid, but who continues to show up anyway.

I hope you all have a good day.

Nyle

Nyle Biondi is a transgender therapist and parent based in Colorado. His work focuses on trauma, chronic pain, nervous system healing, and the stories we carry about ourselves and each other. In addition to his clinical work, he writes about gender, parenting, identity, and what it means to heal and remain human in a harsh world.

A day meant to celebrate being seen.

And I’ve been thinking about how complicated that actually is.

For a long time, my goal was simple:

Blend in. Be forgettable.

Not invisible in a dramatic way.
Just… a little boring.

The guy next door whose name you can never quite remember.

The kind of person no one looks at twice.

Unremarkable.

For many years, that wasn’t possible.

Before I started testosterone, my gender expression made people pause.
Sometimes stare. Sometimes question. Sometimes ask me to leave bathrooms.

I could feel the uncertainty in a room before anyone said anything.

Was I a boy or a girl?
Was I in the right place?
Was I making someone uncomfortable just by existing?

I didn’t enjoy that kind of visibility.

It wasn’t celebratory or empowering.

It felt like exposure.

And over time, I learned what many trans people learn:

If you can’t control how you’re seen, you learn to minimize how much you’re seen at all.

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It’s remarkable how much energy it takes to stay small. To appear ordinary.

For years, I convinced myself that the ways I was keeping myself safe required less effort than being seen, going after what I wanted, or taking risks.

But think about how much effort it takes just to close a door quietly.

Now imagine doing that with your entire life.

Now, most of the time, I read as what I am: a middle-aged guy in Colorado.
Beard. Dad bod. Nothing particularly remarkable.

The kind of person you have a pleasant exchange with in the snack aisle and never think about again.

For a long time, that felt like success.

And in many ways, it was.

There is a kind of relief in not being noticed.
In not wondering how your body will be interpreted before you even open your mouth.

Blending in gave me something I didn’t have before:

Space. Room to breathe.

But here’s the part that’s harder to explain.

At the same time that I became less visible in my day-to-day life, I started choosing visibility in other ways.

Not at first.

At first, I got upset anytime I was outed without my consent. I felt like I had finally made it, and I wanted the chance to just exist there for a while, before stepping back into unknown territory.

But eventually, that started to feel stifling in a different way.

I was editing my stories so I wouldn’t give myself away.
Trying to remember who knew what, in which context.

I told myself I would only disclose when it felt relevant. But over time, I found myself wondering, in every relationship where my transness was undisclosed:

Would this person still like me if they knew?
And what will I do if they find out?

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So, slowly at first, I began disclosing more.

Not because I suddenly wanted attention.

But because something shifted in me.

Early in my career, visibility felt like risk.

I remember being in grad school, starting my internship, and hearing that I might need to tell clients whether I was a boy or a girl because I was “so ambiguously gendered.”

I was called into a meeting with the head of the program, my supervisor, the person who made the comment, and the student who reported it to me.

That was the environment I was entering. In a liberal college town.

Later, when I began transitioning while working as an in-home therapist, things got more complicated.

We typically saw families for about a year, and I happened to be finishing with several that summer. So I timed starting testosterone about three months before that—early enough that clients who knew me as female might not notice changes, and far enough along that new families might accept me as male without question.

With some families, I was “she.”
With others, I was “he.”

My co-therapist had to track it in real time depending on who we were with. And she did a phenomenal job.

There wasn’t a clear or safe way to exist.

There was only navigation.

Invisibility, in those moments, wasn’t about inauthenticity.

It was about calculation.

What is safe here?
What will cost me something?
What will cost the client something?

When I went into private practice, I quickly became known as a therapist willing and able to work with transgender clients, including writing letters for hormones and surgery.

I would let my trans clients know that I am also trans, but I usually didn’t share that with other clients unless it felt relevant. That’s still mostly where I land, though in recent years, I’ve found myself sharing more freely with cisgender clients when it comes up organically.

Early on, I had internalized messages about not pigeonholing myself too soon. Not relying on what some might call “cheap joining” by disclosing a shared identity.

I wasn’t always sure I agreed, but those voices were there.

I always disclosed to parents when working with minors.

At first, many were hesitant. Some didn’t want their child seeing a trans therapist, worried I might influence them in the “wrong” direction. Others specifically sought me out for that reason: wanting someone who could understand their child more directly.

For a while, it was mixed.

Over time, things shifted.

People became more open.
More curious.
More willing to trust me as both a therapist and a trans person.

Parents who once hesitated began seeking me out.

For a while, it felt like something was genuinely changing.

And now, in many ways, we’re in a different moment again.

The scrutiny is back.
The sense of being watched has returned.

So when we talk about visibility, I think it’s important to be honest about what that actually means.

Visibility is not inherently good.

It depends on the context.
It depends on the safety of the environment.
It depends on whether you are being seen as a person, or as something to be feared.

Right now, there are active efforts to make it harder for trans people to exist openly. To make visibility feel dangerous again.

Silence, in that context, isn’t neutral.
It’s something being pushed for.

These days, my relationship to visibility is more complex.

I don’t need to be seen everywhere.
I don’t need strangers to understand me.

But I have chosen to be visible in the places that matter.

In my work.
In my writing.
In relationships where it’s safe, and meaningful, to be known.

And I’d be lying if I said I haven’t questioned, more than once, whether it’s still safe to keep showing up like this.

Transgender Day of Visibility was started in 2009 to celebrate the lives and accomplishments of transgender people.

There is a narrative right now that would have you believe we don’t have any. That the world would be better off without us.

I don’t believe that.

But I do think many of us are once again navigating something familiar:

Not just how to be seen, but where, when, and by whom it’s actually safe to be.

I walked into the locker room and immediately started scanning for sight lines.

Six people. Three in the showers. Two at the back row of lockers where I usually change. One in the middle row, which is most directly visible from the showers.

I hadn’t even set my bag down yet, and I was already deciding whether it was safe to take my clothes off.

This is the part of the transgender locker room debate people rarely see.

I’ve had some version of this brewing for a while now, and Friday gave me the moment to start telling it.

There’s a lot of debate right now about transgender people in locker rooms, bathrooms, and sports. Most of it happens in legislatures, on the news, or on social media. What you rarely hear about are the quiet, ordinary moments when those debates land in someone’s body—when a person has to decide whether it’s safe to change clothes, take a shower, or go for a swim.

If you’re new here, I’m a trans/queer therapist and dad who has been writing about the current administration’s attacks on trans rights since January of 2025.

If you know me in person, I’ll leave it up to your discretion whether you want to read this piece. It gets into some intimate details about my body in places like locker rooms, pools, and gym showers.

I want to share what some ordinary parts of life look like right now.

I’ve loved swimming since I was a kid. I joined swim team at six and was competing in the butterfly by eight. I grew up in a bit of a magical neighborhood where summers revolved around the community pool: swim team, swimming lessons (and diving, until I smacked my back one too many times and refused to go back), tennis, drama, and baseball.

One year I even tried water ballet, though the gendered nature of it was just… too much. But I tried. I always tried.

Swimming stayed with me until high school. I quit the summer I realized the most competitive swimmers had been training indoors all winter while I hadn’t seen a pool since Labor Day. If I wanted to stay competitive, I would have had to dedicate much more time to it, and I just wasn’t up for that.

Around that same time, I also started feeling increasingly uncomfortable in women’s swimsuits. Eventually I switched to swim trunks and sports bras, but mostly I just started avoiding public pools.

For more than thirty years, I barely swam at all.

Then in July of 2024 I was injured, and swimming became the first consistent exercise I could return to.

The cool water is both shocking and regulating to my system. I sit on the edge with my legs in, adjust my goggles, then hop in and go under. The water is cool and quiet and grounding. When I finish, I feel alert and calm for hours.

I just feel good.

But to get there, I first have to go through the locker room.

And I want to tell you what that’s like for me—a cis-passing, white trans man living in the United States in 2026.

If it isn’t already clear: I am the right kind of trans person for 2026. At least according to this administration. Trans women are the primary targets of the current political obsession, and many of the people writing these laws hardly seem to realize that trans men exist—or what their policies mean for people like me. I can promise you though, they don’t want me in the women’s room either, regardless of what my original birth certificate said.

Still, I move through the world with a lot of privilege. I’m cis-passing, which means most people read me as a cis man. In a locker room, that matters. People aren’t looking for there to be something “off” or, quite literally, missing about me.

I usually swim at one of the local community pools, and I go during the day—often in the morning—when the crowds are smaller.

At this particular pool, though, the locker room is designed in a way that leaves almost no privacy. The room is a rectangle with three rows of lockers and open corridors at each end. Two of the rows face directly toward the shower area, meaning anyone in the showers has a clear view of whoever is changing.

There’s basically nowhere to hide.

So I usually choose the back row, drop my drawers as quickly as possible, get my swim shorts on, and move along.

But Friday was different.

I showed up around noon, later than I usually do, and the parking lot was packed. Normally that means there’s a water aerobics class—mostly attended by women—that doesn’t affect the lanes or the men’s locker room.

So that’s what I assumed.

Until I walked into the locker room.

There were six people in there. Usually there are zero to three. I’d forgotten that another local pool had just closed, pushing many of those swimmers to the community pools.

So I immediately assessed the back and middle rows as not viable options and moved to the front row, which offered a little more coverage from the showers and was, at that moment, unoccupied.

I started calculating.

If I moved quickly enough and angled my body just right, maybe I could change without anyone noticing anything unusual. Getting into my swim shorts is harder than getting out of them, since when I’m leaving the shower I can wrap a towel around my waist. And the showers are easier because there are corners to hide in and if I’m really uncomfortable, I can leave my shorts on.

Before I even set my bag down, I had already scanned the room, calculated sight lines, and decided whether it was safe to change.

I was just about to start changing when another man entered from the pool.

I see him there regularly. He’s Black, uses a wheelchair, and is significantly overweight. I suspect he’s used to being othered in public spaces.

He rolled up to the same row of lockers where I had just set down my bag. I immediately started gathering my things to move again, but he smiled and said cheerfully:

“You don’t have to move. There’s plenty of room for both of us! I don’t own the bench.”

I thanked him awkwardly, but I could feel my face turning red and my heart starting to race.

I didn’t know what to do. I felt like crying. I felt like running out of there. Part of me wanted to leave immediately and come back another day. But another voice said: No. You came here to swim. You need this swim. You deserve to be here.

And I also didn’t want to cause this man, who had been nothing but kind to me every time I’d seen him, to feel othered.

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Before leaving the house that morning, I had grabbed the only clean water bottle I had. It happened to be covered in gay and trans pride stickers.

A few years ago I wouldn’t have thought twice about bringing it. Since early 2025, I’ve started thinking about it every time, and usually opt for another bottle.

That day it was the only clean bottle, so I thought: Fuck it. It’s just a water bottle.

The last time I brought that bottle to the pool, a man had a stroke or seizure in the locker room just after I got into the water. The lifeguard cleared the pool to provide first aid, so I climbed out and stood there holding my very gay water bottle.

That’s when I made eye contact with someone across the deck and realized she was a former client.

I did what I often do in moments like that and tried to find safety in connection. I turned to the person nearest to me and struck up a conversation.

We stood out on the pool deck for over twenty minutes before being allowed back into the pool or locker room. I nearly panicked that day too.

One of the strange things about being a cis-passing trans man who is also a therapist helping people heal from chronic pain is that not all of my clients realize I’m transgender. There are clues on my website, but many people miss them. When you aren’t looking for something, you often don’t see it—even when it’s right in front of you.

The woman at the pool that day had come to see me for chronic pain. I don’t know whether she already knew I was trans or figured it out in that moment. Either way, moments like that carry a quiet question for me: does this person know something about me that might change how they see me?

Writing this newsletter increases that question for me too—anyone could find it.

Honestly, it’s easier for me when I know one way or another whether someone knows— but there’s not an easy way for that to be known.

I had chest surgery in 2005. My scars are very faint now, but there are still signs my chest has been operated on, if someone were looking for them.

I also have type 1 diabetes and wear a Dexcom continuous glucose monitor and an Omnipod insulin pump on my arms or stomach.

So sometimes I wonder: do people just think I’m some kind of medical cyborg… or do they realize I’m trans? Or not notice anything unusual about my body at all?

Anyway.

There I was in the locker room, on the verge of either crying or having my first real panic attack, when the thinking part of my brain briefly came back online.

Put the water bottle on the bench.

The last time I’d worried about the bottle outing me.

This time I wanted the man next to me to know that if I seemed uncomfortable, it wasn’t because of him.

So I set the bottle down, went into a toilet stall, and changed.

I knew I’d been acting strange. On my way back to the locker I debated apologizing and explaining why I’d been weird.

But then a wiser voice chimed in:

Instead of trying not to be weird, how about just… not being weird.

“How was your swim?” I asked, matching the cheerful tone he had used in letting me know we could share the bench.

He told me he was proud of himself for swimming every day that week and talked about how he planned to celebrate when he got home. We ended up chatting about the meaning of “California sober” and whether Colorado probably qualifies at this point too. There were a few comments about surviving this administration.

We laughed and wished each other a good weekend.

My heart rate slowed. My face cooled.

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I walked out to the pool, which was more crowded than usual. Signs indicated slow, medium, and fast lanes, and I scanned to find someone whose pace matched my own. Once I got someone’s attention, I started swimming.

But I noticed a pattern in myself. Because of my gay- and trans-pride water bottle, and the experience I’d just had, I worried it might out me or make my lane partner uncomfortable.

So I stayed as small as possible, keeping to my side of the lane.

I wanted to cry, because staying small felt like staying safe again.

But it turns out swimming and crying don’t work very well together.

So I swam.

Fast. Steady. And longer than I had in a while.

Eventually I climbed out and walked back through the locker room again. This time in reverse order: shower, change, gather my things, head out.

From the outside, it probably looked like an entirely ordinary trip to the pool.

But this is the part people don’t see: the calculations we make just to live very ordinary lives.

Before I ever touched the water, I had already scanned the room, calculated sight lines, monitored my body, assessed the risk of being seen, wondered whether a sticker on my water bottle might make me less safe, and considered whether I should leave entirely.

That kind of calculation isn’t new for many trans people. Locker rooms have never been the easiest places for us to exist.

But lately the stakes feel a little higher.

And I say this as someone with enormous privilege in the current climate. I’m cis-passing. I’m white. I’m a middle-aged dad going to the pool in the middle of the day. I’m exactly the kind of trans person many politicians seem to forget exists when they write their laws.

Trans women—especially trans women of color—face far greater scrutiny and danger in public spaces than I do.

But laws don’t have to be enforced directly to change people’s lives.

They only need to plant a question in people’s minds:

Am I safe here?

When politicians spend years telling the public that transgender people are dangerous, deceptive, or predatory, that message doesn’t stay inside legislative chambers.

It shows up in locker rooms.

In bathrooms.

In the quiet calculations people like me make before doing something as simple as going for a swim.

And the truth is this:

Most of us aren’t thinking about hurting anyone in those spaces.

We’re worried about being hurt.

All I wanted that day was the same thing most people want when they go to the pool.

A little quiet.

A little movement.

A chance to feel good in my body again.

Partly because I haven’t been sure it’s safe to say what I want to say.

Between the war in the Middle East, the steady stream of political scandals, and the growing wave of legislation targeting transgender people across the United States, I haven’t known where to begin.

Every topic feels enormous. Every story feels like it could swallow the whole piece. And the pace of it all has been too much for me to keep up with.

Like many of you, I feel overwhelmed—sometimes even disheartened. I mean, after everything we know about how our president’s name appears in the Epstein files, and seeing people still willing to let him remain in power while casting people like me as the “perverted” or “dangerous” ones… how do I hold on to hope that this political landscape will change anytime soon? And what if this newsletter costs me more than I gain? What if it puts me at risk?

Over the past few weeks I’ve considered writing about Kansas revoking the driver’s licenses of trans people. I’ve thought about the endless bathroom bills (Kansas, Idaho, Missouri, New Hampshire, Nebraska, etc.) that keep appearing in state legislatures, each one built on the same accusation—that trans people are somehow dangerous or perverted. Not to mention the coerced discontinuation of care for trans youth and threats of the same for adults.

The message behind these policies is always the same: trans people are deceptive, predatory, or unstable. That we are somehow a threat to others. Never supported with data.

At the same time, the news cycle keeps revealing something else, something far more insidious. When details connected to the Epstein files began surfacing recently, I felt a brief, naive flicker of hope. A part of me thought: maybe now people will see it! Maybe now people will recognize that the loudest voices accusing trans people of being dangerous are often distracting from the harm happening within their own circles.

Even after decades of living as a trans man, I still catch myself hoping that if people just saw the truth clearly enough, they would change their minds.

But hope alone doesn’t change the stories people are told—and it doesn’t protect anyone from the consequences of those stories. So instead of trying to respond to everything happening in the world right now, I want to explain something simple that many people misunderstand: why many trans people change our legal documents. And what it actually means to transition.

Because one of the most persistent claims being made right now is that trans people update our identification in order to deceive others.

That claim is false.

And the reality is much more ordinary, and much more human, than the political rhetoric would have you believe.

I belabored the decision to take testosterone for over a decade.

Chest surgery was a much easier choice for me. Having a flat chest was mostly only going to change my relationship to my own body. Testosterone was different. Testosterone would change my relationship to everyone and everything. And their relationship to me.

And that terrified me.

People often talk about trans people as if we transition on a whim, like we woke up one morning and decided to radically alter our lives for fun. The reality is that most of us spend years—often decades—trying not to transition.

I certainly did.

For years I tried to make peace with the body I had. I told myself it was selfish to want surgery for something that people would call cosmetic. I told myself I should spend that money on something more meaningful, something that benefited other people.

In the meantime, I bound my chest. In those days, before companies existed to make binders, I used ace bandages and neoprene back braces. Anyone who has done that knows there is nothing comfortable about it.

Still, I kept trying to make it work.

Many trans men of my generation tried very hard to stay within the lines of the gender we were assigned at birth. We bent the rules as far as we could: short haircuts, masculine clothes, whatever small freedoms we could carve out, while hoping that might be enough.

For many of us, it wasn’t.

Two years after chest surgery, I found myself thinking about testosterone constantly. I had already been thinking about it for eight years. Instead of acting on any impulse, I made a deal with myself: one more year of saying no. But this time, really saying no—not just staying in the gray area.

Any time the thought came up, I would tell myself: not now. Stay where you are. Don’t make life harder on the people you love. Don’t risk losing the people and things that matter most to you. Just try and enjoy what you have. And if you can’t, try harder.

After that year, I would reassess.

A year later, while I wasn’t yet sure that yes was the right answer—I still didn’t feel settled in the no. And so I took the biggest risk of my life to try and find a body that made more sense to me. That made my day-to-day life just a little easier. That allowed me to feel like I could breathe.

For most trans people, transition isn’t impulsive. It’s the result of years of reflection, fear, and careful calculation: what might we lose? Do we truly need to do this to be happy? Will we actually be any happier on the other side? Not to mention practical questions: who will love us? Who will employ us? What might our futures look like?

No matter the answers to those questions, many of us still feel we must transition in order to survive, not to mention thrive.

Changing my legal documents came later, and for a very simple reason: safety.

In December of 2009, nine months after starting testosterone, I went to renew my driver’s license. When the license printed out with “female” on it, I walked to the counter and said there had been a mistake.

The employee looked at me, looked at my license, and corrected it.

That was it. I had a doctor’s note stashed in my pocket, just in case, but I wasn’t asked for it.

This wasn’t about tricking anyone or getting an advantage—it was about making sure that every time I showed my ID, I wasn’t putting myself in harm’s way. Every document that matched who I was in the world made me safer, plain and simple.

At the time, I was doing in-home therapy work in rural parts of Wisconsin. I often drove long distances, sometimes alone. Carrying an ID that said “female” while I clearly appeared male did not feel safe. Being pulled over by the wrong police officer, or having to show that ID to the wrong person, could create a situation that was uncomfortable at best and dangerous at worst.

So I changed it.

Not to deceive anyone.

To stay safe.

I started using the men’s bathroom for similar reasons: to avoid harassment and scrutiny—and to reduce risk for myself and for others around me. Even before I took testosterone, I was the frequent subject of dirty looks, confusion about which bathroom I was in, and occasionally having restaurant staff or security called on me to kick me out. When I was in college, I knew where all of the gender neutral bathrooms were along the 7 hour drive between my hometown in Wisconsin and my college town in Indiana. I knew when I needed to limit water so I wouldn’t need a bathroom for hours, and where it felt safe to stop.

Whether I was perceived as a man using the women’s bathroom, or a masculine woman unable to conform to society’s norms, I wasn’t safe. And I wasn’t yet confident I could use the men’s room without scrutiny. None of the restrooms felt safe.

(Side note to business owners: if you can make your bathrooms gender-neutral, especially single-use, please do. It’s an easy way to add a moment of safety to someone’s day.)

What many people don’t realize is that driver’s licenses were never originally designed to police gender identity. Early licenses didn’t even include sex markers. When states began adding them in the mid-20th century, they were simply another physical descriptor, like height or eye color, used to identify someone in paper records before computers and digital photographs existed.

The goal of identification was simple: the document should accurately describe the person carrying it.

Only recently have politicians turned this administrative detail into a political battleground.

In places like Kansas, lawmakers have passed laws preventing transgender people from updating the gender marker on their driver’s licenses and now, reversing changes that were already legally made.

Supporters claim this protects public safety or prevents deception.

But anyone who has lived through the process knows the opposite is true.

When an ID doesn’t match how someone looks, it doesn’t prevent confusion, it creates it.

Every time that person shows their ID—to a police officer, a landlord, an employer, or a bank—they are forced into a moment where a stranger suddenly has reason to question who they are.

And that is exactly the kind of moment where harassment, discrimination, or violence can happen.

Matching identification doesn’t make anyone less safe.

It makes daily life possible.

Over the years, I updated other documents for similar reasons. A Social Security record that matched my driver’s license prevented problems with employment and background checks. Updating my passport made international travel possible without harassment or confusion.

My birth certificate was the one document I left alone for many years. I was not trying to erase the fact that I was born female. That is part of my history and always will be. And I’m not ashamed of it. I am not a cisgender man and I don’t take issue with that.

But eventually, even that document had to change.

When I moved to Colorado, the state required proof of my full middle name in order to issue a new driver’s license. My birth certificate was the only document that spelled it out. And that birth certificate still said female. My attempts to point out that if the federal government allowed only my middle initial, maybe they could too, failed.

I was unwilling to present a document that said female, wishing instead to keep that designation out of my Colorado records. I contacted my doctor and obtained the paperwork required to amend it.

Not to deceive anyone.

To avoid unnecessary danger and scrutiny.

This is the part that the politicians are not telling you.

When trans people change our documents, it is almost always about safety and survival. It is about navigating a world where a mismatch between your appearance and your paperwork can invite harassment, denial of services, job discrimination, or violence.

It is not about tricking anyone.

It is about being able to move through the world without constantly having to explain ourselves, which can put us at risk with strangers who may or may not wish us harm.

Right now, many political leaders are telling the public that trans people change our documents in order to deceive others. As if transitioning is some elaborate game of trickery—with winners and losers.

That narrative is not only ridiculous and false, it actively puts us at risk.

They are lying to you.

And the consequences of that lie fall on people like me.

Trans people are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for the same basic ability everyone else has: to live our lives, carry identification that matches who we are, and to move through the world without being treated like we are a problem that needs to be solved.

If you care about the trans people in your life, or even if you simply care about truth, it matters that you understand this.

And it matters that you speak up when you hear the lie.

If this piece resonated with you, please consider sharing it. Much of the conversation about transgender people happens without us. Stories like this are one way to bring reality back into that conversation. And right now, reality matters.

Thanks for reading.

Nyle

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Last spring, when I wasn’t sure whether staying in this country would remain a viable option for me, my mom came to visit. Together with my daughter, we went to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge just outside Denver. I found myself thinking about the coyotes long after we left and now, months later, I’m finally putting together what may be my queerest post yet, inspired by those resilient little critters.

For more than a century, the U.S. government tried to eradicate coyotes. Traps. Bounties. A poison so effective it was meant to leave the plains silent. (Side note: when my daughter was three, she couldn’t say coyote and instead called them alcoteys, and I still hear that in my head as I write this.)

Instead, something unexpected happened.

Unlike wolves, whose numbers plummeted under similar efforts, the harder humans tried to eliminate coyotes, the more of them there were. They didn’t just survive in the West: they showed up in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles. In cities they were never supposed to survive in.

Ecologists call this the Coyote Paradox.

And as I watch the current political climate—the bills, the bans, the rhetoric explicitly aimed at “eradicating” transness from public life—I can’t help but see the parallel.

We are in a coyote moment.

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The Power of Fission

In a stable environment, coyotes live in highly structured packs led by an alpha pair. Usually, only the alpha pair breeds. Their presence suppresses the hormones of the rest of the coyotes in the pack, effectively acting as a form of population control.

When a coyote pack is placed under extreme pressure—when the alpha pair is killed—the social structure doesn’t collapse, as expected. It fissions.

The pack splits. Younger coyotes, who would normally wait years to breed, become transient. They scatter into suburbs, industrial edges, and city margins. They grow more adaptable, more intelligent, harder to predict—and far more difficult to eliminate, because they are no longer where anyone expects them to be.

I see my community doing the same.

Just within the past year, I can name at least a half a dozen trans people I know—clients, friends, acquaintances—who have moved or are in the process of moving to other countries. (Side note: is tracking this migration—if you’re trans and have relocated in response to this administration, his project is worth adding your data to.)

As public institutions are targeted—gender clinics, legal protections, visible community spaces—we are fissioning. Going underground. Creating informal networks of mutual aid, underground healthcare, and private spaces of safety and joy.

We are not disappearing. We are becoming less legible to systems that have never seen us clearly in the first place.

The Inevitability of the Howl

One of the most fascinating parts of coyote survival is what ecologists call the howl response. Coyotes howl to take a census. If a pack howls and hears no response from neighboring territories, their biology responds by producing larger litters.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

The people trying to “protect” society from transness misunderstand something fundamental: transness is not a trend. It is not contagious. It is not introduced from the outside. Transness is a recurring human truth that has existed across cultures and across time.

You can try to clear a territory of us. You can ban healthcare, pull books, erase language from classrooms, and criminalize our visibility. But you cannot create a void where trans people once were.

The howl is built in.

New kids will realize they are trans in the most conservative towns, in the most rigid families, in the most silent landscapes imaginable. And because of the pressure placed on them, they will grow up like the transient coyotes: more resourceful, more adaptive, and less dependent on systems that have already shown they cannot be trusted.

Rejecting the Trap

In a recent post, I wrote about the double bind of transition—the punishment that comes whether you blend in or stand out. The coyote does not try to resolve the logic of the trap. It does not attempt to prove its right to exist on the land.

It simply survives the rancher.

A friend once said to me, “Have you ever noticed that queer people tend to be jacks-of-all-trades more than non-queer people?” It isn’t a coincidence. Our survival has depended on it. When we’re deemed unworthy of certain jobs, protections, or opportunities, we adapt. We find other ways. We survive on scraps of society where others would perish.

I’m not saying this is good.
But it is something we’ve learned to do.

By trying to eradicate us, these systems have done something they didn’t intend. They have selected for resilience. For creativity. For community. We are withdrawing our energy from institutions that want us gone and reinvesting it in one another.

We are building new packs in the margins.
We are learning how to survive outside structures that were never built for us anyway.

They thought they were clearing the land.

They didn’t realize they were training us to become the one thing they can never control: Inevitability.

And maybe this is the quiet truth underneath all of it: survival is not just resistance, it’s remembrance. Remembering who we are when systems try to make us forget. Remembering that adaptability is not weakness, and dispersal is not defeat. Like the coyotes, we carry our knowing in our bodies. We find one another again. We keep howling—not to be heard by those who wish us gone, but to locate each other in the dark.

Thanks for reading, sharing, and otherwise supporting my work.

xx Nyle

Lately, we’re being told a very specific story: that there are “more trans people than ever before” because transness is contagious. Because young people are being influenced. Because something has gone wrong.

This story is false.

And it’s not just wrong, it’s dangerous.

We are not seeing more trans people because transness is spreading. We are seeing the aftereffects of a brief window where authenticity felt survivable, followed by a backlash that is now forcing people back into hiding.

The claim that people are being “influenced” into being trans ignores a basic truth: you cannot make someone trans. Most trans people tried very hard not to be. If pressure, fear, exclusion, or social reward could make us cis, it would have worked. Many of us spent years—decades even—attempting exactly that.

A far more accurate explanation comes from psychology and developmental science, not politics.

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In conversations with both Keith and Gino, I shared the below short video clip I often use with clients. In it, Gabor Maté talks about the two core needs human infants are born with: attachment—contact, connection, and love—and authenticity—our capacity to know what we feel, to be in touch with our bodies, and to express who we are. We need both to survive. Evolutionarily, mammalian infants without attachment did not survive. And humans who lost touch with their bodies and gut instincts did not survive either.

Maté then names what happens when these two needs come into conflict—when a child internalizes some version of: If I am authentic, I risk losing connection. If I insist on my truth, the people I depend on may reject me. Parents often convey this unconsciously and unintentionally: messages about not crying, exhibiting anger, and fitting in. But for a child whose survival depends on attachment, the calculation is a not philosophical, it’s existential. Attachment wins.

And when authenticity is sacrificed repeatedly, people don’t become “less authentic.” They become less aware of who they are. This is how adults grow up disconnected from their bodies, unsure of their needs, fluent in suppression. We see the fallout everywhere: addictions, chronic illness, emotional numbness, despair.

This framework helps explain why it appears there are more trans people now.

For most of modern history, being trans carried extraordinary risk: rejection by family, loss of housing and employment, social exile, violence. Authenticity often came at the cost of attachment. And so many trans people did what humans do to survive: we hid. We dissociated. We tried to be who we were told we needed to be in order to stay connected.

Then, briefly, something shifted.

Visibility increased. Language expanded. Some families, schools, and communities became safer. For the first time, many people could imagine a future where being themselves might not cost them everything. And when the perceived risk to attachment decreased, authenticity emerged.

Not because transness spread.
But because fear loosened.

What we are witnessing is not contagion, it is disclosure.

And now, predictably, we are in backlash.

What existed was never lasting safety. It was a fragile opening. A moment where some people could imagine surviving with both attachment and authenticity intact. That window is closing.

Backlash doesn’t mean trans people were mistaken about who they are. It means the system is reasserting control. When attachment feels threatened again—when housing, healthcare, family ties, and basic safety are at risk—people don’t stop being trans. They hide. They dissociate. They choose survival over visibility.

That is not contagion.
That is trauma repeating itself.

Backlash does not make trans people disappear. It forces them back into hiding. It increases depression, suicidality, and psychological distress—not because trans people are inherently unwell, but because it is profoundly destabilizing to exist inside systems actively working to erase you. Systems that teach families and communities to fear you.

So what do we do?

There are many answers. Allies, we need you, especially now, to speak up. To challenge misinformation. To oppose anti-trans legislation. To recognize the broader patterns of dehumanization at play and intervene before things worsen. Many people will never listen to us, but they may listen to you.

And for trans people—and for anyone whose belonging has been made conditional—the work turns inward.

This is where agency comes in.

As adults, our survival no longer depends on attachment to a caregiver or universal social approval, even though our nervous systems may still believe it does. Yes, the stakes are real. Medical care is being restricted. Rights are being rolled back. I am not minimizing that. But even under threat, authenticity does not disappear. It cannot be legislated out of us.

Belonging is not something we earn by fitting in. It is not granted by consensus. We already belong—by virtue of being here, by existing at all. What’s often missing isn’t belonging, but fit. And chasing fitting in at the expense of self-trust only pulls us further from ourselves.

The quiet, radical work is this: learning to validate ourselves. Staying connected to our bodies. Telling the truth about who we are, even when external affirmation is unavailable. Remembering that authenticity is not a trend, a phase, or a social contagion.

It is a survival strategy.

And reclaiming it is how we come back home: to ourselves, and to each other.

Belonging doesn’t begin when we are accepted.
It begins when we stop abandoning ourselves.

In Solidarity,

Nyle

And, it’s been a minute since I plugged my work here, but if you are interested in working with me one-on-one, schedule a free consultation here to see if I am a good fit for you:

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I ultimately decided to share this piece not because I believe it offers answers for what needs to happen next, but because I am a systems-trained therapist, and this is how I am taught to look at the world—systemically. While a reflection on inclusion and exclusion may not feel immediately relevant right now, I actually believe it is. The ways we treat one another—the ways we decide who is worthy of belonging and who is not—are deeply connected to the fragmentation we’re witnessing across the country.

I can’t change what’s happening in the White House or in Minneapolis, but I can influence my own circles through how I show up, how I treat others, and what I choose to share with you. So while this isn’t the piece I would have written in direct response to Pretti’s murder, I’m offering it as part of my ongoing effort to grapple with how I can contribute, in whatever small ways I can, to the greater good. I’ve also included a few links at the bottom to pieces you may find meaningful right now.

A few days ago, someone commented on one of my posts to invite me to an online event. She told me it was a space where everyone, except men, was welcome, and that she hoped I would join.

I am a man.

I’m also a trans man, which is relevant here—not because it makes me an exception, but because it highlights a tension I keep running into and don’t quite know how to resolve.

Last fall, I wrote about the silent suffering of trans men. I talked about something that surprises a lot of people: trans men have the highest suicide rate of any group under the LGBTQIA umbrella. One of the biggest contributors is social isolation—being cut off from community, support, and belonging. Losing access to women’s spaces without ever being fully welcomed into men’s spaces. Being perceived as “safe” one moment and “suspect” the next. Being rendered invisible.

So when someone says, even kindly, “Everyone but men is welcome,” it lands in a complicated place for me.

I understand the impulse behind men-excluded spaces. I really do. Many women and gender-marginalized people have experienced real harm at the hands of men. Safety matters. Boundaries matter. Creating spaces where people can breathe matters.

And, at the same time, I don’t think exclusion is the solution we want it to be.

What I see, over and over, is that exclusion often ends up reproducing the very dynamics it’s trying to undo: hierarchies of value and worth, assumptions about who is dangerous and who is safe, rigid categories that leave no room for nuance, accountability, or growth. It replaces curiosity with certainty.

Before I could gather my thoughts for a meaningful reply, the comment was gone. I can’t know why for certain, but past experiences lead me to believe she may have looked more closely at my profile—perhaps seen my photo—and concluded that I was not, in fact, welcome in her space. In the span of a moment, I went from being warmly invited to “come play” to no longer being welcome at all. Nothing about me had changed; only the perception of me likely had.

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I’ve felt this in my own local community. I’ve been ignored at parties unless or until someone outs me as trans. Suddenly I’m “one of us” again. I’ve been told not to center myself because women don’t feel safe around men. I’ve been quietly edged out of queer spaces for appearing too cis, too straight, too male. The message is rarely explicit, but it’s consistent: you don’t quite belong here.

What makes this especially painful is that trans men often don’t fully belong anywhere. We’re told we benefit from male privilege while being denied the social belonging, safety, and forgiveness that often come with it. We’re asked to absorb suspicion without complaint, to accept isolation as the cost of our gender, and to understand why we are excluded. Always to understand, rarely to be understood.

I don’t have a clean answer. I don’t think the solution is pretending harm doesn’t exist, or that everyone should share space with everyone else at all times. But I do think we need to be asking harder questions about whether exclusion is actually making us safer, or just more divided.

What would it look like to center behavior rather than identity? To build cultures of accountability instead of blanket bans? To ask who is being quietly pushed out when we draw these lines, and who benefits from that disappearance?

Grey Doolin’s recent piece speaks to this tension beautifully—the way we’ve been taught to see ourselves as separate, competing, fundamentally unlike one another, and how that fragmentation ultimately serves systems of harm more than it protects us. I keep coming back to the idea that seeing ourselves as irreconcilably different may be part of the problem, not the solution.

I want spaces where safety and inclusion are not opposites.
Where care and community don’t require exile.
Where we don’t decide in advance who is worthy of belonging.

I don’t think we heal by keeping our circles smaller. I think we heal by learning how to hold complexity, by staying in relationship, and by building communities that are brave enough to do something harder than exclusion.

I don’t know the answer, but I’m increasingly sure that leaving people out, especially those already at the margins, isn’t it.

I’m not writing this to accuse or to shame. I’m writing it because I genuinely want us to think together about what safety, accountability, and belonging can look like when we refuse easy binaries. I want to be in conversation with people who care about harm reduction and about the unintended harm of exclusion. If this brings up questions, disagreements, or reflections for you, I welcome them—especially if you’re willing to stay curious rather than certain. We don’t have to agree to listen to one another. And I still believe that listening, especially across difference, is one of the ways we build something better. Something that works for more of us at the exclusion of fewer of us.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas in the comments. Thank you for reading and thank you for being here.

xx Nyle

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And the promised links:

Thank you to for sharing this one. She writes beautifully about her own healing journey and about being on both sides of the therapy room. If you’re needing a break from the political noise, her work is worth spending time with.

The below piece by is an excellent look at the vicarious trauma many of us are carrying as we’re repeatedly exposed to brutal murders and other political violence online.

Mental Health Musings

When Witnessing Becomes Wounding

If you’re like me, you’ve watched three – maybe more – of our fellow humans murdered by gun violence in the past four months…

Read more

5 months ago · 32 likes · 2 comments · Dr Deborah Vinall

For some simple, concrete actions you can take right now:

Leona Waller

If every American did 3 of these 5 things, ICE would be stopped in its tracks.

We’ve been watching our government slide towards fascism for the last year. It’s been consistently concerning, but also not quite concerning enough. It’s registered for many people on the level of “I should keep an eye on that” but below “I should put aside other priorities and focus on this…

Read more

5 months ago · 7117 likes · 401 comments · Leona Waller

Dr. Kiki Fehling’s consistently offers solid, accessible ways to stay connected to joy—an important part of sustaining ourselves.

How To Queer Joy

There’s More Than One Way to Belong: Exploring Queer Kinship

This is How To Queer Joy, a newsletter dedicated to LGBTQ+ mental health and joy practices, written by queer psychologist Dr. Kiki Fehling…

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5 months ago · 8 likes · 2 comments · Dr. Kiki Fehling

This week, instead of focusing primarily on political events themselves, I want to spend more time naming how those events land in our bodies—and what we actually have the power to do about it.

If you spend any amount of time on social media these days, you will find an abundance of wellness professionals talking about nervous system work and ways we can regulate. I do that too. Much of this work is valuable. However, some of it can feel incredibly disconnected from reality, when we are in the midst of political upheaval and turmoil and people genuinely do not know if they are safe from one day to the next.

We are told to regulate, to ground, to breathe, and to co-regulate—often without ever naming what we are being asked to regulate in the midst of. As if dysregulation emerges in a vacuum. As if people are anxious, hypervigilant, shut down, or exhausted because they’re doing regulation “wrong,” rather than because they are living inside systems that are actively hostile to their survival.

Individual and collective dysregulation do not arise randomly. They are the predictable outcomes of systemic oppression, chronic threat, economic instability, racism, transphobia, ableism, misogyny, and political violence—just to name a few. Social determinants of health aren’t abstract concepts, they live in our bodies. They shape our nervous systems over time. They privilege some and endanger others. Privilege also lives in our nervous systems.

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If your nervous system feels fried right now, that is not a personal failure. If you are bouncing between rage, despair, numbness, and hypervigilance—that makes sense. If “just breathe” feels insulting and minimizing, you’re probably picking up on the disconnect.

At the same time—and this is where nuance matters—we cannot afford to abandon nervous system care altogether. Not because it fixes oppression (it absolutely doesn’t), but because regulated people are harder to control, exhaust, and silence.

Regulation is not about calming down so we can tolerate injustice. Resilience does not mean learning to shoulder a heavier and heavier burden. It’s about staying resourced enough to respond rather than collapse. It’s about learning how and when to reassess, redirect, and adapt so that survival remains possible.

When we are constantly pushed into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, we have less access to creativity, connection, discernment, and sustained action. That’s not accidental. Dysregulation is one of the byproducts and tools of oppressive systems. Burn people out, fragment their attention, keep them reactive, and they are easier to manage.

So when we talk about regulation during political upheaval, we have to hold both truths at once:

• Yes, your dysregulation is an understandable response to real harm.

• And yes, tending to your nervous system is still an act of resistance and resilience.

Regulation doesn’t mean pretending things are okay. It also doesn’t mean taking bubble baths and drinking champagne (although honestly, the bubble baths might help). It means creating enough internal safety to stay present with reality without pretending its safe.

It might look like:

• Limiting how much news you consume. Not to disengage, but to avoid nervous system overload

• Orienting to what is still here: your body, your breath, your people, your values

• Letting grief, anger, and fear move through instead of collapsing into despair (I know I sound like a broken record about anger work—with clients and here—but truly: learn how to process and release anger somatically. It helps)

• Seeking co-regulation and community rather than trying to self-soothe your way through structural violence

• Remembering that rest is not apolitical when exhaustion is the goal of the system

We also need to be clear: no amount of individual regulation will undo systemic harm. That work belongs in the realms of policy, collective action, mutual aid, and organized resistance. Nervous system care is not a substitute for justice—it’s a support for those fighting for it.

The goal is not to feel calm while the world burns. The goal is to stay human, connected, and capable inside the burning house.

If you’re dysregulated right now, that makes sense. If you’re tired, angry, scared, or numb, you’re not failing or broken. You are surviving in a system that is trying to take you down.

Your nervous system is responding exactly as nervous systems do when they are asked to survive unthinkable circumstances. Care for yourself, not because the world is fine, but because you matter, and we need you alive and resourced.

We regulate not to adapt to oppression, but to outlast it. As things continue to escalate, with no real reprieve in sight, individual and collective care are how we stay in the fight. We need you here. We need you well. Self-regulation is not self-indulgence, it’s survival.

Sending you all peace, love and strength, in these darkest of times.

xxNyle

Once again, thank you to my paid subscribers—and to everyone who reads, shares, and engages with this work. Your support helps sustain this writing and helps keep my little family safe and healthy as we navigate extraordinarily high healthcare costs.

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I’ll be honest: part of why it’s taken me a moment to write again is that the sheer volume of harm and chaos makes it hard to know where to start. Do I name Renee Good’s murder? The kidnapping of the Venezuelan president and his wife? The continued and escalating attacks on trans people—especially trans youth—through policy, misinformation, and deliberate cruelty? Or do I talk about coping, regulation, and survival in the face of all of it?

The honest answer is: it has to be some of all of it. Separating those things is a luxury we don’t have. We are living inside political violence, and we are also living inside our nervous systems. So this has to be about both.

The main thing I want you to take from this is: we are being harmed, and we are not powerless. Yes, the government is actively stripping trans youth of healthcare. That will cause real suffering. That is not abstract. That is children losing access to care that keeps them healthy and alive. And at the same time, trans people and our communities are already doing what we have always done: building systems of care when the state decides we are disposable.

I came out in 1999 and started testosterone a decade later. Through that decade, I watched a half dozen or so of my friends transition while I sorted out what was right for me. During that time, access was incredibly limited, especially for anyone under 18. Care was significantly gatekept, pathologized, and often denied outright. And yet people still found ways. We shared information quietly. We drove long distances to see doctors and therapists who had the knowledge and willingness to support us. We protected each other. We built informal networks of care that did not rely on state approval. That history matters now, because it tells us something important: the government has never been the source of our survival.

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One thing that helps me stay oriented is looking at history. Heather Cox Richardson’s work does this powerfully—placing current events in a longer historical arc so we can see how power consolidates, how it fractures, and how resistance emerges. I found this recent piece especially clarifying.

Another voice I have been returning to is my former college classmate, Garrett Bucks, whose writing consistently refuses panic without slipping into denial. His work models steadiness without complacency, also with frequent historical references to bring us hope. And his piece from January 1 felt like a good way to start the year. I hope you’ll check it out.

Beyond that, a few other things have been sitting with me as I’ve tried to figure out what I want to say to you all.

First, the Love Notes project I wrapped up at the end of the year. If you haven’t spent time with those yet, I really encourage you to do so. The messages were heartfelt, thoughtful, and abundant. This gives me hope. People are paying attention. People are empathizing with trans folks. People care. That matters more than cynicism wants us to believe. We need more of this, and we need to keep building on it.

Another theme that’s been coming up in my therapy office lately is this question: How do I let myself be okay when so many people are not? How do I live a good life when others are suffering?

Here’s what I want to say clearly: guilt is not solidarity. It helps no one. It makes you smaller, quieter, and less effective. We do not need people burning themselves out on shame. We need people who are doing well—who have energy, stability, and resources—because those are the people who can show up, speak up, and sustain care over time. Instead of collapsing into shame or guilt, channel what’s going well for you outward. Use it. Share it. Protect your health, mentally and physically, because this is not a short fight.

A framework I often use with clients is learning when to zoom out and when to zoom in. Right now, we need both. We zoom out to ask, What else is happening here? Zooming out allows us to see the larger political landscape: the pushback, the lawsuits, the organizing, the refusal to comply quietly.

And we zoom in to notice the small but meaningful acts of care happening every day, and the small, concrete things each of us can do. Zooming in brings us back to the human scale: checking on a neighbor, advocating at a school board meeting, sharing resources, holding space for each other, quietly replenishing the mutual aid fund.

Both matter. We need the big picture so we don’t collapse into hopelessness, and we need the small picture so we remember that action is still possible.

Community remains essential. Get to know your neighbors. Build systems of mutual support. Find ways to join forces so you’re not carrying this alone. Isolation is one of the most effective tools of oppression and fascism and connection is one of our strongest forms of resistance.

I’m also reminded of an old Taoist parable—one you may know—about withholding judgment and remembering that outcomes unfold over time. The short version is this: a man’s prized horse runs away, and the villagers call it a tragedy. He simply says, “All we know is that the horse is gone.” The horse later returns with twelve wild horses and the villagers label it good fortune. “All we know is that the horse came back with twelve others,” the man replies. Then his son breaks his leg riding one of them (a tragedy!). Then war comes, and the injured son is spared from the country’s draft). Again the villagers lament that their sons are gone and the man’s remains. Again the man says “all that we know is that your sons are gone to war and mine is still here. We don’t know what tomorrow may bring.”

The story could be, and sometimes is, interpreted as spiritual bypassing. That’s not how I read it though. The point is not that suffering is secretly a gift. The point is that the story is not finished yet. I read it as a refusal to surrender agency to premature conclusions.

Renee Good’s murder is not a lesson. It is a tragedy. And it is also a demand. A demand for clarity, for action, for refusing the normalization of violence. What we do next still matters.

So what can we do?

• We tell the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable.

• We support trans-led care networks and clinics operating outside hostile systems.

• We protect trans youth with our time, our money, and our voices.

• We stay informed. Choose one or two trusted sources. Friendly reminder: doomscrolling is not civic engagement.

• We stay resourced. Not numb, not burned out, but regulated enough to keep going. Check out some of my earlier pieces on anger work and how we “feel the fire” without being consumed by it. And yes, really, anger work. Structured, healthy anger release will get you out of freeze mode and help you feel empowered.

• We build community. Not as a feel-good concept, but as a material strategy for survival. More of my thoughts on that here.

• And we refuse the lie that we are alone.

• And yes, we order girlscout cookies from trans girls! (Guaranteed to help with nervous system regulation and long-haul sustainability*)

We are not finished. And neither is this fight. Community care is how we survive this.

Silence and disconnection are what oppressive systems rely on. Community and connection are what disrupts them.

Wishing you the steadiness, strength and support you need to get through what’s next. Thank you for being here.

xx Nyle

If this work resonates with you and you’d like to help sustain it, I’m deeply grateful for paid subscriptions. Between self-employment, single parenting, and significant healthcare costs, reader support directly helps make this writing possible.

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*statement not approved by any psychological or medical foundations

Since the end of November, this newsletter has been sharing “Love Notes” for the trans community as part of a collective project to remind trans folks that they are deeply loved, valued, and supported, even when that support isn’t visible.

As the year comes to a close, I’m sharing the final batch of Holiday Love Notes. These emails have taken longer to compile than I expected, which means I haven’t said as much about the process along the way. This project has brought me genuine joy over the past five weeks, and I hope to be back with a more usual newsletter after next week.

Reading these messages has been deeply moving. So has watching people restack their favorites, and receiving notes, both public and behind the scenes, about the impact they’re having. If you haven’t spent time with the Love Notes yet, especially if you’ve been feeling discouraged or overwhelmed by the current climate for trans folks in this country, I hope you’ll take a look. These messages are a reminder that there are so many people out there who care, who are paying attention, and who are rooting for us—even when it doesn’t feel that way.

It’s been a hard year for trans people in the U.S., and that hardship isn’t letting up. The current administration continues to attack the rights and medical care of trans people—especially trans youth. I don’t think we’re through the darkest days yet, which is exactly why this project has mattered so much to me. These messages push back against the narrative we’re being fed: that we are alone, unwanted, or unloved. The hundreds of notes shared here tell a different story. They remind us that we are not alone, that we are not fighting by ourselves, and that there are people standing beside us—on the front lines and beyond—committed to our safety, dignity, and future.

One thing that has especially heartened me is the growing number of Substacks written by parents of trans kids. Seeing parents and allies begin to speak out more publicly—to share their love, their fear, their advocacy, and their refusal to stay silent—matters deeply. I also want to honor and respect the many parents who work quietly behind the scenes in order to protect the identities of their children. All of these forms of care count. Together, they help counter the isolation so many trans kids and families are made to feel. They remind us that behind the headlines and policy debates are real children who are cherished, protected, and fiercely loved.

It’s powerful to witness parents standing up not only for their own kids, but for all trans youth. Their willingness to tell the truth about what care, affirmation, and family support actually look like brings light into a space that is so often distorted by misinformation and fear. And for trans adults, who didn’t get that sort of care as the trans kids they once were, reading these words can be deeply healing. Take them in as if they were written for you, because they were, they just arrived a little late.

If you haven’t already, check out , , and for insights and information on raising trans kid’s in Trump’s America.

With that spirit of love, solidarity, and collective care, I want to offer this final batch of Love Notes. Read them slowly. Share them widely. Let them land where they need to. These words are proof of something important and lasting: we are seen, we are valued, and we are not alone.

Thank you so much to everyone who contributed a note, shared or restacked a post, or invited their circles and readers to participate. You helped make this project a success, and I am deeply grateful.

Allies/loved ones, please tell us what you have learned, what you value, or a special memory about a trans person you know or love:

Birthing and parenting two trans kids has been the honor of my life. They have taught me so much, including the importance of embracing righteous anger. I have learned that they dont need a mama bear; they need their voices and autonomy to be lifted up in every way. What a gift it is to love them!

If you feel isolated, please reach out to trusted friends or organizations. No one has to be alone.

—Pam Small

I am partner, friend, and chosen family to many trans and nonbinary folks — people who have held me in the deepest, most loving ways possible. People with whom I share joys and griefs and all of life’s big milestones. I am a queer, cis woman and I am full of anger and grief at the pointless, cruel scapegoating of trans people by our government and those who would seek their own power on the backs of the trans community. When we expand our understanding of gender and its many expressions, we all benefit. Gender expansiveness makes more room for everyone.

I don’t know you personally, but I want you to know I see you and I care about your safety, joy, and future. I advocate for you when I can and I stand behind you, now, and always.
—A friend you haven’t met

I’ve learned honesty and authenticity from my trans and queer friends. Your existence makes the whole world more honest. Thank you for being here.

I met my first (known to me) trans person in college. Growing up, I’d seen trans people on Jerry Springer but that was it. I thought it was weird. I wondered why anyone would choose to be trans. Then I met the person who would go on to be one of my closest lifelong friends. He was kind, smart, and funny as hell. He still is. And he’s a super regular guy outside of the whole trans thing.

To the folks yelling about trans folks: have you met any? Why don’t you take the time to do so. then see what you think. If it doesn’t affect you, stop yelling about it. Trans folks, by and large, are good people, just like the rest of us. Get to know them and then leave them the fuck alone, please.

I vote, speak up, donate, and show up because your life matters to me. Always.

You shouldn’t have to be brave just to exist—but I’m grateful for you every day.

When my kid came out, I was so grateful to have a small handful of trans adults in my life that I could consult and who could show my child that there is a future for her. Because of these trans adults, my kid is confident and secure and she knows there’s a place for her in the world. I wish that all kids could have that.

Trans people have always existed. We need them. They make the world interesting and shine a light on what matters. Isn’t the goal for all of us to simply be ourselves? Take a page out of the trans handbook and try being your full authentic self. And while you’re at it, stay out of the business of others who are doing so without causing harm to you.

—Jerry

If no one told you today: you are wanted here.

I’m learning, unlearning, and listening. I won’t stop.

I’m sorry the world is loud and cruel. Please know there are so many of us quietly (and loudly) on your side.

—K

You are loved. Thank you for making the world a better place.

To my beloved trans community - I see you. I love you. I am grateful for you.

My son had a trans roommate who was rejected by his family and couldn’t go home for Thanksgiving. He came home with my son. When the young people went into the jacuzzi, my son wore a rasher to make his friend comfortable as he hid his scars. We watched Kinky Boots to finish off the night and when talking about the movie the next day, I used the correct pronouns when referring to the character while in and out of drag. We had a lovely weekend and I am still grateful for it. We provided a safe and caring celebration and gave a young man a glimpse into a better family dynamic. My son educates me regularly and my world is wider and far more interesting than I could ever imagine.

—Pam Small

I will keep standing between you and harm whenever I can.

—Eileen

You deserve rest, safety, laughter, and a future that feels wide open. I hope you’ve found some peace and rest over this holiday season. We are fighting right along side you, even when you can’t see it.

You make my community richer and more alive. I am grateful to the trans and queer people in my life and the lives of my children. You let them know they are safe to be themselves and that there is a place for them in this world no matter what.

—M

Years ago I made a small commitment to my trans friend in early stages of transition: I promise to correct people when you’re not in the room. I am still committed to that today. But not just with pronouns, but with all of the ignorant or hateful things I hear from others. I let them know I don’t stand with them in their beliefs when my friends and family say hurtful things. And little by little, I see them coming around to a different way of thinking about things. That’s what it takes: for each of us to keep stepping up in small ways and the ways that we can. Little by little, we create a better world for everyone.

I see your courage—but I also see your softness, and I love that too.

I’m raising my kids to know that loving you is non-negotiable. We love all humans and living beings in our family and that doesn’t stop at people who are different from us.

—Another mama bear

I will keep choosing you, even when it’s uncomfortable. Even if it puts my own safety at risk.

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Please share what you love about your trans identity, a tip for surviving the holidays, or a word of encouragement for someone feeling isolated. (Submission length can be a short sentence or a long reflection.):

I am a divine child created to be a unique work of art. I do my duty to the universe when I express every facet of my personality in all its feminine and masculine flavors. We were created to be a garden of astonishingly audacious, exquisitely delicate flowers whose beauty depends upon everyone coming into full bloom.

——

I didn’t think I’d make it this far—and I did. You can too.

Don’t let the administration’s fear become your fear. We will rise higher. We will transcend these times. Keep shining brightly and fiercely. We are needed here and we will get each other through.

A thing I am still learning: You’re not broken. You’re responding to a broken system. It is incredibly difficult to survive, much less thrive, in a hostile environment and it can make you feel like you’re the problem. You’re not, but the system makes it harder for us to keep getting through.

—H

It gets quieter inside, eventually. I promise. The fear voices start to calm, you start to realize that your true friends and family will stay by your side and the ones who choose to leave, become less relevant over time. It may not be without pain, but you will get to an easier place. Keep going.

You don’t need to have it all figured out to be real. There’s no “trans enough” litmus test and you are the only one who knows what it’s like to be you. I love you, no matter where you are on your journey.

—a trans older sibling

I’m proud of us for surviving things we never should have had to.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be seen. And you don’t owe anyone an explanation for who you are.

For the trans kids out there wondering if there’s a viable future for you: there is. I swear. Don’t let Trump and his cronies get you down. They don’t know anything about you, your life, or what it means to be trans. They are just bullies trying to take power anywhere they can. They will not live forever and things will shift and change again. There is a wonderful life ahead of you, you just have to ignore the noise for now.

Some days existing is the victory. I’m glad you’re still here. I really am.

—Kara

I am a they/them who was pulled gently out of the closet by the trans and genderqueer students in the college ministry I pastored. I found myself most relaxed in the company of trans kin and realized that being my full self allowed others to relax around me and it wasn’t an imposition on their needs. My daughter is trans. Watching her come into her full self and gain confidence making friends has been one of the most meaningful journeys of my life.

—

You are allowed to change. You are allowed to rest. Find the people who love you and make you feel alive.

To the trans kids: Your body is not the enemy. Don’t let them make you feel like you need to conform to survive. If you enjoy presenting in a binary way, then do it! But if that’s not for you, don’t let them make you afraid to be your full self. You will outlive this administration. Go on and be your full self.

I didn’t get the care I needed as a kid, but I’m giving it to myself now. Take a page out of my book and find time to rest, play and be with people who make you feel good.

—Hank

We’ve always been here. We’re not going anywhere. We are ancestors in the making.

It’s okay if hope comes and goes. Stay anyway. I’m walking this road with you, even when it’s hard.

—Your trans dad

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Tell us things you love about being trans, what you've learned from your trans kid, tips for getting through the holidays or whatever else you'd like to share, with love for the community:

I live somewhere between words, and that place is sacred. There are colors that only people who haven’t lost their life force can see. Sounds created for the gods and goddesses that you can hear only when you remember how to listen with your heart. Keep listening to your heart. Choose you. Choose love. Choose peace.

You don’t have to choose a side to be real. My non-binary kid and I enjoy a range of expressions. Theirs is fluid and free and moves inside of and beyond the binary. Somedays flowing fabrics and bright colors. Somedays more traditional “boy” or “girl” clothes. Mine is a subtle shift from slightly masculine to slightly feminine expressions. But we both feel free to express ourselves however we like, inside of our home, and my kid is slowly learning to feel comfortable outside too. It doesn’t have to be all one thing. There’s room for it all.

Ambiguity is not confusion, it’s freedom.

I exist in the margins and I make art there. Some of us are poems, not definitions.

—Kaden

Hey you. Yes you, the person reading this right now. Don’t roll your eyes, I mean it. I don’t know you, you don’t know me— but we are both human beings who deserve lives where we can live, love and be exactly who we are supposed to be. You are the only person who gets to define what you are “supposed” to be, even if finding that definition feels like being in a weird liminal space at first, eventually we discover ourselves buried somewhere in there. You deserve that discovery, you deserve that definition, and you deserve it without question, no matter what, regardless of what anyone else might say.

You are the storyteller, you are the unfinished novel, and no matter what words make it into your story: Your existence creates something beautiful, valuable, and unique in the world. And you fucking deserve to make it to the end of that story, as happy and free and full as you can. You deserve peace with yourself. You deserve to love yourself as whole. You deserve love, and I mean this as sincerely as you’ll take it from a stranger on the internet: I care, I want to see you loved, and I hope the bit of love that I can spread in this manner reaches you when you need it.

Your identity doesn’t need to make sense to anyone else. Eff those boring old guys in suits and ties—do you want to look like them? Does it look like they are having happy and fun lives? No way! Why would we want to follow their rules?! Make your own rules, be your own guide on the river of gender.

—a gender rebel

I am many things at once, and none of them are wrong.

—Sari

Fluid doesn’t mean fragile. The world may want boxes, but we are landscapes.

I refuse to shrink to make others comfortable. There is beauty in not being easily named.

You are not “too much.” You are just expansive.

Sometimes there just aren’t words to describe who we are and how we see ourselves in the world. I honor the versions of you that never had language.

—Joy

We belong, even when systems aren’t built for us. Spoiler: the systems aren’t built for anyone but the elite. We are going to be a part of dismantling systems that don’t work and building new ones that do. Hang in there, we are going to get to the other side.

To the trans and non-binary kids: Your existence loosens the world in good ways. As a non-binary adult, I only wish I’d known other kids like you when I was young. You make the world softer and more loving.

I love the way we blur edges and imagine more. You are allowed to be undefined. There is joy in living between breaths. And we are proof that more than two truths can exist at once.

And that’s it for this year’s Love Notes. I’m wishing each of you peace, strength, and connection in the year ahead.

I also want to offer a heartfelt thank you to my paid subscribers. Your support has genuinely made a difference—not just financially, but in helping me know that these words are landing and that this work matters. I’m especially grateful to have recently gone back in-network with a few insurance companies, which has allowed me to continue supporting clients who’ve had to space out or pause therapy amid increasingly difficult financial realities.

As healthcare costs continue to rise, this single dad remains deeply thankful for any support you choose to offer to help sustain this writing and this work. Your encouragement makes it possible for me to keep showing up here.

With love and gratitude,
Nyle

What feels clear to me now is this: we need these love notes more than ever—especially trans youth. Words of care, solidarity, and support matter. They land even when we don’t know exactly where or how.

As we head toward the final newsletter of the year and the last batch of notes for this project, I’d love your help. Please share this project with your circles, and if you’ve been holding onto a note, now is the moment to send it. You can submit a note here. Thank you, sincerely, to everyone who has contributed, shared, and helped carry this project forward. It has been meaningful and inspiring to witness.

I have a longer piece brewing, but I’m not sure I’ll get it out before the new year. In the meantime, if you’ve also been feeling a bit overwhelmed or unsure about what’s happening right now, these pieces offer important context and clarity:

This piece breaks down the nationwide threat to trans youth medical care in clear, accessible terms so you know what’s at stake and how it could affect real lives.

You can learn more about the Trans Youth Emergency Project here.

And be sure to check out and for more insights and words of wisdom from moms of trans kids.

And now, here’s this week’s batch of notes:

Allies/loved ones, please tell us what you have learned, what you value, or a special memory about a trans person you know or love:

From the moment I first saw you, I fell in love with your courage, strength and genuine soul. You are strong and resilient; I am so glad I have walked beside you in life, through many seasons, and now call you my closest family and best friend. Watching your evolution has been such an inspiration.

The Trans and Non-Binary people in my life are so special, beautiful and important to me and my community. I am a teacher and the Trans and NB students I work with inspire me with their fierce intelligence and unwillingness to surrender any part of their authentic selves.

—A teacher who supports you!!!

Loving a trans person has taught me how much courage lives in ordinary days. It’s not just coming out—it’s ordering coffee, correcting someone, choosing clothes, showing up again and again. I notice it. I honor it. I love you.

My best friend transitioned in our 30s, and I remember thinking: Oh. This is what honesty looks like. It made me braver in my own life, even where gender wasn’t involved. Thank you for that gift.

I don’t always know the right words, but I know this: when you walk into a room, the room gets truer. Things line up differently. That matters.

I’ve learned that support isn’t just using the right name. it’s staying curious, correcting mistakes quickly, and doing my own homework instead of asking you to carry me.

My trans sibling taught me that identity is not a problem to solve, but a truth to live. I think about that a lot when I’m tempted to shrink myself. Thank you for showing me the way.

Watching my kid figure out who they are has been the greatest honor of my life. You all remind me that the world changes not through force, but through brave, everyday truth-telling.

I used to think being an ally meant just not being rude to someone. Now I know it means being consistent, vocal, and willing to be uncomfortable. I’m here. I’m staying.

I am grateful, not in a performative way, but in a bone-deep way, that you exist in my life. Knowing you has expanded my understanding of love, integrity, and what it means to be human.

Despite what the world is shouting at you right now, you are valued, you are seen, and you are loved. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum!

—

These are tough times challenging our spirits, but there IS love. Rest assured that we are stronger together and these tough times WILL pass. We the people shall overcome. TOGETHER.

As in all things in life, informing oneself and listening generously are key to better understanding and loving kindness.

To E,
To you and all my trans siblings, I owe you so much.
Thank you for teaching me what it means to live beyond the confines of someone else’s expectations. You don’t just expand your own possibilities. You teach the rest of us to expand ours.
By insisting on authenticity, you show every person (cis, queer, and everything in between) that we should live our lives on our own terms. You collapse the false binaries that we’ve been taught to live inside and model what it’s like to live beyond those limitations.
You are courageous. You are powerful. You help me to live more freely, more expansively, more compassionately.
You help me see that the world can be bigger than the boxes I grew up in, that I can be more than the roles I’ve assumed. You remind me that identity isn’t something to fit into, but something to be lived.
I owe you so much, and I am so grateful.
With deep love and gratitude,
x

🩷❤️🧡💛🩵💙💜

A few weeks ago, my daughter (who came out as trans this summer) married her beloved girlfriend in a land far, far, away from family. (GF came out as trans several yrs ago.) it was hard; had to use names and genders assigned at birth to them, not their own, bec of local law. But flip side: such outpouring of love and celebration from friends and family stateside for this young couple. We are overjoyed for them! So, look! Falling in love online, then meeting irl, then committing, then deciding marriage was a route they wanted, then saying the vows! It can happen!

Hang in there. Hold on tight. Things are really rough right now but they will get better. Love will prevail. You have every right to live a full, exciting, rewarding life in which you are loved and cherished. The world needs you!

—A teacher who supports you!!!

It’s okay not to have a reason for your family for why you won’t be able to make it home.

I love how authentic trans identity is and I’m relieved to be surrounded by folx who value authenticity versus fitting into some character of a human someone else has deemed acceptable.

For you feeling isolated, lean deeply into grief and also the good work of caring for yourself - slow baths or showers, anointing your body w lotion of oil, massage your legs and arms and feet, nourishing yourself w food, long walks or bike rides without an agenda- slow and winding paths will be soothing to the ache.

My trans kid continues to show me that transitions at her age (Gen Z) may look and be different from those of my trans peers (Gen X and Boomer); and how my assumptions needed to get jostled quite a bit. This is so good! Bec I can better support and cheer her on. My wish for you is, if you have similarly old, fuddy-duddy “nice liberal cis allies” that they snap to it, already, and do their own work to open their eyes to your glorious strong self

I’m writing this in a week, like so many other weeks, where the blows keep coming. I can’t reach out to give you a hug (if that’s your gig) or smash pottery and scream (if more your tempo) so virtual hugging and screaming will have to do. I love you, you are so valuable to the world, we support and uplift you!

Trans folks are proof that, as Camus said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Take a page from them: look into yourself and find the courage to move through the world as who you really are.

—

I am cisgender but I am Queer and, while I can't know what it feels like to be Trans, I do know what it feels like to feel alone. Please know that there are so many millions of people on the planet rooting for you who want you to be your full, authentic selves. You are so incredible and we love you!

—A teacher who supports you!!!

My trans friends’ journeys remind me that knowing yourself and expressing it is a constant journey of openness - openness to change, to evolution, to newness , to heartbreak, to grief, and to finding joy at home in your body. I am deeply honored to continue to be trusted with witnessing their journeys and it has allowed me space to challenge and reject or accept aspects of myself that don’t always fit neatly in this narrow ass minded world view. Thank you for living your truths. I feel deeply moved and changed for the better by knowing you all.

My trans son knew more about who he was at nine than I do now. The insight, courage, and strength he summons each day to live as a fully self-actualized human inspires me and everyone around him. His transition has transformed us all for the better.

—

Share

Please share what you love about your trans identity, a tip for surviving the holidays, or a word of encouragement for someone feeling isolated. (Submission length can be a short sentence or a long reflection.):

from a trans person just discovering what having trans friends feels like - it gets better. it might take a while and it might include a lot of pain, but you made it this far, keep going

Some things I love about being trans are the amazing community around me, the validation from my friends, and the joy of being queer.

Best wishes,
Someone

I’ve learned this from my beautiful NB kid— they love even when they worry. They find joy even when things are difficult. They are brave (because they have to be).

This is what I know— I love both my kids just for being them, just for who they are, all the time. There is nothing they could do to make me love them any less. I love them when they are happy and sad and anxious and mad and everything else. And I love them when I am happy and sad and anxious and mad and everything else.

It’s important we hae that kind of love for ourselves and for each other. If we possibly can.

I love you. Through everything we’re facing together, if you are trans too, of any variety, you are my family, and I love you.

Some people may not see you for who you are. Some may outright refuse to. That doesn't change your truth. We're making a world where you can be not just safe but seen and heard, one step at a time.

You are strong, beautiful, and sacred. I love you just for being you. I am proud of you. And I’m in awe of you. It takes most of us decades to even wonder who we are, to live our truths, to take up space, to step off the “straight and narrow.” I am standing with you, with myself, with my amazing kids.

Hello my fellow queers, I am an Omni trans man and the world right now is very scary, but the good thing is that we are still strong.

Best wishes,
Someone.

I love my style and how my gender and transness has influenced it. I find that trans people are very stylish and very gorgeous btw, so consider this your sign that you look fantastic!!!!

I love that being trans has instilled me with the knowledge of how little gender matters because it’s all made up! That’s what helps me when I’m misgendered, remembering that my gender is the least important and interesting thing about me and my identity :)

Some days being trans feels powerful. Some days it feels exhausting. Both can be true. Some days are like that.

I love that my gender taught me how to listen to my body. I spent years ignoring it. Now I know when to rest, when to push, and when to say no.

Being trans showed me that joy isn’t something you earn, it’s something you allow and create. Even in small, stubborn ways.

I used to think I needed to be “finished” to be valid. Turns out becoming is the whole thing. The journey, not the destination.

I love how trans people laugh when we’re together, laughing at something only other trans people would get. It’s a specific laugh. You can hear the relief and the joy in it.

If no one has told you today: your body is not wrong. It is doing its very best to carry you through a complicated and sometimes broken world.

I forget sometimes that there are people who don’t question their gender daily. Wild. Anyway, proud of us.

Take your meds. Drink some water. Text someone safe.

Share

Tell us things you love about being trans, what you've learned from your trans kid, tips for getting through the holidays or whatever else you'd like to share, with love for the community:

I can’t tell you how in awe I am of you -- I mean that. AWE. I think the most powerful thing we can do as humans is to exist in the fullest expression of our authenticity. And you are doing exactly that, which is an act of wonder all to itself. And the fact that you are doing this while parts of this world are telling you not to, are punishing you for doing so, and are doing what they can to keep you from living your truth -- this shows that you are the bravest person on earth. And also the wisest. Because you are teaching the world that authenticity is a superpower right up there next to love, and that is precisely why old systems of power are threatened by it, because it WILL be what takes those systems down. It is not on you to take those systems down. It is on all of us allies. And we’re standing with you.

You are sacred. You are beautiful. Thank you for inspiring us everyday to live our own truths. I am so sorry that it has to be so fucking hard for you to live your own. Please know that I am weeping with you, especially on the hardest days when all you can do is cry. But please know that I am also WITH you, celebrating you, loving you, and honoring you. Every day. Your existence is magic. And I’m wishing you a 2026 that brings you so much of what you deserve -- joy, love, wonder, community, abundance, hope, and peace. Thank you for being here. This world is damn lucky to have you in it.

Nothing but language-defying love for my beloved community members. You are all incredible, beautiful, sharp and strong and courageous, funny, creative, gloriously human people. You are the community that makes me feel shiny with brilliant hope. Those moments of commonality after wading through so much otherness is a feeling I won’t trade, because I feel so much pride in the resilient resistance of our community. Love love love love love you so much, you are truly precious and beloved.

People will surround you with advice about what you should be doing. They want you merely to do. But there is a reason why we are human *beings* are not human *doings*. My experience of transitioning has been that I have started to *be* for the first time, rather than just *do*. When everything around you seems unstable, when reality seems to be collapsing, bending like the reeds in a rushing current is one of the queerest things you can do. Reconnect with the physical world that surrounds you and the subtle love that is in every crevice. It is in the affection towards the world itself, in whatever form that affection takes place, that all boundaries are blurred and our love merges with the world around us, becoming unstoppable.

Take it easy, but take it.

I’m an autistic nonbinary lesbian, and I wouldn’t quite say I’m cis, but I was lucky enough to have been born with a body I feel comfortable in, and I haven’t ever experienced gender dysphoria, so… yay for me, I guess lol. Earlier this year, I got really anxious about the Trump administration and its threat towards queer people, and I decided to counteract that anxiety by going onto Lex and finding some other queer friends in my area. (Lex was really just a means to an end in this endeavor. This is 100% not some kind of paid Lex advertisement lmao, the app is not that great tbh) This was probably the best decision I ever made! I am now friends with a bunch of trans women, and one of them is my girlfriend (shoutout to Celeste <3<3 ily) and another is my roommate (shoutout to Cora, you’re awesome <3) and I feel significantly less alone and scared!! So basically, I guess the thesis statement of this long ramble is that if you’re feeling alone and scared, becoming friends with other people who are also alone and scared can help with that lol

— maeve

I don’t fit neatly anywhere, and loving trans people has helped me make peace with that. You taught me that belonging doesn’t require conformity.

I live somewhere between ally and community member, and what I know is this: the world is gentler and more honest because you’re in it.

Being close to trans folks has made my own life more spacious. Less rigid. Less afraid. I don’t know how to thank you for that except to keep showing up.

I’m not trans, but I am queer, and I recognize the same hunger for truth. When I see you live openly, something in me exhales.

I don’t have the language for everything yet, but I have the love. I have the willingness. And I have your back.

If you’re somewhere in-between—unsure, questioning, adjacent—know that there is room for you too. The borders are softer than you think.

Knowing trans people has helped me let go of certainty. Turns out certainty was never keeping me safe anyway.

You make the world more interesting, more honest, and more alive. I hope you get moments of rest that feel undeservedly good.

That’s it for this week’s notes! Thanks again to everyone who has contributed. Please send your last love notes here. I would be thrilled (and a little overwhelmed, in the best way) to receive a big final wave.

And lastly, for those needing some Good Queer News or Trans News That Doesn’t Suck be sure to check those guys out.

xx Nyle

Hey y’all,

Apologies for missing last week’s email and thank you for your patience! Life got busy and just life-y last week, mostly in good ways, but I’m back this week with a lot of new love notes. Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far!

A huge thanks to everyone who has shared this in your newsletters and communities—it’s been such a joy to watch the responses roll in. If you’ve been sitting on a note, now’s a great time to send it along. You can do that here.

Once again, if you’re on Substack, please restack your favorite notes and flood this place with love for the trans community this season!

And without further ado, Batch 3:

Allies/loved ones, please tell us what you have learned, what you value, or a special memory about a trans person you know or love:

I don’t love you despite you being trans. I love you because you are honest, brave, and deeply yourself in a world that makes that hard. Knowing you has made my life better.

You don’t owe anyone an explanation, a lesson, or a perfect version of yourself. Just existing as you are is already enough.

Watching you become more yourself over time has been one of the quiet privileges of my life.

I’m not trans, but I am paying attention. I see the fear, the courage, the exhaustion—and I want you to know you’re not imagining any of it. You’re not alone.

My favorite thing about my trans friend is how alive they are—how deeply they feel joy, humor, grief, curiosity. The world needs that aliveness. I know not all trans people are the same, but I often get the sense that trans people see and experience life in ways that help them figure out what’s important in life sooner than some of the rest of us do.

In 1993, when I was 23 years old, I landed my first corporate writing job. About a year later, a colleague in the early stages of transition joined our writing team. She was older than me—she’d already been married and raised children—and she lobbied bravely for inclusive spaces in our big, corporate building filled with power suits and ties. I was never cruel to her, but I was also not overly kind. I was young and dumb and living in the Midwest, where being trans had to have been challenging on every level. I wish I’d befriended her then, but I kept a quiet distance because of my own fear and ignorance. Today, however, at 55, I want her to know that she is one of the bravest women I’ve ever met. When I see a gender neutral bathroom, I smile to myself and think, “You did that, girl.” A million thanks to those trans trailblazers who lead the way—the boldest, bravest humans I’ve ever known.

—

You deserve boring days, soft mornings, and a future you don’t have to fight for every minute. I hope you find some time for yourself over the holidays. Know that there is a whole world full of folks sending you love and prepared to continue to protect and defend you.

I hope you know that somewhere out there, someone is bragging about you. Talking about how funny you are. How kind. How real. What a good listener you are. You matter. Keep going, we’re going to get through this.

You shouldn’t have to be brave just to exist. Until that changes, please know some of us are doing the quieter work of making space, correcting others, and choosing you even when you’re not in the room.

I’m grateful my kids get to grow up knowing trans people—not as ideas, but as beloved humans. The trans folks they know are just regular people: kind, good friends and neighbors, caring people. Not doing anything particularly special or amazing, just showing up as good humans. May the Powers That Be strive to do the same.

You don’t have to be strong today. You don’t have to teach anyone anything. You get to rest, too.

Being around nonbinary and trans folks has made me question why we ever thought boxes were safer than freedom. You are living proof they aren’t.

You are seen. You are loved. You are perfect.

—

Loving my trans daughter has expanded my understanding of courage. Thank you, M, for trusting me with your truth. I am a better dad and human because of you.

—Papa Bear

You belong here. In this world. In this season. In the future. Trans folks, queers, artists and misfits: you are the visionaries for our future. You know it, but some of the rest of us are starting to see it too.

I don’t know how to fix the world, but I do know how to show up for you, and I’m not going anywhere. Hang in there, we are just about to build the most beautiful world of all.

You make people braver just by being yourself. Even when you don’t feel brave at all.

I admire the way you keep choosing honesty, even when it costs you. That kind of integrity is rare.

If the holidays feel heavy or lonely this year, please know there are people who would gladly pull up another chair for you at their table. If you’re facing a holiday alone, let someone know. Let them pull up that extra chair.

The trans people in my life have taught me that joy can be an act of resistance, and that laughter can be holy.

You don’t have to earn your worth. You matter and a world with you in it is the world I want to be in.

I see how carefully you move through the world sometimes. I hope you get moments where you don’t have to be careful at all.

For S: Thank you for trusting me with who you are. I don’t take that lightly.

—R

Shouting out to anyone who needs to hear it: you are allowed to want a future! You are allowed to plan for joy and longevity and a future with YOU in it!

I admire how trans folks exist outside the boxes people try to put us in. It makes it more possible for me to imagine a future for myself, when I see other people showing us that the “rules” were made up all along. Why is this so terrifying to others? Maybe it would do the administration some good to get out of their stuffy suits and to enjoy a little freedom once in a while. I think they are jealous and afraid of your freedom. Keep being you!

Being close to you has made me kinder, more thoughtful, and more honest. What a gift.

You’re rad. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

I hope you get to experience ease in 2026. Not just survival, but ease. I’m sorry this year has been so scary.

I’m proud of you for the quieter things you bring: the choosing to stay, the choosing to hope, the choosing to keep going. You matter and you’re helping make this world a better place.

Your existence makes the world more interesting, more truthful, and more alive.

I will keep speaking up, voting, learning, and showing up. Trans folks: your lives matter to me.

I hope you find moments of unexpected sweetness this season. This year has been a rollercoaster and you deserve some respite.

You’re not alone. Even on the days it feels like you are, you’ve got a whole community of people, most of whom you’ve never met, fighting with you and for you. We will not let them win.

My kid’s trans dad is one of the best parents I know. He shows up: physically and emotionally. My kid knows she’s safe with him. It makes me sick that people who don’t know him/us might think he’s an unfit parent, simply for being trans. If you met my kid without knowing a thing about her, you’d know she is well-loved. You can just read it on her. She’s confident and secure in a different kind of way. And guess what? Having a trans parent hasn’t turned her trans but it has let her know that she will be loved no matter who she is.

Trans folks are not a monolith, obviously, but it’s not an easy path to walk. And some of the trans people I know are some of the most thoughtful, intentional people I have met. I wish people would take the time to get to know actual trans and queer people, before believing everything the media is telling them.

Share

From the trans/queer community: Please share what you love about your trans identity, a tip for surviving the holidays, or a word of encouragement for someone feeling isolated:

Being trans taught me how to listen to my body in a world that told me not to. That skill saved my life. If you’re still learning how to listen, be gentle. It comes in its own time and it is so wonderful when you get there.

Some days surviving is the only thing I do. Some days I laugh so hard I forget the world wants me gone. Find the folks who help you laugh. Make yourself laugh. Watch baby animal videos.

If the holidays feel like too much, you’re allowed to call in sick. You’re not failing at life, you’re choosing yourself.

—Jayson

At 68 years old, I’ve learned so much that I never knew before I transitioned. I am a Black trans man, and it’s not easy being at the intersection of different communities inside our community and then the larger ones. Have a couple of close friends who aren’t on the internet. Do something for yourself during the holidays. My nuclear family is gone, so if I feel like it, I adopt non-blood family to hang out with (or they adopt me). I don’t do typical holidays, so I have a couple decorations for Kwanzaa and will participate this year as best I can.

I found the missing link of my life 10 years ago and couldn’t be happier about that. Try not to internalize what’s going on out there. You made it through 2025, so congratulations. It’s been a tough year in politics. They’re blowhards and won’t last forever. I’m a badass, and it would be wise to be one, too. Thicken up your skin, because we must buckle up and hold on to someone or something that loves you. I don’t know who is reading this, but if your intentions are good towards me and us, I love you too!

-

I didn’t know what joy could feel like until I stopped pretending. Living as myself hasn’t solved everything, but it has made me more alive.

To my trans siblings: you are badasses. You are perfect. You are uniquely, magically, wonderfully suited to navigate this fuckstorm of a political system and come out the other side scathed but more badass than ever. We’ve got this and don’t let them make you think we don’t. Keep on sparkling.

—Kristiana

I used to think being trans was something I had to endure. Now I understand it as something I get to experience. with pride, grief, humor, and a deep love for who I am becoming. What a cool fucking experience to have. A hard one, yes, but also so rich and rewarding when you remember to stop and smell the roses.

There are days I miss the simplicity of invisibility. And then there are days I remember: I was never truly alive back there. Pretending to be my assigned gender was a death sentence. Breaking free, even though it has mean tremendous loss, has been the only way for me to survive. I’ve paid a toll and I cherish all that I have. If you’re not here yet, keep going, there are people waiting for you who love you exactly as you are.

If you’re exhausted, it’s because this world is demanding too much of us. Rest when you can. Fuel up. We need you.

I love being the man I am. It was too long between the time I was a child and when I discovered myself to be trans. Live, love, laugh.

-

Trans joy is not naive. It’s hard-earned. It’s defiant. It’s sacred. Dance like no one’s watching.

I found my people later than I wanted to but when I did, it felt like exhaling for the first time. Keep looking. They’re out there. Probably not wearing red hats.

Loving my body has been a slow, imperfect process. Some days I love it fiercely. Some days I just thank it for carrying me through. If you can’t start with love, start with neutral, but let go of the self-loathing already. Life is too short for that, get out of your own way and start seeing how rad your body is.

To the version of you who is still hiding: I promise, there is a future where you breathe easier. I’m living proof. Once suffocating in the closet and now practically shouting from the rooftops.

—Your trans older sister

I don’t owe anyone softness or palatability. My existence is already generous.

There is nothing more radical than telling the truth about who you are and then continuing to live.

If you feel alone right now, know this: somewhere another trans person is thinking of you, rooting for you, and believing you’ll make it through.

I didn’t transition to become someone new. I transitioned to finally stop disappearing. It feels better over here.

—Joe

Even on days when I’m scared, I am proud. Even on days when I’m tired, I am still here. That matters.

Move through the holidays in whatever way suits you. Quietly, messily, stubbornly. Stay with us. We’re glad you’re here.

Share

Beyond the binary: Tell us things you love about being trans, what you’ve learned from your trans kid, tips for getting through the holidays or whatever else you’d like to share, with love for the community

I don’t share your experience of moving through the world as trans or nonbinary, but I do share this truth: the bravest, most honest people I know are the ones who have questioned what they were handed and chosen something truer. Thank you for expanding what courage looks like.

—Mark

Loving someone who lives beyond the binary has taught me how narrow my world once was. You didn’t confuse me, you clarified things. You made life bigger.

—A grateful friend

I used to think “ally” meant having the right words. Now I know it means showing up imperfectly, staying curious, and refusing to look away when things get uncomfortable. I’m here. I’m staying.

The trans and nonbinary people in my life are some of the most emotionally literate humans I know. You’ve had to be. The world demanded it. I hope one day it won’t.

I am cis, but I’ve learned more about freedom from people who refused the binary than from anyone who fit neatly inside it. Thank you for modeling a life that listens inward first.

Watching my child explore gender outside the binary cracked my heart open in the best way. I didn’t lose anything, I gained a fuller understanding of love and a fuller understanding of myself.

—A parent learning

A lesbian mom standing by my trans kid, not because it’s trendy or virtuous, but because a world that makes room for them is a world that’s more livable for everyone.

To anyone reading this who feels like they exist in the in-between: people are learning to meet us there. Hang in there, it will get better.

I am cis and still healing from my own relationship with gender. Watching you live authentically gave me permission to loosen my grip on who I was “supposed” to be.

—Helen

I love you not despite your complexity, but because of it. Find others who do, too.

I’ve learned that gender isn’t fragile, people’s ideas about it are. To my non-binary siblings who are raising trans/non-binary kids: I see you. It can be brutal sometimes but we are making the world a better place.

Some of us are building the future quietly: in classrooms, kitchens, group chats, and living rooms where your name is spoken correctly and without hesitation. You are already safer there.

Beyond the binary doesn’t mean beyond belonging. We belong here. We always have.

At times when the world feels bleak and drained of hope, I think about my chosen queer family and remember that the world is also vibrantly beautiful and generous and deeply kind. In every quiet or bold way that you resist the pressure to conform, in each of the ways that you carve out space for your authenticity to exist, you are also carving out space for all of us to breathe and exist more fully. You are carving out pockets of shelter where we can come together to experience connection, authenticity, and joy. This is a gift. YOU are a gift, and I am so grateful for you.

That’s it for this week’s notes! thanks so much for following along. Work has been especially busy lately, but I’m hoping to be back before the end of the year with a more typical newsletter post.

xx Nyle

And, if you’re on Substack please go ahead and restack your favorites and help these notes make an even bigger impact! It’s been fun watching them make a bit of a splash on the platform.

Without further ado, here are this week’s notes:

From allies/loved ones: Please tell us what you have learned, what you value, or a special memory about a trans person you know or love.

My partner is trans, and loving him has expanded my world in ways I didn’t know were possible. I’m sending that same love outward to you, wherever you are.

Thank you for being brave and sharing your authentic self! I admire your strength in what can be a cruel society. You are perfect just the way you are. I hope you can find joy this season in knowing you are amazing for who you are every day!

—❤️ Christy

Holidays can be whatever you want them to be, you don’t have to follow tradition or what you’ve always done. There’s community out there, embrace your chosen family.

—@suchalotofworldtosee

Your gender is yours. Your body is yours. Your story is yours. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong. Full stop.

My kid came out last year. It’s been terrifying, humbling, and the most wonderful thing I could have imagined to watch my once withdrawn kid start to engage in life again. If your family can’t yet see the beauty in you, borrow my pride in the meantime. Your only job is to be you.

I wish my trans brother and I were closer. I wish he knew that he truly inspired me to change my curriculum and lessons to make my classroom more welcoming for trans kids. I don’t think he had that support in high school, but I try hard to pay it forward on his behalf.

You don’t owe the world an explanation to deserve respect. Your existence is already a gift. I’m so grateful you’re here.

So much love to the queer and trans community. Sign up for trans santa if you’re younger, folks would love to support you during this time of year.

—@suchalotofworldtosee

You have taught me so much about resilience, about being true to yourself and the courage needed for you to do so. I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you’re safe, heard, and that you can be yourself. Love you infinitely.

—@suchalotofworldtosee

To the trans teens: your existence already makes this world better. I’m a teacher, and watching you show up with your humor, curiosity, and honesty makes me a better adult. Please don’t forget how powerful you are.
—Mr. L

From the trans/queer community, Share Your Strength and Wisdom:

Every moment in this transition from what I was expected to be towards who I can be, who I am unashamedly, is a combination of breath in and out, a life, a real life. No one else can do this for us; it is all ours, just as sure as there is rain and sun and sky and stars. We are there too.

—Christine

Do something radically different for the holidays. RADICALLY. Don’t even connect it.

—Christine

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If you feel tired: it’s not because you’re weak. It’s because you’ve been carrying a heavy load. It’s not easy to be us right now. Rest. You deserve so much gentleness.

Holidays are weird. Families are weird. If the people who raised you can’t see you clearly, I hope you know there’s a whole world of people who can and do. You’re not alone.
—Your queer auntie

I LOVE having trans students in my classroom! They show up with an authenticity and courage that few teenagers can match. I’m thinking of one in particular who was so curious and willing to explore ideas in literature. By sharing their ideas in class, they elevated everyone’s thinking, including my own.

Hi You! Yes, You!! I love You. You are so wonderful. I’m so happy you’re here. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for being You. It’s okay if you don’t feel like You right now, or you feel like you can’t be fully You yet. You are still You, and you get to decide what that means. I said it once and I’ll say it again: I love You. You are so wonderful. I’m so happy you’re here.

—Katie

You don’t owe the world a performance. Just be you. Just exist. That is enough.

—Andrew

Beyond the binary with something to say—Share whatever you want to show the love for trans and queer folks:

You are loved. Someone somewhere in the world holds a memory dear and close of you. Maybe it’s your laugh. Maybe it’s a kind word you said. Maybe it’s the outrageous hair color you had. Maybe it’s your tiny newborn fingers clutching theirs or the last hug you shared, tight and sure.

Someone is holding you and wishing you well, wanting nothing for you but joy. They may not have said it, not yet. Maybe they’ll never find the right words. But they feel it, because you touched their life.

You may never know who it is you’ve changed for the better, given hope or given help, but you have done it.

Hold onto that. Keep showing up, and you’ll find your people. You’ll find the place where you belong, because you are loved and worth loving.

To every trans person who survived a year that tried to erase you: I’m proud of you. I’m grateful you’re here. Also: we are fucking baddasses.

The world can feel loud and cruel, but there is also softness waiting for you. people who get it, who love you, who won’t make you smaller to make themselves comfortable. Keep looking for those people. They are out there.

Wishing you all a wonderful start to December.

With Love,

Nyle

As we move into a season that can feel tender for many, I’m thrilled to share the very first batch of Love Notes for the Trans Community. Reading through these has been an absolute delight—sweet, moving, wise, and full of the kind of warmth I wish every trans person had access to every day.

I’m traveling this week and my daughter turns ten (!!), so I’m keeping this one short and sweet. If you’re on the Substack app, help me FLOOD the platform with these beautiful notes by restacking and sharing them. You can highlight your favorite lines (on the app or the website) and hit the restack button. It’s super easy, and it helps these messages reach the people who need them most. And please forward this to your trans family and friends who might need a little extra love this week

I’ll be restacking every single one throughout the week, so feel free to restack my restacks as well. Thanks for helping spread the love!

A quick word on the notes: None of them have been edited. I did shorten one uncommon name to a single initial to avoid potentially outing someone who may not want their identity shared.

Read the first collection of Love Notes here (I’ve included the short prompt from my form with the responses that followed):

From allies/loved ones: Please tell us what you have learned, what you value, or a special memory about a trans person you know or love.

I’m blessed to have a dear friend who is trans. I don’t say that because he’s trans but because he’s kind, generous, brave and has a wicked sense of humor. When we get together, any and all topics are a potential source of laughter and innuendo. Of course we have serious discussions too but the side-splitting moments just stand out to me. My life would be less full and funny if he weren’t a part of it and I’m eternally grateful for his genuine friendship. We should all be so fortunate.

You are not only beautiful, you show a better way of being human. You show a life without borders and boundaries, a life of exploration and love and joy. The holidays are tough. But know you have people who love you, support you, and will never turn our backs on you.

You make the world a brighter and more beautiful place, just by living as the most authentic version of you! So many people, myself included, don’t know you personally, and we love you just as you are. Keep showing up as YOU! ❤️❤️❤️

One of the things I value about having been around the arts all my adult life is that many—if not most—of us value what you can do in the world not by gender identity, but by your contribution to the world around you. Here’s hoping the difficult world we are currently in is only an aberration and that the progress we had been making to accept everyone will return and we can move forward.

Your ability to integrate creativity with intellect allows for solutions to emerge that are wise, inspiring, and beautiful.

Trust that you are loved beyond measure, dear one! Your courage is a blessing onto this world.

And a personal shoutout to Leo! I hope you get your message, Leo:

Hey, Leo, I just want to let you know that you’re so loved! I’m proud to be your big brother, and my husband is proud to be your brother in law!

As a cis lesbian, I love how trans people remind us all of how complex and multidimensional identities are — how they are about social construction and about also about rejecting social constructions and about biology but also not and about the things about ourselves we get to choose and also the things we don’t. It is liberating to know people who so intentionally decide how to live their lives — people for whom that decision is both dangerous and necessary. Even more, I love that my children know and love many trans people, and how for them queerness in all Its myriad incarnations is a very normal part of life. What an incredible example the trans community sets for our children! Our daughters’ ideas about who they can be in this world are infinitely broader than mine were as a young person, and for this I am grateful to our brave trans friends.

—Catherine Powers

This is the time to grow in stillness, shine light into your darker places and welcome the beauty of letting things go.

Trans folks are some of the coolest and most badass people I know. We should all be so lucky as to have trans people in our lives.

A trans woman I’m just getting to know this weekend has the most beautiful and inviting smile. It’s a joy to watch her smile from across the room.

The trans men in my life are the funniest, kindest, most thoughtful men I have ever known. They have also expanded this old feminist’s views on gender and sexuality. My life is so much richer because of them and I am profoundly grateful and honored to call them friends.

Coming to understand their specialness in a world where being ‘different’ should be filled with acceptance and love.

—smallmegapixel

At age 13 my suicidal daughter came out to me as non-binary. 9 months later, they came out to me as male. Today my beautiful son is thriving as a college freshman, happy and whole. As he grew into his full self, a light returned to his eyes, knowing that both his dad and I love him just as he is. He knows the power that love and support gives you, and I am so grateful that he continues to show me who he is. We have never been closer, despite the fact that he is now off at college. We talk and text every week, and have wonderful conversations ranging from who he’s dating to his classes, and how he’s feeling on any given day. He comes to me when things are hard because he knows his mom is a safe person to talk to. He has the relationship with his mom that I never had, and it’s the most amazing thing, for both of us.

If you feel isolated and alone this holiday season, please know that I am thinking of you and sending a big mom hug. You deserve to feel loved, just as you are, today and everyday. May you find peace this holiday, even if it’s simply within yourself.

My trans kid is a kid like any other. He’s creative, caring, and loves to help others. I am so proud of the young man he has become. Remember, you are a person, and you are enough. You don’t need to prove yourself to people who can’t get past their own shortcomings. If someone doesn’t accept you for who you are, you can choose not to interact with them, even if they are family. Surround yourself with love. You deserve it.

God put us all here in his/her likeness so I’ve never understood how supposed Christians can hate anyone. I hope I’ve always been accepting of anyone and that anyone who might meet me sees that. In my 40’s and 50’s I worked with a wonderful man, who along with his male partner, are raising four children whom they’ve adopted. When I see them together all I see is love🫶🏻. They are just like any family on any street in any community who have the same trials and concerns as you and me.

Today, at 69, I share my stories of acceptance with my grandchildren in hopes they will always care for anyone.

The world is not here for you to explain how you see yourself. Just be you.

—smallmegapixel

They have so much tenderness in their hearts even after they have been hurt. They seem to be able to see others clearly, they have the ability to see thru the meanness and see the heart in someone.

You matter! You are loved! You are accepted for exactly the way you are! Thank you for showing up!

I’m a cis male, and was living far from home in my 20s. One night, very late while she slept in the next room, I discovered that my girlfriend of a few months, who lived with me, had been lying about almost everything in her life to me, including faking a cancer diagnosis, and was also a drug addict. I was freaked out that she could get violent, but I knew I had to confront her that night and kick her out. The best person I could think of in that moment who I knew would show up for me was my trans friend from work. I called him at a truly ridiculous hour, and he came over immediately. He was a very calm but forceful presence to back me up in a scary moment. He was the best person for that moment because I knew him as someone highly principled and unafraid of confronting volatile or dangerous people. The kind of person who will step in if he sees something wrong, without hesitation. He’s still one of my best friends, and I’m still in awe of his integrity and fearlessness — examples of which I see every time we talk or see each other.

Once upon a time, I had a friend who listened to my small panics when I got involved with a woman for the first time. Later, my friend shared their struggle as they tried to figure out where they felt most comfortable on the spectrum of gender. And in the years after that, when geography separated us, we connected again by email and my friend listened, and offered good advice when teens in my life shared similar struggles. Because of my friend, I can talk to my other friends and other parents about the importance of showing their unconditional love for their children. Because of my friend, I try to model the respect and understanding and acceptance that others might not know how to show. I’ve seen the ripples of positivity and I know some of them started because of my friend.

My coworker C, is one of the most quietly, dryly funny people I’ve ever had the pleasure to work alongside. I value his presence every time we’re working the retail trenches because I know he’ll get my sarcastic asides — and I’ll be there to appreciate his remarks that the guests will never hear too. Thanks, C, for your presence in my life.

My trans and queer friends have brought so much joy, vibrance, curiosity, and love into my life. They are the coolest fucking humans. I am grateful for them every day.

I admire your strength to be YOU! If someone doesn’t appreciate your strength and perseverance to be yourself, then they don’t get to be part of your amazing life. They are the ones that miss out, not you. This is my favorite quote that has gotten me through my darkest days, “Every day may not be good, but there is something good in every day.” ~Alice Morse Earle

I am incredibly grateful to my trans and queer friends for exposing me to different viewpoints and experiences, expanding my horizon and - frankly - pushing me to become a better person. I am honored to have been chosen as somebody you are comfortable sharing parts of your journey with, your trust means a lot!

When someone opens up to you about being trans, it is potentially one of the scariest, most honest and vulnerable moments of their lives, and they are trusting you for support, or at least hoping for your acceptance.

It is a gift. Act accordingly.

—@zacharydillon

My trans kid is the most remarkable human I know. brilliant, compassionate, wildly creative, and steady in herself in a way most adults never reach. If your family has rejected you, let me say this clearly: you were never the problem. Keep shining.

Your light is powerful, and this world needs it more than ever.

—A very lucky dad

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From the trans/queer community, Share Your Strength and Wisdom:

My partner and I are blessed to have found a small community of trans and nonbinary folks in our city, and we throw a modest holiday party/potluck for ourselves. We bring our own music and my favorite part of the party is one where we sit around a candlelit room telling stories about ourselves. Every year that we do this, I am reminded of how blessed I am to have found my true family, and to be able to share myself and this space with others.

—Emilia

This is a difficult season in a difficult time. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, that’s because it’s overwhelming. If things feel difficult, that’s because they are. Your feelings are valid and real. Your grief, your loss, your joy, your indifference, your anger: Those matter because you matter: You are worthy of love and care. You are worthy of respect and kindness. You are loved. We’ve got you. ❤️

Do not accept the norm and do what you need to do to make it through.

—smallmegapixel

Trans people have superpowers. We are the ultimate seers. We exist outside, between, and beyond other realities. We are the truth-tellers this world relies on.

We carry the light, and we know the path forward.

Don’t let them dim your light. The world needs your defiance, your clarity, and your vision now, more than ever.

I have come to realise that christmas/festive time needs to work for me not the other way around. I choose the bits that work for me - presents, chocolate, xmas movies, friends. Then remove that parts that don’t - time with birth family, xmas dinner, religion. I make the time meet my needs, I curate my holiday season based on what works for me only.

—Phoenixjournals

More love for my trans siblings...your refusal to erase your own existence is a blessing for all of us. I am sending virtual tinsel, cookies, and fa-la-la-la-las.

—A cis fairy

I love being Trans, as it is the true me, no more pretending to fit into ‘your’ world. I found my community that I feel loved by, and supported. You are loved for your courage and honesty, and for being your authentic self. Happy Holidays to all of you, no matter how you identify. The world could always use a little more Love!

—Heather Mackenzie Love

The arc of your transition is something longer than the dark days that appear with frequency at this time of year for so many of us. Trust that you carry something precious forward, a very unique human soul; and, the Sacred knows your name.

Inside each of us is a hope that we can live and love as our true selves, and be loved in turn. Despite all that’s happened here in the US or abroad, if we listen when the loud voices in our heads have calmed, we hear a faint whisper that urges us to seek out others. To look for ways to get ourselves out there even if it means risking so much of ourselves and exposing us to cruelty, discrimination, and injustice. And I think that is an unspoken part of transness that is so powerful. Despite the hate that keeps on tearing into our community and into us, it never erased our humanity and our desire to share ourselves with those who will have us and love us. That part of us never stopped fighting. So please give that part of you a chance.

—Emilia Wang

Would I have chosen to be trans? Hell no. I wanted nothing more than to blend in. To be normal. But would I choose it now? Hell yes. I have learned so much, experienced so much. What a bizarre and wonderful life: to exist on both sides of and outside of the binary altogether.

People get hung up on what’s in our pants and who we sleep with. That’s the least interesting thing about being trans. Go on and enjoy this beautiful and wondrous ride. Hang in there. Trans people will outlast this hateful administration.

Don’t forget to take your hormones! May seem like a silly “Love Note,” but I know when I get stressed, I often forget. And forgetting repeatedly makes me feel exhausted and unable to do even the most basic tasks. Create a buddy system, set an alarm—do what you need to do to keep your body healthy! The world needs you, healthy and whole!

I absolutely love being trans. I see it as a wondrous gift. For the obvious reason that I no longer have to live in denial about who I am. But perhaps even more than that, it has opened my eyes to see the world as it actually is. For sure some of it is really ugly. But I also see the beauty. One can’t truly see the light unless one sees the dark.

And, living authentically is such an amazing gift. When I tell someone I love them, it comes from my heart. It is not performative.

—@translisa

Being queer is about being creative and unabashedly authentic. For those reading who have not been affirmed, please know I see you! Please know I think you are beautiful exactly as you are! Please know that none of us is that different, that there are many who share your experience. You are loved!!!

—a cis fairy

I am worthy, as I have chosen a much harder path in life, all in the name of honesty and authenticity. These words come up on my phone 3x a day. They remind me of how strong I’ve had to be, first to wear a mask for 57 years, then even more courageous to come out as Transgender, and share that joy daily with the world, not caring if I ever pass for others, as I pass for myself for the first time in my life. Find your community. Share your love with them. I am Heather Mackenzie Love, and there is only one of me, and I am proud to be her.

—Heather Mackenzie Love

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Beyond the binary with something to say—Share whatever you want to show the love for trans and queer folks:

I don’t interact with many people outside family, so I don’t have any close relationship with any trans people. But I do live in a neighborhood where queer ways of life are absolutely normal so many of my neighbors, people in stores, people you chat with in the street and so on are trans or otherwise non-binary.
I just want to say based on this experience of living in such a district (known popularly as the ‘Gay-xample’ of Barcelona) that another world really IS possible where tolerance and mutual respect are not a daily grind and struggle to survive but the unproblematic day-to-day reality.
So have hope, if you’re feeling oppressed, repressed or depressed. This is a possible future, YOUR future, and it can really come to pass where you live too.

—A.P. Murphy

Holidays suck for me. Do your best to spend with chosen family, friends, community. Or bio family if that is an option. If none of that is possible, go out into nature. Take yourself out for a nice dinner. Watch a good queer Christmas movie. Do something fun.

—@translisa

Most of my close friends happen to be trans, and these friendships are all blessings on my life. The trans women in my life literally went out of their way to offer me kindness and compassion as a struggling young adult, offering me both the safety of community and a little home to run to when the rest of my life became dangerous and painful. Without my best friend, we both wouldn’t have our delightful children to raise and grow and fight for a better world for. Without my friends my whole life, my whole family wouldn’t be what it is today. I don’t know who I am myself yet, but I am surrounded by the empathy and joy of people who know themselves so truly and offer their support to so many others in our communities, and I am endlessly grateful to have them in my life. The world is a better place with all of us here spreading love and support, and it’s a better place with you too, the delightful person reading this note and looking for their own support to 💕

Being a nonbinary trans man (we are all multitudes, right?) is maybe one of the hardest things I have ever done. It requires me to show up as myself even when I’m not completely in love with who I am or where I am going, to believe that my softest, innermost parts are worth wearing proudly and loudly, and to tune out a world that is hostile and unkind. But it has also been the most rewarding way of living. I’ve found community and friendship and love in surprising places, in kind words and inclusive forms of creativity, and I would not trade my truth for anything. I am also the father of a trans kid, an amazing, funny, sweet child who shows me day by day just how sacred we—trans people—are when we are given the love and light we deserve. If I could give that gift to every trans person, I would. I would tell you that I cherish you, that you make my heart beat wildly, that you fill me with hope, and that my life is forever changed by being a part of you.

—Robin Taylor, aka

I am nonbinary with 8% binary contained. I live within and without the binary. Having Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner with my family is rough. I am constantly deadnamed and misgendered. I should bring an airhorn lol. My partner, bless her, always corrects everyone. We limit family time to 2-3 hours. It is for the best. For my sanity. For my wife’s sanity.

—OnyxRose

More Love Notes coming soon. Thank you for helping me fill this space with love, support and care.

With love,
Nyle

If you haven’t sent one in yet, you can add your own Love Note here. If you have sent one in—send another!

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I planned to wrap up the series a while ago, but life had other plans. Politics escalated, Charlie Kirk died, the administration threw more chaos into the air, and my plans got thrown off course by things that needed more immediate attention. The past year has taught me that life moves on its own timeline, and despite my best attempts, some things can’t be rushed.

But this week, as Transgender Awareness Week and Transgender Day of Remembrance wrap up and we approach the holiday season, it finally feels like the right moment to close the loop. This story was never just about a freak accident. It became a story about the body I live in, the future I’d been afraid to imagine, and the home I’ve finally decided to claim.

A year after the accident, I decided to return.

July 31st was the one-year mark. While a few friends, including Arden from part 2 of my story, had offered to join me to redo the hike, it didn’t align. And so, I set out to do it alone. I planned for a day off of work, something that has been rare for me to do outside of planned travel. However, the forecast that day threatened afternoon hail, and I didn’t need to tempt fate twice, so I postponed until Sunday.

When I pulled into the parking lot, the intensity hit me quickly:
“And this is the mountain that nearly took your life” thundered in my head.
It startled me. That had never been my internal narrative or the way I’d relayed the story to others.

I’d moved through the last year focused mostly on function: rehab, pain, pacing, mobility, recovery. While I’d sat with the fragility of the body I inhabit, and the gratitude that I have a functional body, I hadn’t truly sat with the proximity to death I came so close to, or the simple fact that I am still here.

The first mile cracked me open and tears welled up. Despite how much I advocate for feeling feelings, I felt relieved to be alone. To just let it out without needing to explain myself. Landmarks from that last leg of the rescue triggered memories of relief at being closer to safety. I had an intense, full-body flashback, that jerked my whole body to the left while I hiked up the trail, as my brain recalled the moment of impact on my right foot. My gratitude for the strangers who carried me down that mountain still feels bottomless. It was a difficult hike on my own two feet. Imagining carrying another human down it is something else entirely.

The miles afterward were steadier. I continued steadily towards my destination until something seemed off. The first lake I’d reached didn’t look how I’d remembered. After talking to several hikers, I finally met someone who actually knew the trails, and it became clear I was nowhere near where I meant to be.

When all was said and done, I hiked eleven miles to the wrong lakes!

Initially I felt disappointed and upset, but a year prior, I couldn’t walk 20 feet to my bathroom without pain. Now my body carried me eleven miles by accident.

I laughed so hard on the drive home: alive, exuberant, humiliated, grateful. And assured that I could do the 6+ mile hike I was trying to do.

Determined to go back, I rearranged my Wednesday clients (truly a thing I never do) so I could finish my hike. This mountain and I still had business with each other.

At the real lake, I walked the shoreline quietly, revisiting the exact spots from that day. Taking photos. Feeling the depth of what happened and didn’t happen. And I said thank you. To the mountain. To my body. To the rescuers. To my friend Alex, and his mom. To whatever forces kept me alive.

Recovery changes the body, but it also changes the future.

After the accident, I spent months recovering, mostly alone or with the company of my then 8-year old. And you might recall, during my second week of recovery, isolated as I’d ever been, I somehow managed to contract covid for the first and only time (ok, not really a mystery—it must have been an Uber driver or someone at the doctor’s office, but talk about getting kicked while you’re already down!). Further isolated, I was also dealing with a lapsed insurance policy, a very painful foot, and cabin fever.

Turns out, when you’re alone long enough, you meet the feelings you’ve spent years avoiding. Or you stare at a screen. But after decades of avoiding my emotions, and a few short years of learning how to feel them, I knew I had no choice anymore.

Many trans people learn to disconnect from their bodies to survive. We think our feelings. We abandon our bodies and exist from the neck up, sometimes for decades.

Many of us also struggle to imagine futures for ourselves. I hear regularly from my trans clients “I never thought I’d make it this long and I don’t know how to picture what comes next.” I’ve never been actively suicidal, but I’ve felt that too. I couldn’t imagine growing old. I couldn’t imagine much of anything far into the future. My early thirties were the first time I had the “well, shit, here I am. Now what?” moment.

I hadn’t fully realized how much of that focus had been based on external pressures I’d put on myself to conform to societal ideals of success. If I couldn’t be cisgender or straight, at least I could build a successful career, find a stable relationship, and make sure I was generally well-liked and respected. I’d show the world just how worthy I was, even if I didn’t believe it myself yet.

Chronic pain cracked that open for me. It forced me to learn how to feel everything I’d kept repressed for decades. It was one of the most grueling and liberating experiences I’ve had. And I’m still learning, still healing.

When I ended an eight-year therapeutic relationship with the therapist who helped me feel safe for the first time, she asked, “What about that other set of issues we never got to?” I told her honestly: “I know they’re still there but I just can’t access them.”

Slowing down changed that. Stillness changed that. I started healing not just my foot and leg, but my relationship with my body. I started listening to it. Valuing it. The aloneness allowing me to feel things I’d never been able to touch before.

When my physical therapist told me it could take up to a full year for my foot and leg to recover, I said “hell no, I will do everything I can to speed that up,” and I returned to swimming, for the first time since childhood, to strengthen and care for my body while other exercise was still out of the question.

Swimming has brought me an unexpected calm, despite the whole locker room whilst-trans experience. The cool water feels soothing on my body. I still remember the first time I took my shirt off to swim in a lake after chest surgery. If I had been able to cry back then, I surely would have.

A few weeks ago, standing in my garden imagining next year’s bounty, I realized I still rarely picture myself in the future. This year especially, there were moments early on when I genuinely feared I might have to leave the country. Leave my daughter.

In that uncertainty, I didn’t know whether to keep investing in my home, my yard, my life. But then something shifted recently:

I decided to stay. To make a conscious choice to stay. In my house. In my town. In my life.

For the first time in my adult life, I’m putting down roots intentionally, based on what I want.

I’m making my home feel like my home, our home, my daughter and me. Rather than planning to someday buy a bigger house, or worrying that someday a partner may cause us to outgrow this one. There is something quite literally grounding in that: planning how I will continue to cultivate and care for this small patch of land that I call my yard. How this land, with the medicines, fruits, and vegetables we are growing, will care for our family and give us enough to share with others. I’m imagining years instead of months. I’m letting myself dream about shared land, community, belonging and a future that includes me.

It is new territory. And it feels like freedom. To stop waiting for the next disruption and to claim this life that I have.

Trans Awareness Week, and claiming my own life

Trans Awareness Week, leading into Transgender Day of Remembrance, hits differently this year. Maybe because the anti-trans rhetoric is constant. Maybe because so many of us can’t imagine a future here and some of us are leaving. Maybe because last year reminded me that my body isn’t disposable. Maybe because choosing to stay, choosing to root, feels like devotion and defiance.

Trans people are taught to see ourselves as temporary. That our lives are unstable. Disposable. That planning ahead is a luxury we might not get.

We’re taught that our desires and our realities are unattainable and false. It’s hard to imagine a future when you’re told you’re not allowed to exist.

After moving more than 30 times before finally settling into this home four years ago, I spent years in a posture of non-attachment. Always ready to leave, always bracing for the next disruption, never fully settling in. Moving around taught me not to plant myself anywhere. And I learned to travel light.

But this year, something shifted:

I want my future. Here. Not the one someone else might allow me, but the one I choose.
I want my life, and I’m choosing things every day that make me want to stay alive inside it.
I want to remain in this body—this trans body—that carried me eleven miles even on the “wrong” trail.

This imperfectly beautiful body that lets me put literal roots into the small patch of earth behind the small house I get to call my own.

And the audacity of wanting—that might be the most trans thing I’ve ever done.

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Continuing the work

As I retrain my leg to move differently, I’m also retraining my nervous system, my patterns, my survival strategies. I’m learning to live guided not by urgency or fear, but by presence. That’s been one of the deepest lessons of healing from chronic pain, and one that keeps echoing.

And I’m making mistakes—maybe even a lot of them. But I’m finally figuring out what kind of life I want to create for myself and for my daughter. Not in the abstract “what if” space I’ve lived in for so long, but in the grounded question: What are we building, and how do we build it together?

I’m learning that coming home isn’t just walking through the front door. It’s a practice—physical, emotional, political, spiritual.

Coming down the mountain was part of it. Rooting into my house is part of it.

Deciding not to leave this country is part of it.
Letting myself imagine a future is part of it.
Choosing to stay ties it together.

I’m here.
In this body.
In this home.
In this moment.
Claiming my life.

As we honor and mourn the known transgender lives lost this year, let’s also commit, fiercely, to a world where every trans person not only survives, but gets the chance to stay, to root, and to grow old.

Thank you for being here. Your support means the world to me.

If you missed my last email, the Trans Love Notes project goes through the holiday season. Let’s push back against the noise and show our trans loved ones some care. You can fill out a very short form here. Thanks so much for spreading the love!

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Building a better world starts small. And one of the most powerful places we can begin is in how we show up for each other, right now. Similar to my father’s day-turned parenting series in June (but this time more planned) I am asking for submissions from you, dear reader, someone who cares enough about at least one trans person to be reading my newsletter.

I need your help in showing support to our trans and queer friends and family during what can be an especially tough time of year: the holidays.

Regardless of identity, the holidays can be hard. The sad reality is that trans and queer people are rejected by family and friends at disproportionately high rates. And even for those who do have family to go home to, navigating old identities, hostile environments, or relentless political talk can make the season feel isolating or painful.

But I don’t want to paint only doom and gloom. Plenty of us have loving, supportive families. Lots of people show up for and love trans folks wholeheartedly.

So, let’s show that love publicly. Show the world how much the trans folks in your life mean to you.

How You Can Participate: Send a “Love Note”

I’m collecting submissions from everyone—trans folks, queer allies, cis family members, friends—to create a weekly series of anonymous (or not!) “Love Notes” that will run throughout the holiday season, starting the week of Thanksgiving.

Help your trans friends and family know how valued they are. Help show the world exactly how beautiful the world is when trans folks are in it.

For Friends, Family, and Allies

If you have a trans person in your life—someone you love, work with, or share community with—tell us about the positive impact they’ve had on you.

It can be as short as one sentence or longer and more reflective. You might share:

• What you’ve learned or gained by having a trans person in your life

• What you value most about your trans loved ones or friends

• A special memory or moment that highlights their strength, authenticity, or magic

• Something funny a trans person has said (let’s be honest: when you’ve lived life on both sides and outside of the binary, things get funny)

For Trans and Queer Folks

If you’re trans, queer, or nonbinary, this is a space for you to share what helps you get through and even thrive during this season. Our collective wisdom matters. I recently read something that said “every trans person is probably responsible for saving at least one other trans person.” Maybe your words will be the ones that help someone hang on.

You might tell us:

• What you love or value about your own trans experience

• Coping strategies or traditions that have helped you through difficult holidays

• A word of encouragement for someone who feels isolated right now

Submissions Are Anonymous

All submissions are anonymous by default. You won’t be asked for your email. If you do want to be credited, there’s an optional field to include your name or handle. And if you have something longer than the form allows, message me and we can make space for it.

The goal is simple: an outpouring of love and support for our trans community during a season when it’s most needed, during a year when it’s most needed.

To Submit Your Note

Click the button below to open the simple submission form. It takes less than two minutes and can mean more than you know.

Submit Here

Thank you for sharing your words of love and support. I can’t wait to share these messages with the community.

And please, spread the word and let’s get as many responses as possible!

With peace and love,
Nyle

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Recently, someone I’d just met asked me, “How long have you identified as male?”

I found it off-putting. Both because it’s a bold ask, without first establishing safety. But also, the phrase “identify as” has never sat well for me. It suggests choice or performance, like being trans is a role I’ve decided to play.

In fact, the therapist I was required to see to get my letter for testosterone once greeted me, eight months into my transition, with: “Wow! You’re really convincing now!” I hadn’t seen her in months. I never went back.

For people like me, who grew up without even knowing transness existed, we didn’t “identify” as anything. We simply recognized ourselves when we finally had the language and freedom to do so. And many of us felt off until we finally found the language and found our people. Or at least I sure did. There was something that was never quite right but I didn’t quite understand it, much less know how to explain to others.

But what if the goal wasn’t to make trans people cis?

I come back to this regularly: what if the point isn’t to blend in, to become palatable, or to earn our place by looking and acting like cis people? To be clear: I’m not saying it’s bad for people to want or to choose that. I do it myself, mostly by luck of the draw and a preference for muted clothing. It’s just not something I think we should have to strive for to be seen as valid

What if instead, we just… let everyone be?

We’re asking the wrong questions. “Are trans men and women real men and women?” Yes. But we are not cis men and women, and that’s okay. We have different bodies, brains, and life experiences. Those differences don’t make us less real or valid. They makes us human.

The irony is, we’ve spent years trying to fit into systems that were never made for us. We do what we’re told: transition, assimilate, blend in; and then we’re punished for it. But when we show up as ourselves, unapologetically and visibly trans, we’re punished for that, too.

So which is it? What do you want from us? Where do turn?

Let’s be honest: it’s not really about gender confusion, it’s about xenophobia. A fear of those who are different. Society doesn’t want us to be different, but it also doesn’t want us to be like them. There’s no space for us inside that double bind.

(Excuse me while I nerd-out on my systems theory degree for a moment.)

When I look at this societal pressure—the cruel bind of being forced to assimilate while simultaneously being punished for not being cis—it shows up everywhere. When trans women are criticized for being “too masculine” but called deceptive when they pass too well. When nonbinary people are told to “just be themselves,” but are then pressured to pick a side.

The way out isn’t to choose one of the bad options, it’s to reject the premise entirely.

It means naming the contradiction out loud (“We’re punished for trying to blend in, and we’re punished for being visible”) and then changing the rules of the game.

Instead of fighting for validation inside a cis-centric system, we need to remove our energy from that flawed framework.

Once again, we do what queer and trans people have always done: we define our worth by building our own systems. We make new rules. We carve out spaces where we can exist fully. Where difference isn’t something to fix, but something to celebrate.

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Imagine a world where everyone just gets to be.

When I picture that world, it’s not complicated. People are kind. They respect each other. They’re working together to build something that includes everyone: a world rooted in collaboration instead of competition.

In that world, trying on an identity and realizing it’s not quite right isn’t catastrophic, it’s just part of being human. There’s room to explore, to shift, to become. There’s room for making mistakes and trying again.

We say we don’t want kids to transition, but we’ve built a world so rigid that it can feel like the only way to survive. Kids get bullied while grownups pretend not to notice. The message is: try harder to be like us but not in that way. Life outside the binary has been made unbearable for so many, with transition feeling like the only viable option for some.

And the truth is that the children are the ones who get it. Before the harshness of the world robs them of their openness and curiosity, they understand intuitively. It’s the adults who can’t handle the idea that the rules they were handed might not be real.

Before I transitioned, I worked as a special ed assistant at an elementary school for four years. I looked like a 15 year old boy but I was required to go by Ms. Biondi (I asked if I could go by my birth-given name of Nyle and the answer was no. I suspect it would have been yes if my name had been more obviously female. Regardless, I went by Ms. Biondi).

One day, I was helping a kindergartner who had a disability get ready to go out for recess. Her friend, like many of the kids at the school (and some parents and staff), asked if I was a boy or a girl. I answered, as was appropriate for my job, that I was a girl. The kid I was helping said “it’s ok, she was just born this way,” explaining it to the kid in the same way she understood her own difference. And she was right. And it was just that simple.

The problem is that the truth is often irrelevant to the system. They say they don’t want us to transition. They’re fighting to take away our access to gender-affirming care and even the basic right to documentation that reflects who we are. But they also don’t want us to be the people we were before transition.

When I looked like a young boy but was called “Ms. Biondi,” I wasn’t exactly the kind of woman who might get invited to the administration’s dinner parties. I didn’t fit neatly anywhere as a woman or as a man, and that’s exactly the problem. There is no version of us that they find acceptable. We’re too much of one thing, not enough of another. Always wrong in some direction.

That’s what this moment in politics is really about. It’s not about “protecting children” or “defending women’s spaces.” It’s about policing difference. It’s about enforcing conformity so tightly that anyone who lives outside the narrow lines cannot survive.

What if survival didn’t have to mean erasure?
What if we created a world where everyone could just exist. To be their full selves without apology, without performance, without fear?

That’s the world I want to live in.
At risk of being perceived as overly idealistic: I still believe we can build it.

What if instead of judging people by how well they conform, we started honoring authenticity as the truest form of beauty? What if the goal wasn’t to pass, but just to be. Fully, freely, and without shame.

For cis folks, maybe that starts with just letting your weird hang out a little more, and not worrying so much about other people’s weirds. As long as we’re kind and respectful, maybe we can all worry a little less about whether Debbie’s sweater is last season.

I want to live in a world where no one has to choose between survival and being themselves. Where difference isn’t a threat, but a kind of magic that makes our communities stronger and more interesting.

And maybe that world starts small, with how we show up for each other right now. The next time you meet someone who seems strange or unfamiliar, try leading with curiosity instead of certainty. Start by asking yourself: What is it about this person that’s making me uncomfortable? Are they actually a threat, or just different? And if you engage, ask questions that invite connection, not definition. Practice letting people show you who they are, rather than deciding for them.

That’s one way we start building the world where everyone gets to be. I’d love to hear your thoughts on other small ways we can keep creating a better world, despite what the administration is up to. And I hope you’re all finding ways to sustain yourselves during these challenging times.

Thanks for following along. The world we want to build—the one rooted in kindness and collaboration—starts with love. Later this week, I’ll be sharing a specific Call To Action for the holidays. The season can be especially hard for trans and queer people, and I’m calling on you to help flood our community with support. Start thinking about this now: What have you learned or gained from having a trans person in your life? What do you value most about your trans loved ones? Give those questions some thought, and get ready to send in your submissions. I’ll be posting these weekly “love notes” throughout the holiday season, starting the week of Thanksgiving.

Nyle

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So, let’s start with the obvious: the blue wave in the election.
For folks like me (trans, queer, single dad, self-employed), this feels like an extra big relief. But it’s not just the “blue wave” that feels meaningful—it’s what’s behind it. I’m thinking of Zohran Mamdani’s win in NYC after publicly campaigning on his support for transgender people, and of the numerous democratic victories in places where anti-trans rhetoric dominated the campaigns.

People are beginning to say, out loud, that they support us.

People are beginning to let politicians know they want a better way. And they’re demanding it.

And they are proving the rhetoric wrong, that public support of trans people costs us elections.

But maybe the best part of all is this: we’re finding our own better ways.

I’ve been reflecting on something my former college classmate, Garrett Bucks, wrote in his newsletter about the administration’s fatal mistake—giving us something to do, and about not believing in silver linings when human beings are under attack. So, maybe not a silver lining, but a result of a shitty situation: I’ve seen so much community organizing lately. Friends setting up food pantries in their driveways, neighbors trading childcare and soup and support. We’re figuring it out together, one can of soup at a time.

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I named this newsletter Queer Resilience, but I haven’t talked directly about what that really means.
It means these times.
It means making our own rules, finding our own ways to be, taking care of each other. It means realizing the rules were never meant for us in the first place. It means keeping our heads up to face what’s coming while also coming together to create new ways of being.

When we’re depressed or overwhelmed, it’s easy to forget that people care about us. The world shrinks. It feels like we’re alone in it. But when we zoom out, even just a little, we can remember what Mr. Rogers taught us: to look for the helpers. That we will always find people who are helping.

On a personal level, I’ve been reminded of that lately. Since I shared that I was struggling, several people have reached out to check in. And I am doing well. Things are falling into place, financially and otherwise, and I’ve had a little more room to breathe. Spending more time in nature and less time with the news has been a big help.

This summer, my daughter and I grew medicinal plants. We have been making salves and are starting an Etsy shop. It’s been a blast dreaming up names, designing labels, and assigning roles to ourselves, and our cats, in the business. We’re building community, creating resilience, and adapting to what life is offering right now.

That’s what resilience is—it’s not bouncing back to what was, but changing and growing with what is.

So yes, the elections matter. Yes, policy and representation matter. But what gives me real hope is how we’re showing up for one another. How we’re remembering what we’re capable of when systems fail us.

We may not save everyone. We may not fix everything.
But we can do better than what’s being offered.
And we can do better by each other.