The day after, my mom asked to call me on the phone to check if I was alright. My dad texted to reassure me that checks and balances were in place, that this isn’t the end of things. When I visited a friend in Kansas, he was shocked to learn that I hadn’t gotten my passport yet, in case I needed to flee. I had already moved once from Kansas to New Mexico, seeking respite, shelter.

I’ve spent a lot of time the last few months sighing—every newsletter, every press release, every time the same rhetoric is regurgitated again, again, ceaselessly, I’m tired of answering why I chose to transexualize and what I thought of what that comedian said or why do you think that politician wants to ruin your life, explaining myself to sanctimonious psychiatrists, endocrinologists, glassy-eyed politicians, my well-meaning parents, my peers, and none of them being satisfied with my responses, always asking one more time, why do you live the way you live? Why shouldn’t I stop you?

Living as trans has come to mean constant overexposure. I’ve watched public debates about my sexual habits, my malicious intentions, my mental illness, my supposedly failing competency. I miss those privileged, heady days where coming out was something you did, not something that was done to you. I hate being the only one who’s asked to share their pronouns, and then having to console the poor, sorry cis person who got it wrong anyway. I can’t sit through another lecture from a weepy cis person about how hard it must be. I’m tired of being stared at in grocery stores, not because I’m just an oddity, but now because everyone knows what you are. I’m sick of the anxious nausea of using a public bathroom, of keeping my eyes stuck to the gritty tiled floor, begging to be ignored. I’m tired of going cold-turkey off of HRT because my insurance can’t decide whether I’m a real transexual or not, if I really deserve it. I’m tired of the violence. I’m tired of the shame.

I’m not moving again. I won’t leave everyone I love again. I have to learn to stop chasing after safety. I have to learn that safety is something you build. I will not let this tear me apart.