L. Brinks
L. Brinks stands in front of their personal gallery wall, whichthey have designed to celebrate trans people and artists.
As a child of the Midwest, summer was always my favorite time to exist outdoors—when the grass was green and the air was hot, just before the late summer humidity made it too thick to breathe. Growing up, I did not have the vocabulary to describe how I felt about my gender. I knew I struggled to connect with many other girls my age and felt safest in striped T-shirts and cutoff jeans. I did not know any genderqueer adults or that gender diversity existed. I struggled to feel a sense of belonging and carried a lot of fear and anxiety about my body and how I was perceived.
I often tried to hide my body under baggier shirts and sweatshirts. All this effort and anxiety was because I did not want to give people a reason to see me as a girl. I daydreamed about becoming a question mark, something liminal and undefined in existence—just myself. I was dreaming about being genderqueer, but I had no one to share this with.
I grew up kissing frogs and catching turtles by ponds, but never expected them to transform magically into a prince or princess. Instead, I always dreamed of being transformed into the prince, or being the husband when playing house. I was afraid of the changes happening to my body—puberty terrified me. But because I had no one to explain gender dysphoria, I had yet to understand why it bothered me. In particular, no adults in my life talked to me about gender and feelings, and I was left to figure out many things on my own, unsuccessfully.
How can I explain that growing up in a body, and being assigned a gender you have no say in, is like being admitted to a carnival fun house of mirrors with no exit? As a child, it is horrifying to watch your body bend and curve in ways you prayed it never would, all the time wishing you could escape that body.
L. Brinks
L. Brinks (left) with their sibling in Pardeeville, Wisconsin, in 2008.
It is impossible to feel safe and comfortable when the people around you continuously celebrate the very changes you detest the most about yourself. Being a genderqueer child can be a lonely existence—and that loneliness kills. The Trevor Project, a crisis intervention and suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ+ youth, estimates that every forty-five seconds, a queer child between the ages of thirteen and twenty-four attempts suicide in the United States. What cisgender people take for granted is how transphobia is built into our society, and how genderqueer children are born, and grow up every day, wondering why they do not fit in or what is wrong with them.
This is why conservative groups fight hard to “protect” children from queerness. They fear and fight what they are choosing not to understand. The reality that they do not control their child, who may grow up to be different from them, and go on to have a different life experience than anticipated, is enough for many religious adults to commit egregious acts of harm against LGBTQ+ children. Transgender children, like Kayden Asher, have had to stand up for themselves in court, in rooms full of legal adults, proclaiming why they deserve sanctuary and protection like any other child.
I know society is transphobic because trans kids do not get to experiment with their gender presentation, or even ask questions about identity, without being thrown into the deep end. They are often expected to know all the answers before they have begun their journey. It can be challenging to find joy in just existing when so many seek to out and dissect transgender individuals for all to see—as if gender is something meant to be exposed and cut down publicly.
This is why transgender politicians aim to keep children with gender dysphoria and trans kids alive—because they know what it takes to live and reach adulthood, and how much help trans kids need. This is why I choose radical joy and acceptance when I celebrate my transgender body and the experiences I have lived through. Creating my own haven of acceptance and love has been a challenging, yet necessary, journey, ultimately for the sake of my inherently queer childhood and for other trans kids growing up today.
An essential part of celebrating my gender and trans body is keeping it safe and protected. After top surgery, my gender affirmation procedure, I slowly began sharing my results with many people. I celebrated as my scars healed, my chest came together, and stretch marks developed, exclusively with the people with whom I felt the safest. We celebrated my recovery and return to health.
I choose joy and transparency about my gender and body because I never want another genderqueer child to feel alone.
My bodily neutrality, and acceptance that my chest is now flat and I have a uterus, while simultaneously allowing none of these things to define me, has affirmed my gender in many ways. I celebrate these parts of me with equal gratitude and acceptance. Having access to gender-affirming procedures and reproductive rights is just as crucial in celebrating my gender and identity as a trans person.
We know that acts of rest are inherently radical in a society committed to the grind and hustle under capitalism. Choosing joy and radical acceptance of my body and gender in a transphobic and cis-heteronormative culture is my gift of radical kindness and acceptance of self to my transgender family.
In celebrating my body, I am finding clothes that bring me joy, like buying my first swimsuit in seven years. This self-work normalizes how wonderful and comfortable I am in my body, which means more shirtless selfies, sleeping naked, and framing trans bodies as artwork in my home. What comes naturally to me now—speaking openly about my gender affirmation surgery and being grateful for my scars and “lack of boobage”—took effort to arrive at, and used to make me incredibly anxious. These feelings are a direct result of a society that often frames being transgender as a mental illness and something to be cured.
The radical acceptance from the transgender community allowed me to settle into my gender at my own pace, with no pressure to be, or not be, anything but myself. Letting “top surgery” flow off my tongue over coffee, while out shopping, or standing in line at the grocery store has done more for my journey to acceptance and pride in myself than I could have ever anticipated. That openness of self comes easier now because I remember what it was like to be young and scared. I choose joy and transparency about my gender and body because I never want another genderqueer child to feel alone.
In the wake of intolerance and prejudice against transgender bodies and queer people, choosing to celebrate my transgender body and the journey we’ve been on together thus far is a radical act of self-love for myself and my community. No amount of transphobic legislation or rulings by conservative Supreme Court Justices can take that joy, and the right to that joy, away from me.