When silence suffocates and visibility endangers, where do we go to just exist?
The idea that being transgender is some kind of casual lifestyle choice — like picking a new pair of jeans — is a masterclass in ignorance. It’s usually floated by people who’ve never had to spend even five minutes questioning their identity or fearing for their safety over it. For most of us trans folk, the journey doesn’t begin with a triumphant flag-waving declaration. It starts with quiet, gut-wrenching realisations, often after years of internalised transphobia drip-fed by a society more invested in regulating gender norms than minding its own business.
Even realising you’re trans can feel like trying to read a map with the lights off, while someone shouts slurs at you through a megaphone. It’s not just about self-discovery, it’s about surviving the noise. And that noise? It’s everywhere. It echoes through social media algorithms, talk radio rants, and every panel show that thinks it’s edgy to debate your existence like it’s a spicy new Netflix series. Hatred gets the megaphone, while love gets the whisper. So people stay silent, hidden, or hurt.
Coming out to yourself is hard enough. Coming out to others? That’s where the real horror show begins. People always imagine the worst-case scenario because, often, the worst case happens. I’ve heard too many stories of loving parents turning cold overnight. Of “kind” relatives who suddenly find Jesus or the Telegraph and decide your existence is a bridge too far. One minute you’re their child; the next you’re a “lifestyle choice”, and if you’re lucky, you’re just ignored. If not, you’re out in the cold.
And that’s just the private side. Public life? That’s a whole different battlefield. From disapproving stares to shouted slurs, every trip to the shops becomes a potential theatre of judgement. But it doesn’t stop there. It’s not just ridicule. It’s real, escalating violence. Murder rates for trans people, especially trans women of colour, are beyond disgraceful — they’re genocidal. Let’s call it what it is. A state-backed, media-fuelled campaign of dehumanisation. And still, people ask why we don’t just stay in the closet, as if invisibility has ever been a sustainable survival strategy.
But here’s the thing. Staying closeted isn’t peace, it’s slow suffocation. It’s the everyday agony of living a lie while strangers still find ways to make you feel wrong, even when they don’t know why. For too many, that unbearable silence leads to an even darker place. The statistics on trans suicide aren’t numbers, they’re the wreckage of a world that tells people they’d be better off erased than seen.
And yet — we come out. Not because it’s easy. Not because it’s safe. But because living authentically, even in small moments, even with the fear, is better than erasing ourselves for the comfort of others. Somewhere along the way, for most of us, joy does break through. In the laughter of trans friends who just get it, in the first time someone gets your name or pronouns right without flinching, and in the mundane, everyday magic of being seen.
Yes, it gets better for many, but let’s not romanticise resilience. The world shouldn’t demand we be brave just to exist. It shouldn’t cost a person their home, family, job, or life to be themselves. The end goal? That being trans is no more dramatic than saying you prefer oat milk. But to get there, we need a world that’s radically different — not just tolerant, but affirming. Not just silent, but loud in love. Not just quietly nodding, but actively fighting alongside us.
Until then, we keep speaking. We keep living. And we keep calling out this nonsense for what it is: a deeply broken system trying to convince us that our authenticity is the problem, instead of their bigotry.