endings and beginnings

This flagpole has come to mean a lot to me. It’s not much to look at, just a scrubby patch of earth and a few benches, but it’s an achievement to get here – at least, it certainly feels that way when I’ve climbed the hill while wearing my binder. For me, this place is a reminder of how far I’ve come and how far I still have to go. This is the place where I sat with my partner, when we decided to change our lives – take a leap and move to Glasgow. From here, I can see my flat, my university, Ben More and Stobinian. It feels like a place of endless possibilities. I try to keep this feeling with me. 

When I was young, I never thought that I would make it this far. I was never able to hold in my head a vision of ‘future me’, and thought that the present was something to be endured. At most, I hoped simply for survival. There was no room to just be me. And then something shifted – slowly and quietly at first, then gathering pace until longing transformed into possibility. Like tiny green buds, sprouting on tree branches and then erupting into pink blossom, powdery scent lingering on your nose. Here I am now – after spending years waiting beneath the surface I’ve finally come up for air. I’m not finished, not ‘fixed’, but one step closer today than I have ever been before. Neither buried nor broken, feeling a little easier in my skin, breathing a little deeper, and growing. 

I don’t know what lies ahead, but I know that I am not just surviving anymore. I still worry about how people might treat me, and whether the healthcare I need will be accessible, but now my fears are tinged with curiosity. What will I be like in the future? Wiser, softer, more at ease? I’m so eager to meet them. I want my trans siblings to get there too – to feel the shift, to step into their future, to be free of the systems that repress and harm us. And when they do, I hope that they can spot the signs that tell them someone has already trodden this path: initials carved into trees, gardens planted where they shouldn’t grow, this Geocache trail. Whatever the future holds I hope it includes more trans people living exactly as they want. Blooming and unfurling in the sun.

Read the rest of the story: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5