Trans Women Should Never Be a Partner’s Secret

Picture it:

New York City, 2012.

Webster Hall was booming with life. There was a chill in the autumn air, much different than the chill from the midwestern country, where I’d traveled from to attend NYU. It was a sharper cold, more biting.

I attended a small concert with a few friends to see a relatively new musician perform. Someone I’d heard of before, but only in the peripheral. He gave a brilliant, high energy show that would earn him the success he deserved in the years that would follow.

As an import to the city I didn’t know that many people. I was still finding my way and making new friends, adjusting to the fast pace of New York. It seemed to me that everyone else had settled into a nice groove, etching themselves out a small space in a very crowded terrain. One of these friends knew someone from security who allowed us to go say hello to the performer and get his autograph.

He was still damp with sweat, loose hair matted to his forehead and he introduced himself and shook my hand. I wasn’t starstuck, but more enchanted by the energy he exuded. The frenzy around him; for him. It seemed to buzz around me. The closest parallel I can make is recalling the first time I set foot in Times Square. It was bright, loud and alien to a girl from Ohio. A spectacle.