Meditations on Trans Regret

In Celebration of Scars and Mantis Shrimp

America’s wannabe dictator and esteemed national transgender health expert refers to trans people as engaging in “a losing war with their own bodies.” Well, not to brag, but I won that war handily, and I’ve got the scars to prove it!

Naturally, this guy, with his endless biological wisdom (yes, the same guy who said we should inject bleach into our bodies to treat COVID) thinks he knows what’s best for us all. To protect us poor lost trans souls from ourselves, he has ordered the National Institute of Health to study “trans regret” and halt all other study into trans health. The theory goes, we don’t have enough information to say that gender-affirming care is safe, so we best make sure there is no more information to come to light. That doesn’t sound at all nefarious, does it?

For the record, I’m sixteen years into my medical transition, and I do not have a single regret. I do regret that we are moving backwards as a society and that being openly cruel to trans people is perpetrated and celebrated by our government. But I don’t regret my transition. I don’t regret that I am trans. I don’t regret even the fact that I have more prominent scars from top surgery than most. I don’t regret that I’ve lost most of the hair on my head in exchange for a beard—I like to say it just kind of migrated downward! Would I have chosen scars and hair loss? Probably not if it was a menu of options I was able to hand pick, but these are not dealbreakers either.

Hypertrophy

No, I don’t regret the scars,
the way my body tried too hard
to heal. Ropy thickness shines
from the overdrive of collagen
that seals me in. What they call
mutilation, I call mutability, 
a trophy to honor the movement
from a haziness to something 
actual. Like locating my breath
in my body for the first time
but over and over. A revelation,
something freed up, a flow
finally able to move through.
An imperfection that marks me 
and anoints me with coherence.

My transition has enabled me to live my life. This is not to say I would have killed myself if I had not transitioned, but I would not have been living as full a life as I am now. My transition has given me a comfort in my body that allows me to be present to my experience far beyond gender to the sacred and mundane. The discomfort I felt previously was deeply distracting. It led to a kind of dissociation, a desperate need to not be seen and to not feel my own breath in my body. The discomfort was so loud it was hard for a period of time to think of much else besides gender. And now I am freed to think about other things, experience other things. This fascist regime has made me have to think about it a lot more than I had in a long time, but even this state of affairs does not make me wish I had made different decisions. I am not the regrettable one.

I remember this particular moment of transcendence and gratitude in the weeks following top surgery. I was washing my surgical binder and waiting for it to dry, so sitting shirtless for the first time, just feeling the air on my skin, feeling physically and spiritually present, without that discordant mental noise that would previously have made me want to block out this present awareness. The noise just seemed to be halted and the quiet that remained filled my entire chest with calm and lightness and warmth. I was still quite raw and sore and swollen and bruised. And so grateful. So moved. Feeling lucky, such profound awe, to get to know what it is to sit here in this rightness for the first time. It still hits me periodically, this sense of subtle euphoria of just being.

Trans Regret

I regret it deeply,
the failure of most of you
to see the brilliant range
of what a human being is.
Some of us have vision
like the mantis shrimp:
we see imperceptible
colors and infrared, 
ultraviolet, polarized 
light. What’s invisible 
to you is an exponential 
color burst 
that lives in us.

This feeling, this ability to live in grateful presence, has opened me up to so many other parts of my life. There is room for more emotional and spiritual growth, more joys, more capacity to connect with others in my life. Without my transition, I don’t think I would find such fulfillment from regularly walking around this beautiful cemetery taking photos of trees (I would probably stay inside and continue trying not to be noticed). I don’t think my mindfulness would have developed so acutely that I can see the poetry of the light and shadows. This too my version of trans joy. Not because it has anything to do with my gender. But embracing myself has enabled me to be present in all the other ways I am present. To inhabit my body is to inhabit wonder, inhabit compassion, wisdom, creativity. Depriving trans people of this possibility is depriving us of the fullness of our lives.

So no, I don’t regret my transition. I don’t regret being trans. Would not choose to be other than I am, having walked exactly the path of transformation I have walked. I regret that sometimes medical providers treat me as a specimen. I regret having occasionally experienced harassment or insulting comments from people who do not know what they are talking about. I regret that I did not celebrate my transition and my transness harder from the start and let some others’ apprehension about my gender and my changes tinge my experience with a little bit of uneasiness or shame. But here on out, I am celebrating. Every time they try to make trans people feel less than, I will celebrate even more.

Float

The first time that my scars
ever saw the sun, my joy
was tamped down. 
I decided to rewind 
the tape, held him up 
as he lay back on
the gentle waves, I will
keep you safe. Let
the water lift you
closer to the sky. Feel
the rise and fall, the wide
expanse of how
you’ve chosen for 
this life to hold you.

Thank you for reading! To my trans siblings, may you also celebrate the beauty of your existence, no matter how much they try to convince us otherwise. And may all people find the courage and joy of presence in body, mind, spirit, and in connection with one another.

All photos taken by me at Green-Wood Cemetery April 2025