I don’t know how many of you understand how hard it is to be transgender and fight against the opposition and violence of family, friends, boss and coworkers, strangers on the street, the government to seize space within a gender category that’s livable for you. I don’t feel comfortable in lesbian scenes even though I’m a dyke. I have to wrestle with my body all the time. Before my girlfriend and I broke up, she was walking downtown and some fucking teenagers called her a man in a dress and threw a bottle at her head. And everything I’ve fought so hard for - my OCD comes along and tells me I’m not really transgender at all, that I’m a man. Distances me from my feelings towards other women, puts a tinge of doubt into every romantic or sexual feeling I have towards women. Demotivates me from working on my appearance, makes me see a man when I look in the mirror, pushes me towards self-destructive and self-sabotaging behavior. Fuck this. I’ve got the social oppression that this society forces on me as a transgender woman lodged in my head in the form of pure-o OCD telling me I’m a man. I get no shelter from the constant hailstorm of bullshit even in my own mind. I hate being expected to just fight it, be a soldier. I mean, I’m a *good* mental soldier. I’m extremely tough. But why should I have to be? Why can’t I relax and just pursue my life, why should I have to fight? Another part of me really wants to get out there and fight, fight hard. But with an unpredictable world situation heading far-right, putting myself out in the world as a radical-left disabled transsexual just feels like I’m begging to be destroyed. I think I know what the answers to these predicaments are, but that doesn’t make it easy. Now, tonight, I find out that my best friend - the most brilliant person I’ve ever known - is posting things online implying that he’s about to kill himself. He’s disabled too - blind. Tired of being treated like a child by his family and everyone around him. I don’t blame him, but if he dies, I’ll be in more agony than I can explain. Why can’t we just have good lives? Why can’t we catch a break? What the fuck is wrong with this world? I wish my OCD would at least leave me alone and let me be integrated with my body and my sense of self. Really, it’s the least I deserve. I’ve been through too much, damn it.