being loudly me, for those who can’t

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Just now

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The Visibility Vow: For every person who can’t be themselves yet, I’ll be myself a little louder

There’s this moment in The Perks of Being a Wallflower where Charlie stands up in the back of a pickup truck, arms wide, feeling infinite. That’s not me. My infinite moment happens in the grocery store checkout line when I let my wrist go loose, when I laugh too loud, when I exist too visibly. Because somewhere in aisle seven, there might be a kid watching. And that kid needs to see someone like them buying oat milk and living.

I perform femininity in public spaces because it’s necessary. Every time I let my voice lilt upward, every time I gesture with my whole hand instead of just pointing, every time I wear what makes me feel like myself instead of what makes strangers comfortable—I’m not just existing. I’m leaving breadcrumbs. I’m building a lighthouse. I’m standing on that metaphorical pickup truck for everyone who’s still sitting down.

The closet is a lonely architecture. I remember it—the careful measurements, the checking and rechecking of every movement, the constant mental inventory of how much space I was taking up and whether it was the "right" kind of space. There's a specific exhaustion that comes from filing down your edges every morning before you leave the house. From practicing your voice in the car. From laughing differently around your family than you do around your friends. From existing in increment, in half-measures, in whispers.

So when I walk through the world now, I walk for two. For me, yes—but also for past-me, who needed to see someone like future-me. For every trans person scrolling through their phone at 2am, wondering if it's worth it, wondering if they'll ever feel at home in their own skin. For the teenagers in small towns where I'm the only openly queer person they might see all month. For the people whose jobs or families or zip codes mean the closet isn't a choice—it's survival.

Virginia Woolf wrote that "one cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." I’d add: one cannot live well if one has never seen themselves reflected in the world. Representation isn’t just about movies and TV shows. It’s about the trans person in the Target parking lot. It’s about femme energy radiating from the DMV. It’s about catching someone’s eye and seeing that flash of recognition—that oh, me too—even if they can’t say it out loud yet.

Visibility is not selfish. It’s a redistribution of courage. Every time I choose authenticity over assimilation, I’m not just making a choice for myself—I’m creating permission for someone else. I’m saying this is possible. I’m proving you can survive this. I’m demonstrating that there’s life after the closet door opens, and it’s not just life—it’s living.

Yes, there's risk. Every visibly queer person knows the calculation: safety versus self, invisibility versus integrity. Some days the math doesn't work out. Some spaces aren't safe for softness. But in the moments when I can be visible, when the equation balances, when I have the privilege of choosing authenticity—I choose it loud. I choose it deliberate. I choose it for all of us.

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This is my duty as a trans person, but duty is the wrong word. It’s too heavy, too obligatory. This is my gift. My inheritance. The queer people who came before me were visible so I could imagine myself. Now I’m visible so others can imagine themselves. It’s a relay race where the baton is simply being, and we’re all running toward a finish line where nobody has to hide anymore.

In Angels in America, Prior Walter says, "We won’t die secret deaths anymore." He’s talking about AIDS, about silence, about the specific violence of invisibility. But the line echoes across every closet, every tucked-in shirt, every practiced voice, every person who’s ever made themselves smaller to make someone else more comfortable. We won’t live secret lives anymore. Not if I can help it.

I’ll keep being too much. Too femme. Too visible. Too loud in the grocery store checkout line. Because somewhere, maybe in aisle seven, maybe in the parking lot, maybe just scrolling past a photo of me online, there’s someone who needs to see arms stretched wide. Someone who needs to know what infinite looks like.

And someday, they'll be standing in their own checkout line, existing loudly, being themselves for someone else who needs to see it. That's how we build the world we needed when we were young. One visible moment at a time. One person brave enough to be seen.

Charlie had his tunnel and his truck and his song. I have my truth and my gift and the radical act of taking up space. Of being so much myself that someone else can find the courage to start being themselves too.

That’s why I do it. For the infinite kids in infinite aisles, watching someone like them buy oat milk and live.