I haven’t written a new post in a while. My original goal was to make sure I had at least one new post a month. Life got overwhelming early this year, and it was all I could do to keep up with the must-do list. Many of my other life goals had to be postponed for a while.

I recently started looking at Reddit posts, mostly for pictures. I expanded my groups to include my fan interests in the Beatles and Star Trek, and then I added some transgender groups.

One night last week, I was flipping through Reddit as I watched TV. The ftm posts were all celebrating a few months on T, the first changes, the new hair on the chin. I chuckled to myself, and said, well, let’s show these boys what 22 years looks like. I flippantly took a selfie and calculated my time in grade, as it were.

I have been overwhelmed by the responses to the post.

I really shouldn’t be overwhelmed. I remember how alone I felt. The first tenuous steps into an email list was the first contact – and I was already working full time by then. I was on T for a year, in my twenties, before I met another man like me. I know how much one of the younger “Camp Born This Way” kids crowed when he was 6 years old and knew that he was “just like me.” I still get chills when I think how life altering that moment must have been.

#RepresentationMatters. We all need to share our humanity. We need to see ourselves in others in such a way that proves that our perception of our most fatal flaws do not doom us to failure and misery – and we all need to recognize that divine spark that exists in each of us, despite our flaws.