That first night walking into trans group therapy felt like stepping into a goddamn electrical storm. My heart hammered against my ribs like it was trying to escape, sweat beading cold and slick down my spine. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everyone in that sickly pallor that makes even the healthiest person look half-dead. The metal folding chair bit into the backs of my thighs as I sat, rigid and awkward, a fucking stranger in a room full of strangers.
I didn't know what the hell to expect. Not a clue. Just showed up because Finny—this online friend I'd been messaging on Reddit—had practically dragged me there. She was early in her transition too, thrown out by her family like yesterday's garbage. There's something about shared pain that bonds people faster than super glue.
The room reeked of coffee and anxiety. You could taste the trauma hanging in the air—metallic and sharp at the back of your throat. Different personalities, different stories, all of us wearing our damage like ill-fitting clothes. Some seemed like posers to me, but hell, I felt like the biggest fraud of all. What was I even doing there? My brain screamed that I didn't belong, that I was taking up space meant for "real" trans people.
"Stop looking like you're about to bolt," Finny whispered, her fingers digging into my arm like talons. Her eyes were rimmed with smudged eyeliner that made her look both fierce and exhausted. "You promised, remember? One full session. If you hate it after, I'll buy you a greasy-ass burger and never mention this place again."
I shot her a glare that could've melted steel. "Easy for you to say. You've been coming for months."
"And I still feel like throwing up every damn time," she admitted, her voice cracking slightly at the edges. "But it helps. Swear to god it does."
The facilitator—an earthy mother type—started the introductions. One by one, people shared their names, pronouns, and some bullshit "fun fact" about themselves. My palms turned slick with sweat as my turn approached. What the fuck was I supposed to say? That I still sometimes answered to my deadname because correcting people felt like lighting myself on fire?
When my turn came, I somehow managed to croak out my name. Finny squeezed my knee under the chair, her touch saying what words couldn't: You're doing it. You're here. That's enough.
"So," Violet said after group, cornering me by the sad spread of stale cookies and lukewarm water that passed for refreshments. "First-timer, huh?"
"That obvious?" I grabbed a cookie just to have something to do with my hands.
"Yeah a bit," she laughed, but there was no mockery in it.
Finny appeared beside us, three paper cups of that godawful coffee balanced precariously in her hands. "I see you've met the Video game girl," she said, nodding toward Violet.
"Hardly," Violet snorted, accepting the coffee like it was liquid gold. "I just play a lot."
"Violet is good peoples. She just doesn't talk much.," Finny explained, her eyes darting between us like she was putting together puzzle pieces.
We stood there, three strangers connected by nothing but shared struggle, sipping bitter coffee that burned our tongues and somehow tasted like hope. The conversation wasn't profound—just fragments about shitty jobs, worse landlords, the nightmare of changing names on documents. But beneath it ran a current of understanding so powerful it made my chest ache.
Later, stumbling into the night air that smelled of rain and city grime, Finny bumped her shoulder against mine. "So? Verdict?"
I inhaled deeply, letting the cold air fill my lungs until they burned. "It was... something."
"Something good or something that makes you want to hurl yourself into traffic?"
My laugh surprised me, scraping out of my throat like it had forgotten how to exist. "Still deciding."
"Didn't feel like I was being welcomed. Felt like being seen. Different thing entirely." I said with an off hand tone.
Finny stopped under a streetlight, her face suddenly serious in the amber glow. "That's why we keep coming back. Not for the shitty coffee or the breakthrough moments they promise in those pamphlets. It's for those seconds when someone looks at you—really fucking looks—and you don't have to explain a damn thing."
The night wrapped around us like a blanket, neither comforting nor threatening, just there. Existing, like us. I didn't know then that Violet would become family, that chosen bonds would prove stronger than blood. I just knew that for the first time in forever, the screaming in my head had quieted to a whisper, and maybe—just fucking maybe—that was worth coming back for.
But then, I looked around and saw reflections of myself. Fragmented pieces of my own experience mirrored back at me in these strangers' eyes. It hit me like a punch to the gut—I wasn't alone in this clusterfuck of gender discovery.
Violet was the first person I really connected with beyond Finny. This socially awkward girl with hands that never stopped moving, fidgeting with the frayed edges of her sleeves. Young, with eyes that were forced to look at shit, Christian shit, way too much. The guilt on her soul was just too real to see. Too real to experience. And her social anxiety, driven by her puritanical upbringing was all too obvious. All I wanted to do was show her what a Mother is supposed to do. We started talking, her voice soft like she was afraid someone might tell her to shut up at any moment. I could see in her, the same damage that Zoe had put me through.
All the while, Wendy was prodding me from inside my skull. “Keep going. Keep showing up. You could help that girl, Violet. You could be a mother again for someone else, not just Ylse.” For once, I listened to her instead of burying her deeper.
The first time she flinched when I moved too quickly, something broke inside me. Fucking shattered like glass on concrete. I recognized that movement—the instinctive duck of the head, shoulders hunching inward—a body trained to expect the worst. I'd done it myself so many goddamn times under Zoe's tyranny.
"You're safe here," I told her, the words tasting metallic and strange on my tongue. How long had it been since anyone had said that to me? How long since I'd believed it myself?
Violet's eyes darted up, wide and uncertain, like a fawn trying to decide whether to bolt. The afternoon light through the coffee shop window caught the faded bruise on her wrist, poorly hidden beneath that frayed sleeve. My stomach clenched into a tight, angry knot.
Tell her about your own scars Wendy urged from within. “Show her she's not alone.”
For once, I didn't fight against my true self. The barriers I'd built—the ones that kept me silent and small—began to crack and crumble.
"My mother used her wrath on me like a weapon," I said, throat dry as sandpaper. "Bet yours does too."
The shock on her face—it was like watching someone see their reflection for the first time. Her fingers stopped their endless dance with the sleeve threads. Tears welled up, hanging on her lashes but not falling.
"How did you know?" Her voice barely a whisper, the scent of her fear mixing with the burnt coffee smell around us.
The raw need in her voice hit me like a punch to the gut. I remembered that desperate hunger—to be seen, to be understood. To not be so fucking alone with the pain.
“This is why you're here,” Wendy reminded me. “This is why we survived.”
My hands trembled as I pushed my mug aside, leaning closer. "Because I've been where you are. Because I know what it's like when the people who should protect you are the ones who break you."
The shop buzzed around us—the hiss of the espresso machine, the clatter of dishes, meaningless chatter—but in our little bubble of shared pain, there was a strange, terrifying intimacy. Her eyes, still wide and wary, held a flicker of something I hadn't seen in years.
Hope. Dangerous, beautiful fucking hope.
“She needs you,” Wendy whispered inside me. “Like you needed someone. Like you still need someone.”
The walls I'd built to keep Wendy silent were crumbling now. My true self surging forward, demanding to be heard, to be felt. To mother this broken girl when no one had mothered me.
"You don't have to tell me anything," I said, feeling the rough wood of the table under my palm, grounding me. "But if you want to talk, I'll listen. And I won't tell you it's part of God's plan or some bullshit like that."
A tear finally broke free, sliding down her cheek. The sound she made—half laugh, half sob—cut through me like a blade. This girl, with her guarded clothes and her haunted eyes, was so much like looking in a mirror, it made my chest ache.
“This is how we heal,” Wendy insisted. “This is how we become whole again—by being what we needed for others.”
For once, I didn't try to silence her. For once, I let Wendy—my true self—guide me toward something that felt real. Something that felt like redemption.
Then came the dinners. Started small—just Finny and me huddled in the corner of some random spot in town, picking at food, our voices hushed like we were sharing government secrets instead of tales about our first days on hormones. The cheap vinyl seats stuck to the backs of our thighs, air thick with grease and possibility. Our fingers trembled around chipped mugs of coffee so bitter it made your fucking teeth hurt, but we drank it anyway, washing down words we'd held captive for too goddamn long.
But our little gathering grew like some beautiful, chaotic organism. Qahira joined us with her eyes that cut through bullshit like a hot blade, always there with words that were kind. Then Shay—who I latched onto because she was just cool as shit. And she liked Charlie Parker, which made me laugh until my ribs felt bruised. Fucking Charlie Parker. No match for John Coltrane's soul-ripping saxophone that could make the universe cry. Something about her energy pulled me in—raw and electric, like touching a live wire but somehow surviving the shock.
Then came Steph with her perpetual fucking insecurity and fear over transitioning. We never understood why it clung to her like a second skin, this bizarre rule that she couldn't do a goddamn thing with her transition until she actually started HRT. I mean, she wouldn't even go dress shopping or anything until the hormones were swimming through her bloodstream. It was something that made my brain itch, like trying to scratch a wound that's just out of reach.
I offered— I offered more than once to take her dress shopping. My voice gentle but insistent, "Come on, let's just go look." And she said no. And then twice again, no. Each refusal sharper than the last, cutting through the air between us like a blade. Her jaw would tighten, tendons standing out on her neck, eyes cast down to the floor where they traced invisible patterns in the carpet. The silence after each rejection hung in the room like smoke, acrid and suffocating.
She would sit in the group sessions, her fingers twitching against her thighs, palms slick with sweat, talking about these things in a voice that cracked and wavered. How she had bought herself a purse—this soft leather thing that probably still smelled like the store it came from—but she wouldn't carry it around with her until she was on hormone treatment. The purse just sat in her closet, gathering dust in the darkness, waiting for permission to exist in the world.
But there was something else about Steph that made all this shit ten times worse—this goddamn childlike approach to relationships that made us want to scream into our pillows at night. She'd latch onto people with this desperate, wide-eyed need that was fucking suffocating. Like a kid clutching a security blanket, she'd text someone thirty times in a row if they didn't respond right away, her anxiety dripping from every message like poison. She'd create these elaborate fantasies about relationships before they even began, building castles in her mind where people had pledged undying loyalty to her when in reality they'd just shared a coffee once.
There was pain in her hesitation, raw and throbbing, visible in the tight corners of her mouth whenever anyone asked about it. Her eyes would dart away, like a trapped animal searching for escape. The air would grow thick and heavy when the subject came up, making it hard to breathe, like trying to inhale through a wet cloth. Her restriction was self-imposed, yes, but it cut into her like barbed wire with every passing day.
Jonsey crashed in next with her booming laugh that made the glasses rattle and the normies at nearby tables shoot us death glares we wore like fucking badges. Bambi and her partner Jack followed, always Bambi always talking about some video game stuff she was doing, and Violet always there with her hanging on those words. Sally the social justice warrior joined, with her knowing nods and eyes that had witnessed too much pain to ever go soft, fingers tapping restless rhythms against the scarred tabletop.
Zainy stumbled in late as he always did, bearing stories that made us howl with laughter until our sides ached. And then finally Erickson and Cammy arrived, completing our jagged little family, holding space for each other in a world that gave us nothing but scraps and expected gratitude for the meager offering.
The loneliness that had been eating me alive from the inside out—that fucking monster that whispered I'd always be alone—started to retreat. In its place grew something fierce and maternal. I needed to nurture, to feed, to create a space where we could all just... exist. So the brunches were born.
My kitchen on Saturday mornings became a war zone of pots and pans, the air thick with the smell of bacon grease and coffee. I'd be up at dawn, chopping and stirring and baking like a woman possessed. By noon, my apartment would fill with voices and laughter, plates piled high with food. My trans brothers and sisters would sprawl across every available surface—perched on countertops, sitting cross-legged on the floor, squeezed together on my couch.
We'd stuff our faces and spill our guts. Trading stories about the assholes who'd stared too long on the subway, celebrating the first time someone used the right pronouns without being asked, crying over family photos where we looked like strangers to ourselves. The food was just the excuse—what we were really hungry for was connection, understanding without explanation.
The Discord server came next—our digital refuge when the physical world became too goddamn much. Late night voice chats when dysphoria struck at 3 AM and the darkness felt like it might swallow you whole. Memes that only we would understand. A place where our chosen names and pronouns were never questioned.
For a long while, life settled into this rhythm—random restaurants midweek, brunches on weekends, the constant stream of messages between. Most of us were on HRT, stumbling through the early days of transition like newborn colts trying to stand. We compared notes on voice training techniques and binding methods, celebrated each other's facial hair or breast growth, shared the names of doctors who wouldn't treat us like science experiments.
But like all communities—like all families—the cracks started to show. The honeymoon period couldn't last forever.
Bambi and Jack were the first fracture. They'd been married pre-transition, both of them taking the plunge in opposite directions—Bambi MTF, Jack FTM. On paper, it seemed almost poetic. In reality, their relationship was a ticking time bomb. Jack's temper burned like acid rain, corroding everything it touched. His fists would sometimes feign the wounded doe, claiming that Bambi just mistreated him, and abused him. When Bambi spiraled into darkness, razor in hand and tears streaming down her hollow cheeks, Jack would watch with cold, distant eyes, sometimes even whispering "Do it, then" with a cruelty that left frost on the bathroom mirror. Jack was a monster, he really was. They'd arrive at brunch with tension rolling off them in waves, Bambi's hands trembling as she sipped a drink, eyes darting nervously whenever Jack cleared his throat.
Then came Imogen—all calculated moves. The poly arrangement became Jack's perfect weapon, a psychological minefield where Bambi stepped on explosives daily. Jack and Imogen formed their brutal alliance behind locked doors, laughing at inside jokes while Bambi sat alone in the kitchen, feeling like a ghost in her own goddamn home. The gaslighting was relentless—missing belongings, conversations denied, reality twisted until Bambi doubted her own memories. That final night, Jack's face twisted with disgust as he threw her suitcase at her feet. "Get the fuck out," he snarled, Imogen standing behind him with arms crossed and victory gleaming in her eyes. Bambi's pleas bounced off their stone expressions as she was shoved onto the porch, door slammed in her tear-streaked face, the lock turning with finality as rain soaked through her thin shirt.
Watching them implode taught me a harsh lesson about people trying to overcompensate in relationships—sometimes love isn't enough when both people are finding themselves for the first time. But life's a twisted fucking journey. Bambi ended up in Pennsylvania, going back to her mother's house with dignity shredded and trauma etched into her bones. Then came Teemy—this unexpected lighthouse in the storm of Bambi's shattered existence. I watched from a distance as Bambi slowly learned to trust again, her flinch at sudden movements gradually fading. They are beautiful together now. Teemy was the shit. Teemy held her through the nightmares where Jack's voice still echoed, never rushing her healing. I honestly loved Teemy for that—for showing Bambi that she wasn't the broken one, that Jack's poison didn't define her worth, that sometimes you have to lose everything to find what you actually fucking deserve.
Then came Cammy and Shay. I swear, watching those two dance around each other was like some bizarre mating ritual I couldn't look away from—a goddamn car crash of longing and fear that made me giggle inside time I witnessed it. By this point, I was fully out as Wendy, my defenses lowered just enough to see what was happening around me, raw and exposed like fresh nerve endings after the protective layers had been stripped away. Shay had been my sister in all this—we'd spent countless hours talking through our shit. And I'd helped her walk through maybe finding a different professional path, because she was burned out in her old one.
So when she and Cammy started gravitating toward each other, I saw it immediately, and holy shit, it lit up something fierce inside me. The lingering touches between them sent sparks of pure fucking joy shooting through my chest. Their inside jokes—the ones that made Cammy's eyes crinkle and Shay throw her head back laughing—had me grinning so wide my face ached while the rest of us sat watching this beautiful connection unfold. The way they'd somehow always end up sitting next to each other, shoulders touching on that cat affected couch in my living room, radiating a warmth that spread through the whole damn room like sunshine breaking through storm clouds. For weeks they thought they were hiding it, but I caught every glance, every smile that passed between them when they thought no one was looking, and each time my heart practically burst with happiness. They were finding each other, finding something real in this brutal world. The love growing between them was so bright and powerful it made my eyes water—it filled the room like the sweet scent of spring after a long-ass winter, making it easier to breathe whenever the three of us were together, my chest expanding with pride seeing two people I cared about finding their way to happiness.
But here's where shit got messy—Steph was in love with Cammy too. Had been for months, silently pining, building an entire fantasy world around Cammy in her head like a fucking teenager with her first crush. Each smile, each casual touch became evidence in Steph's delusional case that they were destined to be together. During one particularly wine-soaked brunch, Steph pulled Shay aside, her hands trembling just like they did in group therapy, that same anxious sweat making the paper stick to her fingertips as she produced a folded letter. A fucking love letter to Cammy. Not just any letter—pages of desperate, clingy nonsense that read like something a middle-schooler would write, filled with promises and plans that existed only in Steph's head. She wanted Shay to read it, to give her opinion, her eyes wide with that same infantile hope she brought to everything.
The look on Shay's face—I'll never forget it. Like someone had punched her in the stomach while simultaneously setting her world on fire. The blood drained from her face, pooling somewhere down in her gut where the truth sat like a stone. Because how do you tell someone you care about, someone so fragile they won't even carry a purse until hormones give them permission, that the person they love is already tangled up with you?
The fallout was nuclear. Steph collapsed into herself like a dying star, all that childish hope curdling into something toxic and vengeful. Sides were taken. The group text exploded with accusations and defenses, Steph's messages coming in rapid-fire bursts of thirty at a time, each one more desperate than the last. Half rallied behind Steph, claiming she'd been led on, betrayed, her delicate transition journey trampled by callous friends. The other half—my half—stood with Cammy and Shay. Because despite the mess, despite the hurt feelings, they had found something real in a fucking world that denied our existence daily. They weren't hiding their feelings in dusty closets, waiting for permission to live. They had found each other, and that was a goddamn miracle worth defending. I was ready to go down in a fight to defend that.
That messy tangle of relationships reveals some brutal fucking truths about how we connect with each other. Sometimes love isn't this neat, pristine package—it's raw and bleeding and complicated. Steph's childish fantasy world shows how easily we can mistake our own desperate needs for actual connection. We build elaborate castles in our minds while the real world keeps spinning without us.
Meanwhile, Cammy and Shay found something authentic by actually living in the messy present instead of waiting for some perfect moment. The heart doesn't give a shit about your carefully constructed timelines or your permission slips. Real love doesn't wait in closets gathering dust—it exists in the fierce, imperfect now, even when it detonates everything around it.
So our community split like continental drift—slow at first, then impossible to reverse. The brunches dwindled. Eight people became six, then four. The Discord server went quiet for months at a time. The shared experience that had united us wasn't enough anymore. The pain of transition remained, but now it was compounded by the pain of broken trust.
But this was how Wendy stopped talking to me in my head, and I just started talking to myself, and trusting myself. The voice in my head was gone now, and there was just me. The sensation was like drowning in reverse—suddenly breaking the surface and feeling air fill your lungs when you'd forgotten what breathing freely even felt like. Years of second-guessing every thought, every feeling, every goddamn instinct—all that noise suddenly silent. In its place, a terrifying, beautiful clarity. My thoughts no longer echoed with "What would Wendy think?" or "Wendy would know better." Just the sound of my own heart beating, my own mind working, my own soul finally fucking heard. It was like finding a room inside myself I'd never entered—spacious and filled with light, walls reverberating with nothing but my own voice, raw and true and powerful enough to bring me to my knees. For the first time in what felt like forever, I existed wholly as myself, and the solitude of it—the pure, unfiltered ownership of my own inner world—made me weep with a relief so profound it bordered on agony.