Thirty Years of My Life Means Absolute Shit To the Professional Assholes

The concrete stairs down to the basement feel like they're carved from my own goddamn bones tonight. Each step sends a shock through my knees—pain that started when I was pounding pavement for eight hours straight, chasing down leads that evaporated the moment I walked into some sterile office building and they saw exactly what I am. Aubrey's hand finds mine in the stairwell darkness, her fingers interlacing with mine like she's anchoring me to something real before I float away on a tide of corporate horseshit.

The smell hits me before I even open the door—that same beautiful cocktail of salvation: stale beer, cheap weed, and the metallic tang of righteous anger that seems to seep from the walls themselves. But tonight it smells different. Tonight it smells like the last fucking sanctuary on earth, like the only place where we don't have to explain why we're both walking wounded from a world that wants us to apologize for existing.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Wendy," Ezra calls out from his usual beanbag throne. "You look like someone dragged you behind a pickup truck through a gravel pit."

I can taste the truth of it—copper pennies and exhaustion coating my tongue like I've been sucking on rusty nails all fucking day. My feet are screaming inside these goddamn heels I wore to look "professional," like playing dress-up could somehow make thirty years of infosec experience matter more than the fact that I've got tits now and a voice that doesn't match what they think I should be. Aubrey flops onto a bar stool, muttering a string of curses about "corporate assholes" and "discriminatory pieces of shit."

"Hit me with the poison, Migs, it better be fucking neat too. No goddamned ice." I croak, flopping myself onto the bar stool next to her, absorbing more pain than a war correspondent's notebook. The creak of years of circular movement, coupled with the light air of a cheap joint smoked in the back, brings the feel of the space to the front of my mind.

Miguel doesn't ask questions—bless his beautiful fucking soul—just presses something amber and burning into my palm, then hands one to Aubrey. The overused highball glasses are warm from his hands, and when our fingers brush, I can feel the understanding pass between us like electricity. He knows. They all fucking know. This isn't just about me getting kicked in the ass by the job market—it's about both of us trying to survive in a world that would rather we just disappear.

"Rough day in the corporate hellscape?" Della asks, though she's already reading the answer in the way my shoulders curve inward like I'm trying to disappear into myself, and how Aubrey's jaw is clenched tight enough to crack fucking teeth.

The whiskey—because that's what this is, not the usual Canadian Mist swill—scorches down my throat and settles in my chest like molten metal. It tastes like failure and defiance mixed together, bitter and necessary as breathing. Aubrey takes her own burning sip and makes a face like she's swallowing liquid fire, but she doesn't complain. She never fucking complains, even when the world serves us both steaming piles of shit on silver platters.

"Thirty fucking years," I start, and my voice cracks like breaking glass. "Thirty years of keeping their networks secure, of stopping script kiddies and nation-state actors from turning their precious data into confetti. Thirty years of being the one they called at 3 AM when their servers were getting skull-fucked by whatever fucking problem, when their databases were getting ass-raped by SQL injection attacks."

Leila leans forward from where she's perched on the pool table's edge, its torn velvet surface looking like an open wound in the dim light. "What fresh hell happened today?"

The question hangs in the air like smoke, thick and acrid, and I can feel everyone's attention focusing on me—not the hungry, predatory attention of the outside world, but the fierce, protective attention of family. The kind of attention that says we're all in this shit together, drowning in the same cesspool of discrimination and hatred.

"Fifth interview this week," I say, taking another burning sip that tastes like liquid fucking failure. "This one was another startup, I’ve had run around with them before. You think I’d fucking learn not to comeback for it. People who think cyber-security started with their first iPhone. I had to Uber for it, because my hands were shaking too bad to trust myself behind the wheel. I’m fucking too old and worn out for this shit."

The memory tastes like bile and shame, mixed with the metallic tang of blood from biting my tongue to keep from telling them all to go fuck themselves sideways. Walking into that conference room, seeing their faces change the moment I spoke, watching thirty years of expertise crumble into dust because my voice doesn't match their expectations of what a security expert should sound like. And knowing Aubrey was out there, helpless to do anything but witness my professional execution.

"They kept asking me to 'walk them through' basic shit," I continue, the words scraping my throat raw like swallowing broken glass. "Shit I was doing when they were still figuring out how to wipe their own fucking asses. Network segmentation, threat modeling, incident response—like I was some fresh-faced college grad trying to bullshit my way through an entry-level position instead of someone who's forgotten more about security than they'll ever learn."

Miguel's jaw is tight enough to crack teeth, and I can smell the anger rolling off him like heat from asphalt. "They know your resume, right? They fucking called you for the interview."

"Resume means dick-all when they're sitting across from you, cataloging every goddamn thing that doesn't fit their narrow-ass definition of what technical competence looks like," I say, the anger rising now, hot and bitter in my chest like acid reflux from a steady diet of corporate horseshit. "The hiring manager—some kid who probably learned Linux from YouTube and thinks he's hot shit because he can spell 'firewall'—kept interrupting me to explain things I've been doing since before he hit puberty."

The room has gone quiet except for the eternal buzz of that fluorescent light and the distant thrum of bass from the bar upstairs, like the heartbeat of some dying beast. But it's not uncomfortable quiet—it's the silence of people holding space for pain they understand in their fucking bones, the kind of silence that wraps around you like armor made of shared suffering.

"Did you tell them about your biggie from ‘07?" Ezra asks, his voice carefully controlled like he's trying not to explode into a rant about corporate assholes. "The one that made you into the 2600?"

I laugh, but it comes out like a bark, harsh and bitter as black coffee mixed with tears. "Oh I fucking told it. Kid looked at me like I was claiming I invented the fucking internet. Asked if I had 'documentation' to prove it. Like I don’t have the original POC from the time, because I am a good right Engineer, I tell them ever year or so, the vuln still lives. Not like that vendor cares or anything. Fuck them." The humiliation burns fresh, like salt poured into an open wound, like being told your life's work is just elaborate fiction.

Della slides off the counter and moves to sit beside us at the bar, her presence warm and solid, anchoring us both before we float away on a tide of rage and despair. The bar groans under the emotions of three broken women, but it holds—just like this fucked-up family holds each other when the world tries to tear us apart.

"The worst fucking part," I continue, my voice dropping to barely above a whisper, like saying it too loud might make it more real, "was when they started asking about 'cultural fit.' You know what that bullshit means when they're staring at a trans woman who's old enough to remember when cybersecurity was still called 'computer security' and when network administrators were called 'computer operators.'"

"It means they're scared shitless of anything that doesn't fit their cookie-cutter mold," Aubrey says, her voice dripping with venom that could strip paint off walls. The whiskey is working now, smoothing the sharp edges of memory like sandpaper on splinters. But it can't touch the deeper pain—the knowledge that three decades of expertise, of late nights and crisis management and keeping the digital world from burning down like some kind of technological Rome, mean absolutely nothing when measured against the crime of existing in the wrong body, of loving the wrong person, of being too old and too experienced and too fucking real for their sanitized corporate fantasy.

"I sat there listening to this kid—this fucking child who probably thinks SQL stands for 'Seriously Questionable Logic'—explain to me how they need someone who can 'interface effectively with stakeholders,'" I say, the words tasting like ashes and broken dreams. "Translation: someone who won't make the other bros uncomfortable by existing while trans, someone who won't remind them that the world is bigger and messier and more complicated than their neat little hierarchy of who gets to be an expert."

"Fuck them," Leila says with such venom it could melt steel beams. "Fuck all of them and the privilege they rode in on."

"Fuck them sideways with a rusty chainsaw," Aubrey adds, and there's something beautiful about the way she says it—like she's blessing me with her rage, like her anger is a gift I can wrap around myself for warmth.

"That's the thing, though," I say, draining the rest of my whiskey and savoring the burn that tastes like liquid courage mixed with liquid despair. "I need this shit. We need this. The writing brings in beer money, but beer money doesn't pay for hormones or rent or the fucking lawyer we're going to need when they come for us harder."

The truth of it settles over the room like a heavy blanket made of lead and broken promises. We all know the fucking score. The world outside is getting more hostile by the day, like some kind of accelerating spiral into hell, and safe spaces like this one exist in an increasingly narrow band of possibility, squeezed between hatred and indifference until there's barely room left to breathe.

"So what's next?" Miguel asks, already knowing the answer but giving me space to say it out loud, to make it real by speaking it into existence.

"Tomorrow I put the fucking armor back on," I say, feeling Aubrey's hand squeeze mine like she's trying to transfer some of her strength directly into my bones. "Polish up the resume, practice my 'professional' voice in the mirror like some kind of broken record, and walk into another conference room full of people who've already decided I don't belong there. Another day of pretending that my three decades of preventing cyber catastrophes are somehow less important than fitting their narrow definition of what competence looks like. And then practice my spiel — I started my career 30 years ago in data forensics and data recovery…blah blah blah…..", I below in sadness.

"Your voice is fucking perfect," Della says fiercely, like she's arguing with the universe itself. "Your experience is real as gravity. Their problem isn't you—it's them. It's their inability to see past their own prejudices to recognize expertise when it's sitting right in front of them."

I know she's right. Intellectually, I know that the problem isn't my qualifications or my voice or anything else about me. The problem is a system that would rather hand that job to someone young rather than acknowledge that expertise can come in forms they didn't expect, that competence doesn't always look like what they think it should look like, that maybe—just fucking maybe—a trans woman who's been doing this longer than they've been alive might know a thing or two about keeping networks secure.

But knowing doesn't make it hurt less when you're sitting across from people who look at thirty years of preventing cyber catastrophes and see only a beat up old wardog in a dress and heels, a curiosity to be dismissed rather than an expert to be respected.

"Pour me another, Migs," I say, holding out my cup. "And maybe tomorrow I'll remember that I've survived worse than some startup dipshits who think my skills and knowledge are just things they can train a dog to do."

The second whiskey tastes like determination mixed with exhaustion. Around me, my chosen family settles into their usual rhythms—Ezra queuing up something loud and angry on the speakers, Leila chalking a pool cue with the intensity of a surgeon preparing for operation, someone firing up the ancient gaming console that barely works but somehow always manages to distract us from the world's relentless cruelty.

This basement, with its water stains and questionable electrical work, holds more safety than any corporate office ever will. Here, thirty years of experience means something. Here, being trans doesn't negate three decades of keeping the digital world from burning down.

Here, I'm not a curiosity or a liability or a diversity hire to be tolerated. I'm just Wendy—the woman who's forgotten more about software development than most people will ever learn, who's earned every grey hair fighting fires that would have consumed entire organizations if left unchecked, who's spent three decades standing between civilization and digital chaos. And Aubrey isn't just my "partner" to be mentioned in hushed, apologetic tones—the person who reminds me daily that I am not something to be ashamed of.

So I'll climb those concrete stairs that feel like Jacob's ladder leading to nowhere, and we'll both walk back into a world that sees our existence as negotiable, our love as political, our expertise as suspect. But tonight, surrounded by the sweet smell of cannabis and cheap whiskey and the kind of love that only comes from people who've been through hell together and somehow found each other on the other side, I remember who I really fucking am.

And maybe, just maybe, that'll be enough to get us both through one more day of proving that trans people can be just as competent professionals as anyone else—if only someone would give us the fucking chance. Maybe it'll be enough to remind me that expertise doesn't become less valid because it comes wrapped in a package that isn’t what people expect, that love doesn't become less real because it doesn't fit their narrow definition of acceptable.

The whiskey burns, but it's nothing compared to the fire in my chest—part rage, part hope, part desperate determination to keep fighting even when the world insists we should just lie down and fucking die. Aubrey's hand in mine feels like proof that some things are worth fighting for, that some battles are worth the blood and tears and broken dreams scattered along the way.

And if tomorrow brings another conference room full of entitled assholes who think thirty years of experience means nothing compared to fitting their idea of who gets to be an expert, well—at least I won't be facing that shit alone.

They can fuck themselves.