I am trans, and I have many names. This latest and greatest is the only one I bestowed on myself, the only one I’ve picked deliberately, the only one that I truly and fully consider mine.

The other names chase me yet – and will likely never fade away.

I am in that strange liminal interval between starting on hormones, having accepted your true nature at last, and actually having your body match your soul…

I am a bit of a coward. Currently, crisscrossing the United States and canvassing folks for all sorts of progressive causes, and yet wearing my male mask, the male clothes, the deliberate deep male voice, the just-so charismatic stubble. All that masking, all that disguise… It takes some time afterwards, in my company-provided hotel room, to decompress. In the trans community, that’s called “boy-moding” and it’s not at all uncommon.

I tell myself I will switch to the full-on social transition in November, after the elections, when I return to Canada, which may be a bit less transphobic than, say, rural Nebraska, the resident of which have yet to acknowledge the existence of my cis Black colleagues. (When only white people ghost you, does that count as extra-ghosting?)

I am Gabriel when I order at Starbucks: once, somebody called me that by mistake, unable to pronounce my admittedly odd foreign name, and I didn’t hate the sound of it. Sometimes, baristas act confused when I don’t respond right away to the very name that I gave them. You and me both, sister.

I am growing out my hair and trying to do voice exercises and know that, at the age of 39, I am starting too late… But even late is better than never. Better than living a lie.

I am The Godfather when I hike America’s longest trails. A trail name that has a funny story as its origin (and yes, with both words being capitalized), and one that is now known to hundreds of hikers and trail angels, who know me – and of me – by that moniker, and by that moniker alone. A bit ironic, that.

I am <far-too-exotic USSR-block name> that very few Westerners can pronounce, let alone will humour me with properly pronouncing past that first introduction. The less cultured among them usually guffaw and say, “Oh, it’s just like <utterly unrelated name>, huh? I’ll call you that now!” The somewhat more sophisticated try and fail and give up – and I tell them to just call me G. “Pretend like we’re Men in Black and call me by my first initial,” I say with an almost-authentic smile.

I look forward to never ever having to enact that dumb charade forevermore.

I am a refugee. I am a double immigrant. I am a person without a family. I am a triple-edged sword. I am an adventurer without a map. I am a self-aware dandelion seed on the wind of chaos. I am the secret third option. I am an existential act of defiance. I am the most minor minority. I am something new. Someone new.

I am Lily.

I am.

I am.