Gabrielle Bellot on how it feels to be a trans person who loved the Harry Potter books, and how it feels to be a trans person more generally. 

It’s emotionally and spiritually exhausting to debate your identity; sometimes, you just want to log off social media and take a walk or hug someone you love for support, curling up in your own small safe harbor, where, at least for a bit, no one is accusing you of being a freak, a pervert, an abomination who does not belong in the annals of this Earth.

At other times, I want to shout my barbaric yawp from the rooftops. I want to scream no, fuck off, I won’t let you demean me. This is who I am, this is foundational to my sense of self, and I didn’t choose to be like this, would never pretend to be something that has brought me so much pain and loss. I want to scream that I gave up so much when I came out as trans—my former home country, any hope of a good relationship with my family, old friends, any chance of a simple life—but stuck with it, anyway, because transitioning was essential for me, rather than some silly choice. I had to come out, or I couldn’t keep living because the pain, the dissonant music of living a lie, was too much.

I want to yell in these moments, until I start to cry.