On Not Disappearing

Over the last few years, I have been open—sometimes uncomfortably so—about my experiences as a trans child growing up. That openness required self-reflection, and with it came vulnerability. I knew that sharing these vignettes would expose me to misinterpretation, hostility, and people willing to take advantage of honesty offered in good faith. Still, I chose to write.

I share these journal-like essays partly to remind myself how far I’ve come, but more importantly to show that there is a path forward for those earlier in their own journey of discovery and transition. These stories trace me stumbling along an uneven road—missteps, fear, and loss included—only to emerge on the other side stronger, happier, and more at ease in myself. If there is beauty here, it is hard-won.

During my first and only campaign for public office in 2022, a mother approached me at a community event. By then, local media had identified me as the first openly trans candidate to run for regional council in Niagara. Holding back tears, she told me she had two trans children. She thanked me for writing about my life, my career, and for choosing visibility in public life. Seeing someone like me, she said, had given her hope that her children could grow up to find fulfillment—professionally and personally—without having to disappear.

I am not someone to be modelled after. But that moment stayed with me. It crystallized two quiet obligations I had already begun to feel: to live in a way others might recognize as possible, and to remain honest about both the difficulties and the joys of life after transition.

At some point, every trans person must confront the question of stealth.

Stealth is not simply privacy. It is the decision to sever continuity—to leave behind friends, family, geography, and history in order to live fully as oneself without reference to an earlier life. It promises quiet. It promises safety. It promises a clean slate.

Living stealth would have allowed me, at least temporarily, to shed the weight of growing up assigned the wrong gender. That weight still surfaces—like scars you notice only when the light hits just right. I see it when an old friend hesitates, or when a family member reaches for a name I no longer use. Stealth would have meant a new city, new relationships, a carefully curated past. No explanations. No footnotes.

But clean slates come at a cost.

Stealth would have required walking away from the family and the few friends who stayed when others did not—those who adjusted, learned, apologized, and showed up. It would have offered new horizons, but at the price of a debt I could never repay to myself. I could not trade connection for convenience. I could not erase the people who chose me when choosing me was not easy.

As a child and later an awkward teenager, I often imagined transition as a vanishing act. In those dreams, I moved far away and began again as the woman I knew myself to be, untouched by the past. Media representations reinforced this idea—suggesting, subtly and sometimes cruelly, that trans women must flee in order to survive. Shame and secrecy were presented as prerequisites for peace.

For a time, I believed that.

But I am not good at making lifelong friends. My record is uneven, marked by distance and missed chances. Going stealth would have only deepened that pattern. More importantly, it would have meant abandoning the mercy, empathy, and action shown by the people who stood beside me. I needed their proximity—not just their support, but their example. I wanted to learn how to carry myself with the same care they extended to me.

And so, despite an early desire for a reconstructed history and the childhood I never had, I stayed.

The friends who joined me at the beginning of my transition remain with me still. Their presence settled the question of stealth entirely. Disappearing was never an option.

I recognize that not everyone can make this choice. I understand why some trans people live stealth, or must. I place no judgment on that decision. Safety, survival, and peace take different forms for different people.

My own transition unfolded unevenly—socially in the country of my birth, medically and legally while living abroad. That choice complicated things. Transitioning in South Korea, a deeply conservative country, required resilience I didn’t yet know I had. Most employers were indifferent or unaware. One was not.

Late in my time in Seoul, a headmaster I worked under made her disapproval unmistakable. Her gaze lingered too long. Her tone sharpened when it shouldn’t have. She routinely attempted to discipline my gender—to shape it into something more acceptable to her. After years of progress, she was a reminder that cruelty can still arrive, unexpectedly and uninvited. When she retired, peace returned—but the memory remains.

Some people will always use visibility as fuel for hate. I do not believe forgiveness is a requirement for healing. I am not magnanimous enough for that, and I have made peace with it. Instead, I forget. I release their words, their judgments, their smallness. They have no claim on my life, my community, or my joy. 

Their relevance fades quickly.

What endures is love.

The friends, family, and chosen community I have gathered over the last twenty years have left an imprint on me that will never fade. Their emotional, practical, and unwavering support forms the architecture of my life. I cannot name them all here, but anyone who has followed my writing will recognize their presence between the lines.

I am often told that these reflections should end with hope—not as a retrospective, but as an offering. So here it is:

This journey will not be easy. Stealth or visibility, there will be loss. There will be fear. But there will also be growth, clarity, and a deeper alignment with yourself than you may yet imagine. You do not have to disappear to be safe within your own life. You are allowed to be known. And you are allowed to remain.

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