Trans Loves, You Deserve to Live. Here Are Some Things That Can Make It Easier (Part One)
A trans psychologist on accessible avenues for sustainable, meaningful life alongside oppression and violence
I’ve started writing this on April 1st, but this is very much not an April Fool’s Day post. I’ve never been good at those, and I have some very serious things to say after a TDOV that right-wing governments in this country tried to mar with further restrictions on our rights and reduced protections of our safety and autonomy.
I’m a psychologist, licensed and highly trained in the provision of psychotherapy. Under that hat, I’m also a student of (and to a smaller extent contributor to) a wide range of research on psychological functioning and wellbeing. And I’m a trans man who has been living in this world for 38 years, and just three days from crossing my 16 year testosterone anniversary.
A Somewhat Brief Argument for Living
In my life and particularly my years as an out trans person, I’ve witnessed so many incredible trans stories and connected to so many trans people — so much trans life. I know how wonderful it is, even in its most “mundane” forms. (You don’t have to be an activist or loudly gender non-conforming or racking up external accolades to have a life that is beautiful.) Life can be an awe-inspiring experience, so rich, so vibrant. Even in periods of suffering, I am awed by our capacity for suffering and our literal capacity to stay breathing during that pain and weight. I am inspired by my clients who manage to put words or visual expressions or body movements and facial gestures or guttural sounds to incredibly complex emotions and internal experiences that sometimes threaten to crush the soul. And I am inspired by the reminder that very often, such feelings do not permanently crush the soul or spirit.
And beyond the beautiful capacity to suffer, which may draw eyerolls or disconnection (and I get it — you don’t have to agree with me), life is also full of opportunities for pleasure. Ecstasy. Not just sexual, but sure that too! I’m listening to Alex G.’s score to I Saw the TV Glow, and the way the track “The Double Lunch” is moving across my earbuds is making my brain tingle. At any moment while I am working on this in the early morning, my baby will wake up and I’ll watch her delight at the feeling in the back of her throat when she makes noises, often escalating to a full on shriek of excitement. Have you ever seen a sunrise? I mean, come on.
Have you ever had a really good strawberry? Well, you deserve to. You deserve to have an interaction with another person that feels so meaningful, you can’t quite describe it and you are certain you won’t forget it (even if you eventually do, because…brains). You deserve to laugh. You deserve to feel your brain tickle. To wonder how mountains grew up from earth. To consume creative works that challenge the way you think about things. To create things that challenge how others think about things or that help someone else feel alone. You deserve to have the chance to ride the highs and lows of life.
I believe there’s a strong argument for living for the trans people who come after us, perhaps long after us. And for living for our ancestors — our transcestors — who stayed alive for us (intentionally or not). Kai Cheng Thom wrote about this in her piece We Must Live for One Another and I get into it a bit in a Substack I wrote in May 2025:
I also want you to live because I know I am benefitted by a world full of trans people. I know that even people who think they are offering nothing to the planet and the people and beings on it actually have profound impacts on the worlds they move through and the social networks they are a part of. If you’re not already benefitting life by being a part of it (which you probably are), you can in the future.
These are all true and fine arguments for living.
But primarily I want you, my fellow trans being, to live because you deserve to soak up as much pleasure and sense of purpose as possible here in this one true life. I believe that most lives contain opportunity for incredible experiences and countless daily pleasures. And I believe that we all, and thus you, too, are deserving of such things.
Trans life has not been easy to sustain especially lately, I know. You — we — have to put up with so much.
I mentioned my ~qualifications~ at the top of this post, because I do think I am generally worth listening to (at least considering what I have to say) on this topic of the project of living. And because I need you to hear me out, especially at the start of this list of things you can do that make living easier. Because some of these things are almost enragingly simple. And yet, really important and worth reminding ourselves of.
Things You Can Do Right Now to Make Living Easier
1. Go to bed and wake up at similar times each night and morning.
There was a recent piece in The Guardian titled “Struggling to cope with the relentless and bleak news cycle? Go to bed early.” I think I could adapt it for our purposes: Struggling to cope with oppression? Get better sleep. It honestly sounds horrible, which is why I’ve asked you up front to hear me out. Because it is still really good advice.
Resisting the pull toward overwhelm, panic, and debilitating despair on days like yesterday — or recovering from dips into those valleys (because we will all crash out on some days) — requires our body to be working well, especially our brain and all its cognitive and emotional processing functions. In their frequently-cited review of the literature on the “intimate relationship” between sleep and emotion regulation, psychologists Marie Vandekerckhove and Yu-lin Wang explain that sleep deprivation causes heightened reactivity to adverse experiences and reduced functionality in in the parts of our brains that help us regulate our emotions.
Essentially, sleep is critical your brain responding to difficult information and challenging contexts in helpful ways.
But here’s the thing: There’s also leagues of research showing that oppression contributes to sleep disparities. Members of marginalized groups experience poorer sleep on average than people who don’t face discrimination and other bias. Chances are high that the stress of the world going to shit and trans people being extra targeted is making most trans people’s sleep worse. And here comes some psychologist (me) saying the trick to living as a trans person right now is to sleep more. Screw this guy, right?
Again I ask you to hear me out (and remember that I, too, am a stressed trans person who sits with other real, live, diverse stressed trans people most days of the week).
There are manifold reasons stress (including oppression-based stress) reduces sleep quality,1 and some of them are out of our control. But we actually have the power to interrupt some of these and reduce the relationship between oppression-related stress and poor sleep, which then will give us increased capacity to cope with oppression-related stress so it’s less likely to impact our sleep in ways we have less direct power over. It’s a spiral up! I swear!
The other reason this helps — besides ultimately improving your sleep quality — is that it gives your day predictable structure. This fascist chaotic government is making our lives feel really unpredictable, especially as we look to the future. It is incredibly soothing and reorienting to have a bit of routine and predictability in the middle of all of this.
Here’s what you can do today: Decide on a 30-minute window in which you want to wake up each morning and a 30-minute window in which you want to go to bed each night. Considerations:
Try to give yourself 8 hours in bed until you know for sure how much sleep you need.
Don’t set a wake up goal that’s more than an hour off of when you usually wake up. Shift the time by 15 minutes every 3-7 days.
Aim to be in your goal bedtime and wake time windows 80% of the time and minimize the length of time you stray outside of them (yes — even on weekends if you can help it!)
[I’m working on a whole big post about improving sleep and will link to that here when it’s published.]
2. Read trans books in bed.
Two more things actually under our control that improve our sleep (and thus our emotional regulation and ability to withstand the horrors™️) are having a bedtime ritual/routine and avoiding our phones. Reader, may I suggest reading as part of your phone-free bedtime routine? Get yourself an e-reader. You can read it with the lights off and you can set it to reduce the amount of blue light its emitting. (The e-ink is better on your eyes in general for what it’s worth.) And it can always live in your bed. You can even get library books on it.
As I mentioned above, having a predictable bedtime routine when life otherwise feels incredibly unpredictable is such a balm for the weary mind. Here’s an example, but edit at will:
Put your phone on do not disturb. (You can set rules for this so certain people can get through or after a certain number of repeat calls it actually rings.) And start your nighttime app blocker.
Brush your teeth.
Wash your face if you’re ambitious.
Make yourself some caffeine-free tea (Sleepytime, anyone?) and drink it slowly as you move through the next few steps.
Do a light stretch.
Get into bed and turn off the lights.
Do a breathing exercise or meditation.
Put on James Blake’s sleep soundscape (appropriately called Wind Down and clocking in at an hour in length).
Put your phone down.
Pick up your e-reader and cozy up until you’re ready to close your eyes.
I have a few suggestions for book selection: You want something that is enjoyable enough that you look forward to getting into bed and putting your phone down. But also something that is not stimulating enough (e.g., too much action, suspense, eroticism) to keep you awake when your body is ready for sleep. In service of the goal to make living easier for us trans folks, I also suggest reading trans history or trans literature written by fellow trans people.
Your mileage may vary depending on a number of factors, but in general stories of trans people making it work in the past and opportunities to connect with transcestors through memoirs and biographies is really powerful for the psyche. A big boost to that thing psychologists like to call resilience. I am a big fan of trans speculative fiction. What happens when we give ourselves space to imagine and build other worlds, other ways of living? Any trans story telling offers us a sense of solidarity and possibility, though. I believe. A great nighttime book for me was Callum Angus’ short story collection A Natural History of Transition.
Reading trans books in bed as part of your bedtime routine will aid in your sleep quality, give you something that is yours to look forward to at the end of the day, and help connect you with a vitality co-created by trans folks in history, all of us today, and the trans people of tomorrow. I’m promising big things here, but I do believe this can deliver if you make it a habit.
Here’s what you can do today:
Sign up for a library card [A reader named Albert let me know about Queer Liberation Library, a virtual library of e-books that offers free membership:
www.queerliberationlibrary.org — Thank you, Albert!]
Check out queer-owned Wisconsin bookstore Room of One’s Own’s lists of trans fiction, nonfiction, and speculative fiction for ideas! Actually, one of my favorite Substackers, Ben Greene, has a post of recommended trans reading from this year’s Trans Rights Readathon, so this is also a great place for recs:
Leave a note to yourself in your bed that says you want to read tonight!
And then do it - read the book! Even 5 minutes starts the habit. Don’t have a trans book yet? Read what you have! Don’t have an e-reader? Read a physical book or use an app on your phone for now!
If you do better with accountability and community in reading, there are some really cool online trans and queer book club too:
Kyle Ranson-Walsh of the being alive Substack hosts a monthly book club:
Details here. This month they’re reading the new fiction book Night Night Fawn which is on my list, so maybe I’ll join too!
Image taken from the Being Alive Book Club The folks over at Nonbinarian Bookstore and Book Bike Distro (yep, so cool!) do a monthly hybrid Reading Trancestors Trans History Book Club. This month they’re reading A Black Queer History of the United States by C. Riley Snorton and Darius Bost which is also on my list… Details, in-person registration, and zoom link here. (Note: don’t use the Register button on luma if you’re attending online; scroll down for the zoom link.)
3. Sing. And/or be sung to.
I recently listened to RAYE’s brand new epic album THIS MUSIC MAY CONTAIN HOPE. And the album delivers big on its promise. In particular the two songs “I Know You’re Hurting” and “Life Boat” (situated next to each other in the album with the former featuring the London Symphony Orchestra and Flames Collective choir) bring me to tears. Listening to these make me feel like and believe that I can survive most anything. That’s a powerful magic.
When I was a youth worker for a trans youth group back in 2011, I had a group of teens each choose a song or two they listened to when they needed to feel courageous or do something hard — a pump up / believe in yourself song. And then we made mix CDs of all of them for each youth. Sadly I don’t have the full track list. But I remember mine: Gossip’s Move In the Right Direction. What song would you have chosen?
The other day I took a walk with a dear friend who is also a therapist and also a new parent. She was talking about how she survives the challenging days and nights, and after we laughed about a silly song about hiccups and the way my partner and I have adapted various songs to be about baby farts, she said something quite profound: “Songs are an ancient technology.”
Songs are an ancient technology.
Humans (and actually other animals) have been singing for communication, self-and other-soothing, and cultural connection/transmission probably since the dawn of our species. Music activates certain parts of the brain that spoken language alone typically does not — music is particularly emotionally resonant. And it’s good for us! It offers inspiration that is experienced in an embodied way that can be incredibly effective. I also think it is intimate in a very particular way. We sing lullabies to babies and spirituals to the ailing and dying as acts of care and comfort.
And you know what makes living easier, trans friend? Care and comfort. So sing to yourself. And put on music knowing that the person creating it wanted you to hear it. It is a message to you. Close your eyes and move to it. Sing along.
Here’s what you can do today: I mean — put on your favorite music and sing along! I have shared some of the music that I find meaningful during these challenging times, but it’s just a fraction of what I love and an even smaller fraction of what is out there. Definitely check out the TRANSA project if you are interested in trans-focused music; most of the songs are collaborations between trans and cis artists, some very well known. I wrote about the production just after the 2024 election.
Also check out Singing Resistance opportunities for a chance to gather with others and sing songs of hope and protest. Maybe be bold af and start a local group??
4. Get fucking angry.
In case you thought this was all getting a bit too predictable (but hopefully still helpful!), please allow me to throw you a slight curve ball: I invite you to rage.2
Trans beloveds, your anger is power. It is your will to live. It is your belief that you deserve better. It is the energy that fuels meaningful living and — for some — drives the resistance that leads to better conditions for us and for those that come later. It is also a real and appropriate response to what is being done to us.
But anger that is pent up, disavowed, buried, restricted to a shame-locked internal corridor… that anger is harmful both to us and to the people it leaks out onto and at. But usually mostly to us. It is turned inward, directed at ourselves, or transformed into a heavy, dull weight and/or a funhouse mirror that distorts our perception and makes it hard to see and remember the good.
My response to racism is anger. That anger has eaten clefts into my living only when it remained unspoken, useless to anyone. - Audre Lorde
Here’s what you can do today: Do you have a car? Go somewhere safe and play some angry music and scream-sing along. Dance hard in your living room! (Again, music is an ancient technology.) Do you have something you can punch or a pillow you can scream into? Good. Do those things. Maybe you can run hard or lift weights. Can you get far enough away from other people that you can do a primal scream without someone being concerned? Definitely do that. Create art that captures your anger. After you rage for a bit (or a while) do some after care. Feed yourself. Have a soothing practice planned. You deserve to rage and you deserve to be comforted. You may feel elated after this but you also may feel really sad for a bit, and that’s okay and normal and again understandable. Just make sure you have some time and prep so you can take care of yourself or have someone else care for you a bit.
If you want to do some reading on anger and how to channel it into something adaptive, I’ve got a few suggestions of stuff available online, but you don’t have to!
Interview with Myisha Cherry on her book: The Case for Rage: Why Anger is Essential to the Anti-Racist Struggle
The Too Long; Didn’t Read (TL;DR) Summary
You deserve to live meaningfully and I get that that may feel extra hard right now.
Improve your sleep (which will help you feel more emotionally stable in the face of bad shit) and give yourself the gift of predictability in an unpredictable world by sticking to regular bedtimes and wake times.
Offer yourself the comfort of an evening routine and the inspiration and solidarity of the trans community by reading trans books at bedtime.
Use the ancient technology of music to feel your feelings, get inspiration and energy to move forward, and connect with others.
Lean into your rage about the state of the world and the violence being perpetrated against you and our communities. Rather than trying to swallow it or stuff it down, channel your anger in safe ways.
Part two coming next week!
Reasons stress can lead to poorer sleep quality: Hyperarousal making it harder to fall and stay asleep, elevated cortisol and HPA-axis activity reducing ability of body to enter deep sleep, rumination (aka racing thoughts), physical impacts of stress (e.g., upset stomach, pain) impeding comfortable sleep, engagement in behaviors that promote wakefulness and difficulty interrupting poor sleep habits, and conditioned insomnia that develops after repeated nights of poor sleep and causes bedtime to become associated with anxiety and pressure
I want to note here that the Audre Lorde quote about unspoken anger is decontextualized, and Lorde deserves its context explained: This is an excerpt from a powerful keynote speech Lorde gave to the National Women’s Studies Association Conference in 1981, challenging white women to contend with the valid anger of Black women. Full speech here.
This was perfect to read first thing in the morning. ❤
On the library card front, I want to shout out Queer Liberation Library. It's a virtual library full of books by and for our community and it's super easy to get a card for Libby. My local libraries have great selections too, but I still find books at QLL that they don't have. I love that it exists and I want more people to know about it!
Thank you Sebastian!