Trans Joy: Peace and Quiet

Ahead of Smutathon 2021, we’re publishing a series of Trans Joy posts. We want to flip the script on trans people being asked to perform their pain over and over again to prove that they deserve human rights. Instead, we want to celebrate trans joy and gender euphoria. We’ve teamed up with Quenby Creatives, whose Trans Joy series highlights the positive side of trans experiences to bring some balance to trans discourses.

Today’s post is from the wonderful Anne Stagg. Anne Stagg (they/them) is a queer author and poet. They are active in advocating for the creation of healthy, affirming spaces for the LGBTQIA community and creating sex-positive spaces free from fear and shame. You can read their poetry, flash fiction, and musings at annestaggwrites.com.

Peace and Quiet

Sometimes trans joy is a loud, ass over tea kettle experience of euphoria. The first time I saw my underwear bulging with my cock knocked me breathless. Then there are moments when the sense of completion whispers like a lover telling you their truth in the scant space between your lips and theirs. 

It took me a long time to stand in my trans and nonbinary truth. I was nine when I recognized the dissonance between my fluid perception of my gender, the pieces of me I missed, and the way the world saw me. Forty years later, I looked in the mirror and claimed my language and myself. Genderqueer. Trans. Nonbinary. 

Talk about earth-shaking moments. 

That first year was full of exuberance. The soft exhalation of peace and joy came about a year later. My honey and I were talking about my experience of being out as genderqueer. I was telling him about the sensation of feeling grounded in my body when I had one of those Sixth Sense moments.

Looking back over the past year, I realized the anxiety I’d learned to live with was gone. 

I had listened to a drone of self-doubt for four decades. It was background noise I’d learned to accept, like the hum of the fridge or the drip of a leaky faucet. An immutable experience I never expected to change. 

Then there was silence and the realization that something within me had settled and healed. Joy replaced fear. As revelatory as the moment was, it was also gentle. After forty years living with the constant clang of fear, I stood in my freedom, quiet and sure.

Quenby Creatives is an award winning erotica writer and embodiment of queer chaos. Their work explores themes of fatness, trans sex, and tender affection expressed through heavy kink. They have been running Trans Joy since 2019 to celebrate the positive side of trans experiences and bring some balance to trans discourses.

You can purchase a copy of the first Trans Joy zine here.