The Past 12 Months

CW: suicidal ideation, emotional abuse, medical trauma, gender dysphoria

Writing this is one of the only ways I can process what happened to me in my final year of grad school. Which is to say, too much: emotional abuse, multiple betrayals, social isolation, medical trauma, and one of the most intense bouts of suicidal ideation I’ve ever experienced. If that last part scares you, rest assured that I’ve climbed out of the hole I was in, and I’m in a much better place. My therapist is excellent at her job, and I’m privileged to have someone like her to help me get through one of the worst years in my entire life.

Part of me wonders if I should be so direct and open about what happened. Initially I wanted to post all of this directly on social media, but that felt too exposing. I have a hunch that most people aren’t willing to do the extra clicking on my IG bio to learn more about what’s going on in my life, so it felt safest to make this into a blog post on my website. But I needed an outlet to express what happened to me, so if you’re reading this - even just for a few sentences - thanks for bearing witness. This is also the longest blog post I’ve ever written, and that’s on purpose. I know most people won’t read to the very end, and that’s helpful for the purposes of controlling any response to this post.

Various folks might know that I was pursuing vaginoplasty, and the good news is that I’ve come out from the other side, and I’m fully recovered. But the road to get here was extremely painful, and so much of it had to do with my particular case being unusual and out of the norm for trans healthcare, and I think it’s important to share my story for any gender non-conforming trans people who might benefit from it.

Back in December 2025, my surgeon, for whom I had spent an entire year on her waitlist to receive care, went into her office to retrieve consent forms for me to sign. Then, she abruptly walked back to announce that she no longer felt comfortable performing this surgery, and that she needed to speak to my PCP and endocrinologist to confirm some details about my hormone situation. I pointed out that we had been seeing each other for an entire year, and that she should’ve known about my hormones much earlier. She suggested I see another provider, but I told her I no longer had any other options for surgeons because my insurance was about to expire in three months. She told me that if she couldn’t get conclusive answers from my care team about how my hormones were going to be managed after surgery, she would need to cancel the procedure.

For context: I was assigned male at birth, and I was pursuing vaginoplasty without hormone replacement therapy (HRT). This is not well-known in the medical field, but HRT is actually not required for a safe and healthy recovery from bottom surgery. Trans healthcare is still an emerging field, and many doctors who specialize in gender-affirming care still have a wide gap in their knowledge how to handle non-binary or gender non-confirming patients. Thank god for my PCP and endocrinologist, who’ve been amazing throughout this whole process. I’m now on supplemental testosterone, and I’m currently taking very small doses of estrogen as well.

The potential cancellation of my surgery sent me on a suicidal spiral that lasted two weeks. I began to research how to make an exit bag, purchased a book on assisted suicide, and even wrote letters for my mother, my close friends, my therapist, and the man I was in love with (more on him later). I was so ready to die. If it weren’t for a certain close friend of mine, I would probably be dead right now. I truly felt like I had no one else to turn to, because various folks from my friend group had proven to me that I couldn’t trust them with sensitive information. This anonymous friend, having her own experience navigating trans healthcare, came up with strategies to prevent the surgery from being cancelled, and I think of her as a true friend.

Thankfully, with a signed letter from UCLA’s top psychologist specializing in gender-affirming care, I was approved for surgery. There is still a deep discomfort in having to continue to see a provider who I absolutely despise for post-op care, but I’ve been through far worse. My surgery was on March 19th, 2026. I’ve had a lot of complex feelings about how my community showed up for me during my recovery.

On one hand, people were very vocal about their support, and donated tons of money to my recovery fund. I am eternally grateful for this. So many people – even people I barely know – came from the woodwork to offer their financial support. It made me cry multiple times. I still wrestle with the question: how could someone who barely knows me invest so much money in my medical care? Why me? I think about how many Black trans people don’t receive the same level of support, and it truly humbles me. For those who are interested in supporting Black trans people with their medical care, feel free to click this link to learn more.

On the other hand, there were some noticeable gaps from community members who I felt should’ve been there for me, but weren’t. I’m referring to a specific group of friends that I thought I was close to, but in the end, couldn’t live up to the image they projected of themselves. These were people who wrote trans characters into their stories and talked a big talk about being in queer community. Only one of them showed up to my apartment to help with my recovery. That same person is the only one I still speak to from that group, along with some newer folks in the group that I still get along with, but had to be distant from due to the social upheaval.

I experienced a brutal recovery period. At times, my pain was so immense that I couldn’t even move, and I had to ask a neighbor for help retrieving the pain meds that slid underneath my bed because I couldn’t kneel down on my feet. I had to wear a catheter for the first two weeks of recovery, which had to be painfully reinserted after I was incapable of peeing. I also had to call 911 after a waterfall of blood came gushing out of me, setting me back by returning the pain that had faded away. It took me nine weeks to walk properly again, and I had to use a cane to get around.

I felt so alone through all of this, though I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the friends who came to run errands for me, pick up meds, kept me company, or even travelled from the other side of the country to see me. I don’t want this post to be entirely negative. Folks from Ammunition Theatre Company (AMMO) – the volunteer theatre company I’m a part of – really showed up for me in some meaningful ways. Being in grad school forced me to put them on the back burner, but I’m grateful to have another community of people that I can look to for support. I love being a part of AMMO, they’ve been like a second home for me. I was also outed to several of my neighbors who, ironically, ended up offering a lot of help and assistance in ways that my friend group never would.

As all of this was happening, I was also embroiled in a deeply traumatizing relationship with someone from the aforementioned friend group. I want to be careful when I write about this, because I can’t make assumptions about what people did and didn’t know about this situation, and just how aware they were. For simplicity’s sake, let’s call this person Koy. That pseudonym will become relevant later.

Koy joined our friend group over a year and a half ago, and a lot of people in our group suggested he and I would get along. Initially, I wasn’t attracted to him. But I was the last person in our friend group to learn he was bisexual, and my first thought was, “Oh no, I need to stay away from this guy or else I might catch feelings for him.” Nevertheless, Koy insisted that we hang out with each other, and while he was housesitting in my neighborhood, I eventually caved and spent some time with him.

Koy was an incredibly charismatic, eccentric, and fascinating person to be around. Unfortunately, I did catch feelings. But I worked very hard to suppress them, and to try to keep him at arm’s length. Still, he engaged in a variety of behaviors that confused me: he called me cute and hot, talked about moving with me to New York, suggested we visit his home country, secretly caressed my hand in group settings, found excuses to be near me and to touch me, became seemingly aroused when I talked about my sex life, and seemed strangely quiet when other men at the gay bar would hit on me. Our gatherings felt deeply romantic, and we would go to museums and classical music concerts, sometimes spending seven hours together.

Eventually, my feelings became too intense, and I had to tell him how I felt. He told me that he “didn’t think he felt the same way”, and that he was only interested in a platonic relationship. I was hurt, and I told him I needed some distance to process and get over him. But instead, he kept closing the distance, kept offering me cigarettes, and kept trying to find ways to be near me. I expressed my confusion with his behavior, and he proceeded to tell me that *I* was the one who was imagining things, and that I kept reading into his behavior. He requested a break from having difficult conversations about our dynamic, and I relented.

I spent several months trying to be “just friends” with him, because I loved him enough that I just wanted to have him in my life somehow – even as a platonic friend. During this “just friends” period, he bought me dinner and ice cream for my birthday, asked me if I wanted kids, let me dress him up at thrift stores, and even accepted late-night rides home from the opposite side of LA – all while knowing exactly the way I felt about him. What felt especially egregious was when we were in line to get ice cream, I thanked him, and his face moved inches close to mine as he said: “This is what people from [my country] do for their loved ones.” It was almost as if he was egging me on to kiss him.

Needless to say, I was very emotionally invested in him, and I will always own that. But I knew the friendship was unsustainable, and after expressing that to him, he became upset and refused to speak to me on the phone or to meet me in person to talk about what was going on. He began to attack my word choice via text – words like “even” or “just” were apparently too offensive for him, and a sign that I was being aggressive. He waxed poetic about his philosophy of friendship while declaring that I had a “dark and grim” view of friendship. I realized he had zero interest in having a real conversation with me about this, and I snapped and told him:

“All you ever wanted was someone to drive you around LA and make you feel good about yourself.”

Apparently, this hurt him deeply. He told me my words were damaging. A hit dog hollers. Rather than try to prove me wrong, he continued to pontificate about how my perspective was warped. I became emotionally drained, stopped responding, and called the crisis hotline that very same night. Two of my closest friends from the East Coast had to talk me down, and I decided that anyone who made me feel this terrible had no place in my life. The next day, I sent him a long message telling him how dangerous the situation was for me, that I had called the crisis hotline, and to not speak to me again unless he was ready to take responsibility for the situation that he had co-created.

About a month later, I would see him around repeatedly, and he would try to skirt the boundaries by waving at me in public and he attempted to interact with me indirectly while never caring to speak to me in private about what happened. Eventually, it was causing so much tension in our friend group that I approached him asking if we could figure out a way to co-exist again. He said, “Sure, but I’m not ready to give you an apology.”

It was a strange choice of words, but after speaking with him, I brought up the “driving you around LA” comment and he exploded on me. I had never seen him so angry before, and I’m willing to bet no one else has. Most people who knew Koy would be shocked to see such a happy-go-lucky person drop their mask in the way that he did. “How could you say that to me! How dare you! What’s wrong with you?!” Strangers – even some people we both knew – would pass by and stare. I wanted us to speak privately, but he insisted on speaking in a public space. He demanded an apology from me without ever offering one himself. He repeatedly denied his pattern of confusing behaviors, and how much it hurt me. He did all of this even knowing that I had called the crisis hotline, knowing how sensitive the situation was. Eventually, I gave up, and told him not to speak to me (yet again) without holding himself accountable first.

I fell in love with an emotionally abusive man. It has taken a lot of reflection for me to even use the phrase “emotional abuse” to describe his actions. I’m 34, I’ve been with many many men, and Koy is the first one I would call emotionally abusive. A small part of me still has empathy for him: Koy was a baby queer from a conservative foreign country who was newly exploring his sexuality, and had just broken up with his cheating ex of 11 years before meeting me.

Some people suggested that cultural differences played a role in this situation, and quite frankly, I’ve always found that idea to be infantilizing. Koy is not a naïve foreigner or a confused immigrant who doesn’t know any better – he is a fully grown adult who repeatedly made choices that caused harm. It even seems condescending to him, as if he’s incapable of knowing right from wrong because of his culture. I’ve run out of empathy to offer for his situation. Where was the empathy for me while I was bleeding out in the ER?

Even worse, so much of the dynamic triggered a complex gender dysphoria that I’m still unable to fully process. Koy was able to be vulnerable with so many cis women, like a good feminist. The cis women in my friend group have watched him cry and have emotional breakdowns, and how could they not console someone so broken? But me? I got screaming and yelling and berating. I never felt soft or femme enough for Koy. In my final gesture to him, I wrote him a 2-page love letter scented with perfume, on custom stationary displaying sunflowers and wild roses – our favorite flowers. The letter acknowledged the significance he had in my life while explaining succinctly just how badly he hurt me. It was the most feminine act I’ve ever done. But Koy had systematically pitted me against all the cis women in my friend group.

I called the crisis hotline three times in one month because of him. Every time I looked at him, I wanted to die. No man I dated ever caused that much emotional distress. For the record: I no longer care if Koy denies what happened, or if he insists on calling it “platonic.” We were in a romantic relationship, he is now my ex, and reclaiming that truth is how I can move on. Koy repeatedly gaslighted me, continued to engage in romantic and seductive behaviors even knowing how I felt, and became belligerent when I confronted him with the truth. I felt so humiliated as he screamed at me in public for passersbys to spectate. Even now, I would still be willing to talk to him and maybe even forgive him if he held himself accountable, but he’s clearly shown no signs of having the emotional maturity to do so. There are some people reading this who may even question whether this constitutes emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is actually very hard to prove, and so much of it exists in the minds of the people involved. But if you find yourself doubting my narrative, please walk away and keep it to yourself.

Ironically, the conflict with my friend group hurt far more than the turmoil of my surgery. I spent two and a half years with these people, watched them at their most vulnerable, participated in protests with them, and saw them pour themselves into their own art - only for them to betray me. One person from our friend group who I told about Koy reported me to a crisis support center behind my back, stating that they had to be a “responsible employee” because I referenced my own suicide – a hot potato moment. That same person also invited everyone from the group to their own birthday party except for me - to punish me for temporarily blocking them while I was going through emotional distress. Later they would tell me: “This friendship doesn’t have the depth you think it has.” While that might seem like a hurtful comment, I do have to thank them for catalyzing the important realization that I’m a relationship anarchist, and so much of what happened is connected to the way I relate to other people. Their comment was also a bullshit narrative they tell themselves to justify what they did, because I’ve literally consoled this person while they were crying on their first day of work and expressed numerous insecurities during our friendship. But I guess that’s not depth?

It was clear that nearly the entire friend group chose Koy over me. To be fair, I recognize that some people didn’t understand the full extent of what happened between us – especially those who were newer in the group. I will never blame those people for not knowing. Nevertheless, what happened between Koy and I destroyed my entire relationship with the collective. I can no longer go to any events with them, knowing their overwhelming lack of support with my recovery as well as their refusal to see what was happening with Koy was less important than their comfort. I never asked anyone to pick a side, but it looks like they did anyways.

When I first moved to LA, I reconnected with a dear friend of mine from Philly, who jokingly asked: “So, has anyone in LA betrayed you yet?” I scoffed at the idea of it – no way! I’m not the type of person that people betray! But look at me now.

At the end of the day, I’ve survived all of this. But if you see me around after reading this, I could use a friend. I have never experienced emotional abuse, and I’ve never experienced betrayal from an entire friend group before. It’s a deeply lonely experience having to lose a support network here in LA, and I could use some invites. Invite me to your party. Invite me to watch a movie with you. Invite me out to dinner. Invite me to watch you fold laundry. Include me in your life, if you’d like me to be a part of it.

My body has healed, I’m starting to talk to men again, and I’m learning to trust their attraction to me. I feel desired again, and I’m starting to reclaim a lot of the erotic power that Koy stole from me. I proudly go to nude events, fully exposing my trans body to anyone who’s willing to look. For better or worse, my existence is educational, and my presence is radical. I’ve come to the conclusion that I will always be braver than most people I know, and I’ve accepted that sometimes this will isolate me from the rest of society.

I’ve always had a rocky relationship with the notion of community. About seven years ago, back when I was doing community organizing and art activism in Philly, I would watch dozens of people cannibalize each other over their pedantic purity tests and values differences. I’m no stranger to performative behavior or activism, and perhaps I’ve even been guilty of it myself. My therapist frequently tells me: “Everyone wants a village, but nobody wants to be a villager.” But individualism is not inherently wrong or selfish. Individualism can also protect us from community harm.

Soon, I’ll be taking shrooms for the first time in years. Taking psychedelics feels like a necessary act to process an incredibly difficult year. I’m taking them alone, in the woods, at Franklin Canyon. And I know I will feel safe. Even when I’m alone, I’ll still be safe, as I’ve always been.

This writing is documentation of my hope and grief. Thank you for reading to the end.