hello comrades, breana here.
eye want to offer a reflection on my path to Chemistry: A T4T Dating Show, and what it meant to choose visibility in a moment where eye did not feel ready to be seen.
what does it mean to be seen
while the body is still becoming?
while the skin is flaring,
the hormones are shifting,
the reflection feels unfamiliar
and deeply mine at the same time?
eye almost didn’t apply.
there was a form—questions about desire, orientation, relationship status, and a choice: contestant or prize date.
the leo in me said: prize.
so eye chose that and eye spoke about attraction.
about loving when people are good at things.
about the intimacy of witnessing someone in their offering.
sing me a song.
but before the show – there was a camera.
and a version of myself eye was struggling to feel at home in my body.
eye was moving through an acne flare two years into my testosterone journey, alongside the quiet shifts of aging. eye take pride in caring for myself—hydration, nourishment, attention—and still, my skin was having a hard time.
my face held small wounds that would not soften and eye felt self-conscious.
and still, eye had to record.
so eye told myself: this is an experiment. we are practicing being seen.
and damn was it uncomfortable.
because to be trans is to practice becoming.
(a birthright, a calling)
there have been many versions of me—shaved head, no eyebrows, stark and unadorned. and now, a version learning again what feels affirming. what feels like center.
none of it is fixed.
and still, there is a gaze. from community, from culture, from inside my own body.
eye am not impervious to it.
testosterone has changed my body—my face, my weight, my proportions.
eye am bigger now.
and in some ways, that feels like strength.
eye am learning to build my body differently, to inhabit it with more agency. and at the same time, eye carry a history of pain—years of debilitating cycles, dysphoria, and disconnection.
now, there is some relief. not perfect, but softer.
and eye feel gratitude inside that.
everything here is an experiment.
eye got top surgery in april 2024, and eye love my chest. the simplicity of a t-shirt on this body feels revelatory.
and still, care is not always affirming.
my surgeon delivered precision, but not tenderness. and when eye asked for a revision, she suggested weight loss.
that moment stayed with me.
because some comments linger in the body—
in the way clothing presses against skin,
in the stories we begin to tell ourselves.
so eye speak it out loud.
this happened.
eye am taking care of myself.
eye am eating.
eye am staying.
eye think often about how to live in this body with more ease.
how to soften the self-surveillance that was taught early—through dance, through performance, through always being watched.
eye am still unlearning that gaze.
still asking: what is mine? what is not?
recently, eye remembered the word androgyny and felt something settle.
a life lived in between has, at times, made me invisible in ways that felt safe, and at other times invisible in ways that felt erasing.
so eye continue to find center, again and again.
what is authentic today?
eye feel deeply grateful—for access to care, for testosterone, for the ways my body has changed.
and also honest about the complexity of that change.
HRT is an experiment, but it is also a commitment. some shifts stay, some leave, some arrive without permission.
and still, there is a devotion in choosing to become.
because even in discomfort, even in doubt, there is something eye know to be true:
eye want to be seen.
eye want to share my art, my work, my stories.
so eye made the video.
with acne.
with tenderness.
with uncertainty.
and it led me to something sweet.
a day of connection.
a day of celebration.
a day of being trans, and alive, and witnessed.
what a way to honor Black History Month.
what a way to honor this life.
it is uncomfortable being human and being seen.
and that is okay too.
You can watch the full episode here:
