After a few minutes of trying casually to make eye contact, I got the sales associate’s attention. This gender-nonconforming person (I presumed, given their shaved head, huge orange pants, and two nineties lip rings) made no facial expression as they registered my presence and took me into a dressing room with a curtain that stretched only halfway across the stall. Fuck it. The world could handle the sight of this short guy with a beard—what a cute face—his stomach muscles visible under a slight layer of fat, a tattoo of an osprey on his upper thigh, a slightly wary look on his face no matter how hard he tried to be delighted.

I got down to my underwear and took out my phone. I ignored a text from Margot, How r u. It had been a while and I opened the app. I temporarily stepped into Aiden’s selfie persona, even if the lighting in there was unflattering enough to make someone buy twenty pairs of peony-shaded leggings to feel better about themselves.

@ift with @aidenchasestruth. <3

I left Blithe out of it because he was developmentally under eighteen.

My bod was still buzzing with desire. I showed Blithe and Aiden my shorts. Blithe shrugged and Aiden smiled an approving-parent smile.

We walked out into the street, and right at the corner of Houston and Broadway, a new Operatrix appeared, a Black femme in a jean jacket and crinkly green skirt and necklace that read Mar’iah.

“Hello, you merry three transmen,” she said. “I’ve noticed a spike in all of your bioaffective data—even yours, B—and I wanted to say, soak in it. Soak in the joy, soak in the warmth, soak in the winning of the tiniest battles. But don’t become complacent privileged bros who make a man-cave of safety for themselves and shove a boulder in front of the entrance. That is all.”

We all nodded solemnly, and Mar’iah left us.

We ate dosas for lunch, and then I went off to Turquoise Yoga, where I’d been absentee for some months.

“Does anyone have an injury I should know about?” Kaya asked our intermediate class.

I was illumined from head to dick to toe in radiance, and my new shorts only made it better. I always imagined this was what antidepressants would do to the body—light up all the dark corners, chase away the shadows, leave me bathed in new skin—but they made me sleepy and numb, so I stopped taking them.

“Yes. I’m trans.”

“Excuse me?”

I’d taken her beginner class many times but had never spoken to her. She squinted from the front of the room and walked over slowly, elongating each step.