I have given up trying to vectorize my transition. I am moving — sometimes slowly and sometimes with alacrity — but not in any particular direction. I have localized goals — i would like this surgery, or that outfit; these pronouns, that orthography for my name — but no destination. I am moving the way a bird moves, on the lazy currents of the air. I am moving as a small boat in a shallow lagoon, carefully, curiously, ever turning this way and that. The destination is the journey. The direction is towards myself. The goal is to live a life.

Sometimes, you have to bend the truth to sell an opera. From the initial casting call, New York City Opera has been advertising their new Stonewall opera, with libretto by Mark Campbell and music by Iain Bell, as the first opera commissioned by a major company to feature a trans character specifically written for a trans singer. It’s a claim that’s been picked up by outlets from OperaWire to the New Yorker, but while the larger claim may be narrowly true, the specific way the role has been cast in this production is a travesty, not a triumph.