Lying on my bed, I scroll through Grindr, lost in the familiar void. My experience as an F-to-gay-M feels like an ongoing negotiation — misunderstood, questioned or dismissed entirely. If desire for me exists in tension with expectation, my intimacy has always been a matter of public scrutiny and speculation.

How to reclaim agency over a body that is constantly made public property ? Intimacies are discussed, dissected, and categorized, reduced to concepts rather than lived experiences. Our so-called deviance is underlined and we are treated as a monolith—“the trans community ». Stripped both of anonymity and plurality.

Now that you are handling what is most private, ask yourself : what does it mean to be discarded, ignored, or unseen ?