Recent history has been a heckuva ride. These voices highlight how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected their lives.

Coronavirus

When I first got into online sex work years ago, I started slowly—the occasional cam show with my boyfriend, a smattering of sexy pics posted to Twitter. We had a few regular customers who made us feel welcome and would hang out with us in our cam room, but we were new and our exposure was still relatively limited. At the time, it was more like an experiment—to find out what sex work was like and if there was a place for me in it—and less like a job. The fact that we made so little money doing it probably contributed to that feeling: Though, of course, we always got on camera hoping to make the cash that we desperately needed.

I remember talking to a friend—a veteran in the field—who argued that the sort of dabbling we were doing was foolish. Unless we were actually going to commit to putting in the time it takes to make a real living, she said, the inevitable exposure and stigma that comes with getting naked on the internet just aren't worth it.

I’m on the phone on my knees on the side of the bed fucking myself with a dildo, per his request. He is on the phone listening, telling me when to go faster and harder. Then with an anger that I don’t expect he says, “Fuck yourself like the whore that you are.”

At the time, I wasn’t ready to hear what my experienced friend had to say, but, now, her voice pops into my head every time I open my DMs. There, I find messages from civilian friends or acquaintances, asking for my advice on how to get into online sex work (amateur porn, phone sex, sexting, camming, selling panties or nudes and so on). Since the beginning of COVID-19, these messages have been flooding in from people who have lost their jobs and are looking for “quick” and “easy” ways to make ends meet while sheltering-in-place.

My knee-jerk response to this question is always to tell them not to do it. But when I step back from my annoyance at the constant requests that I provide free consulting services, I have to admit that the real answer is much more complex. The sex work career that I have built—which has moved far beyond those initial encounters in cam rooms into my main source of income, my community and a significant part of my identity—has been more fraught than I could have imagined when I first started.

He calls me to tell me he has just gotten married; it’s been six months since the last time we spoke. The first time he called me, years ago, he spoke of his wife who died a decade earlier, how he can’t get over her. We would quite often roleplay intimacy, he would tell me he loved me while he was orgasming. I let him say it, I knew it was necessary for him. But this time, I know we won’t talk again. Sometimes I lose them to love.

When I began, I didn’t know that my work in the adult industry would shape most of my interactions, change people’s perception of me and cause major strife in my relationships with my extended family. I also didn’t know that the work itself would be so intense, creative, raw and emotional, and that I would have a hard time imagining going back to a “normal” job.

I didn’t know, in other words, that it would restructure my entire world.

When we first start talking, he buys all of my content: my solo videos, my girl/girl videos and the ones I make with my partner. He tells me how sexy they are and about how he masturbates to them when he misses me. But now he tells me he won’t buy or watch my videos anymore: Now that we’re close, they make him jealous.

It turns out my friend was right: Sex work isn’t something you just dabble in, it is a job that will change you, one that you can’t just do to make ends meet during a pandemic, and then pack away in a box and forget about when the economy rebounds.

In the sex industry, we often market our success in a way that obscures how much labor we do to create it; and journalists, who have an endless appetite for sex work stories, typically only have access to the most successful models—those who already have large platforms. They continue to report on the realities of online sex work through the lens of the prosperous, who have a vested interest projecting an image of success. Working in the industry teaches you that clients will pay a premium if they believe you are popular and your time is limited. The reporting the public gets about online sex work, in other words, tends to focus on outliers—it paints an incomplete picture.

I answer the phone and it’s a new voice, someone I haven’t spoken to before. He tells me that he wants to do a role play, but when he describes the character I will play I realize it is me. He has studied me and my interests and has drawn my character with a frightening degree of specificity. I try to ignore this as I move into the fantasy. That is, until he makes it clear that my character will be murdered.

I am able to live off my sex work income during the pandemic because I have spent years building a brand, a platform and a client base. I have become one of the outliers. What started off as a side hustle that wasn’t lucrative enough to pay the bills, has become the income that supports my writing and other creative projects. Sure, a few people who have the right combination of traits (and lots of luck) are catapulted into quick success, but for most of us, getting to this point is a long, labor-intensive and, sometimes, painful process.

It is hardly something that can be used as a quick fix for a deep economic crisis.

He reveals that he has been fantasizing about men, and that these thoughts make him uncomfortable. He knows I have a male partner, and asks if we can create a MMF bisexual fantasy for him—giving him permission to feel his desires. We make a custom video inviting him into our dynamic, telling him we both want him. I encourage him to kiss my lover, to fuck him, to cuddle him. After he watches it, he tells us that this is the first time he has ever cried while masturbating.

To get into sex work now, during a global pandemic, means stepping into an already oversaturated market crowded by long-time performers and models, in-person sex workers pivoting their business online and newcomers who dive in head-first, with every intention of making it a long-term career. While stay-at-home orders have exaggerated loneliness, driving some new potential clients to the sites where we work (Chaturbate, ManyVids, PornHub Premium, OnlyFans, NiteFlirt, to name a few), this hasn’t been a jackpot for performers. Clients old and new are dealing with their own economic anxieties, lack of privacy while quarantining with wives and kids, and an excess of options for sexual gratification—many of which are free.

We are talking on one of my sexting platforms when he tells me to check my Twitter DMs. I go there to see a message from him saying that while he likes talking to me, he's already blown his budget on other models, and was wondering if we can just chat on Twitter (for free).

Even if online sex work were a sure path to financial security, no one gets there by randomly dropping sexy selfies—or even hardcore scenes. The work of sex work consists of constant fan interaction, social media savvy and promotion, all leading to a degree of exposure that makes it likely that your mother, your boss and your best friend will at some point encounter images of you having sex.

I learned this the hard way when my mom saw a pirated picture of me on PornHub, and when my partner’s uncle told his entire extended family that he saw me giving a blowjob on Facebook. (The Facebook part obviously isn’t true, but I guess this partial lie was less embarrassing for him than admitting he actually found out about my work on a porn site.) This same exposure that makes you an object of concern (at best) and repudiation (at worst) for family and community will also open you up to trolls that pick apart your body, your life and your career choices. It will mean constantly having to defend and protect yourself from the threat of piracy, doxing, judgment and violence.

Moreover, it will require a high degree of involvement with clients: negotiating complicated transactional relationships, payment structures, intimate connections, jealous attachments and conflict. It is sitting with clients as they mourn their dead wives, express deep-seated shame about their desires or project their misogyny onto you. It is learning to weed out time-wasters, cut off big spenders when the relationship becomes toxic and learning to really listen so that you know how to best meet your client’s needs. 

He messages me and tells me it’s been a long day and all he wants to do is cry. When I ask him why he tells me that his child’s friend committed suicide and that, because of social distancing, no one is allowed to get out of their cars at the funeral; no one can hug the parents as they stand by the graveside of the child they are burying. I let him tell the story of his child’s friend.

One of the things that have been interesting during the COVID-19 pandemic is to see the way that the influx of newcomers has shifted the story about what online sex work is. Both journalists who are covering the online sex industry during the pandemic, and those newcomers who are trying to make a living within it, are coming to the realization that sex does not, in fact, sell itself. This is evidenced by the volume of articles on the theme coming out from almost every major news publication in the last few months. All of us who have been doing this job already know this: We have learned these lessons the hard way. We talk to each other about our failures, our frustrations and our fears—because doing so publicly doesn’t help us market ourselves as valuable to clients. Moreover, such conversations feed into the hand of anti-sex work crusaders who use the stories of our struggles as evidence that our work should be more heavily regulated or criminalized.

What we have also learned through this pandemic is that our work is essential, it is the lifeline that many of our clients need in a very uncertain and increasingly isolated social world. I am grateful to be doing this work now—and that it still provides me a secure income—but I am also glad that I was able to make it sustainable before the world entered crisis mode.

Insiders

NSFW

Money

Life as an Online Sex Worker During Coronavirus

When the COVID outbreak appeared to be under control earlier this year, the Indian government eased the restrictions of movement for large crowds—a decision which is now turning out to be catastrophic as our country deals with the spread of a more contagious new variant of virus.

It’s a catastrophic situation: Daily death figures reach new highs as gravediggers work round the clock. There’s a shortage of oxygen supplies, the menace of a black market for essential medicines, the unavailability of ventilators and beds in hospitals, and a shortage of crucial raw materials required to manufacture the COVID-19 vaccine.

Official numbers report total COVID cases crossing 20 million, and more than 200,000 deaths.

But medical experts believe the actual number of deaths from COVID-19 could be 10 to 30 times the official numbers. With underreporting of cases and large test positivity ratios, the true scale of the pandemic may be far worse than the numbers would suggest.

Each day I am receiving calls from friends or distant relatives that someone from their family has died of COVID. So many people can’t get a COVID-19 test, hence their cases remain unreported.

Most hospitals are already working at almost twice their capacity; they are not able to keep pace with the surging demand for ICU beds.

My grandfather was straight away denied a hospital bed, because saving the life of a 78-year-old person wasn’t the doctor’s priority. Lots of people who are not getting access to hospital beds are being forced to struggle and succumb to suffocation at home. My grandfather lost his life after 36 days of struggle with lung blockage.

For the last four days, I’ve been hearing the screams of an older lady, who lives next door. She is dying of suffocation and lung blockage, but it seems there isn’t much that her family can do to alleviate her suffering.

Remdesivir, which usually costs around $50 is being sold for $1,000. Oxygen cylinders which usually cost $80 are being sold for as high as $1,400. This is the same with most crucial medicines. For my uncle’s COVID treatment in a private hospital, my family ended up paying around $30,000 in hospital bills for a one-week stay.

For lower-middle-class and middle-class people, it has become almost impossible to get appropriate medical treatment in a good, private hospital. They are mostly being left on their own.

At New Delhi crematoriums, corpses wait in long queues to burn. The crematoriums are running out of wood required for pyres. For my grandfather’s cremation, my family had to carry his body on a bicycle as no vehicle was available to take his body to the crematorium. At the site, the 24-hour queue was a very shocking and disheartening experience for my family.

Amidst the pandemic, the government decided to go ahead with state elections in West Bengal, where thousands of people flocked to cast their vote. Common people are paying a huge price for the government’s irresponsible attitude of giving priority to elections over putting restrictions in place.

Religious ceremonies are also taking place. Mahakumbh saw a gathering of more than nine million devotees, after which the state saw a massive surge in COVID cases.

Many countries—including the U.S., Russia, France and the United Kingdom—are rushing critical emergency equipment to assist India in battling this deadly second wave. And the international support is giving us hope of battling COVID-19 successfully.

Still, these days on social media, I don’t get to see funny memes, beautiful videos or political jokes. Instead, everywhere on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Twitter, the posts are frantic calls to save lives from my friends, and friends of friends. Everywhere people are posting, sharing, tagging, asking for information related to ventilators, plasma, oxygen cylinders and hospital availability.

I am hopeful that the situation in India will become better soon, the posts will brighten and, in some months, people will be able to live their lives again.

Collection

Short Reads

Report From India: What the COVID-19 Pandemic Is Like Right Now

Outside of the top rung, the sports, music and entertainment industries are well-known for their long hours and low pay. The great majority of those who work in those fields are doing it out of passion. A mid-level marketing professional for a sports team could easily transfer skills to another industry and enjoy better pay and better hours—no question. The same goes for an operations manager at a stadium or arena with extensive organizational skills and the 60-to-80-hour per week work ethic that the job demands. But they don’t: They love what they do too much.

Even getting a full-time, salaried job in the industry is a steep uphill battle. This was one of the first things that I learned as I got my start working game days for my local MLB team in college. I worked there for three seasons while simultaneously picking up a number of other part-time and internship positions with multiple other professional sports teams and facilities. After graduating with my business degree, I made a thousand-mile move to take another internship that I thought would help me reach my professional goal of a full-time position in sports. At one point during my internship, I was working four other part-time jobs, all within the world of sports and entertainment, to bolster my resume. 

I was spending far too much time at work, but I was absolutely loving it. 

Shortly after my internship concluded, I was finally offered what I had been working so incredibly hard for: a full-time position with the sports arena in my hometown. My part-time experience with two MLB teams, two NHL teams, one NBA team, two arenas, one professional sports league, a sports museum and more had finally paid off.

My first full-time opportunity wasn’t in a department that I wanted to be in long-term, but I knew that if I worked hard and impressed my superiors, I’d have a chance to be promoted to my dream position within the organization. For ten months, I worked an average of 50-60 hours per week without overtime pay, just to build up my good reputation and learn about the operations of the arena. Once my dream position opened up, I excitedly applied, interviewed and got the job.

My first three months in the new position—which required a ton of specialized experience that I was incredibly excited to learn—was mostly training and figuring out what the heck to do. As it turns out, there are a lot of steps to be taken to turn an arena from a hockey rink to a concert in under 12 hours! I started with limited responsibility that quickly ramped up as I gained more experience, and I started to really enjoy it as much as I dreamt I would. 

That was at the beginning of 2020. My next five months of work were spent on Zoom, making up tasks to do for an events job without events. Then I was laid off, along with over 230 other full-time staff from the same organization. We are all now jobless. 

From vice presidents to coordinators, no one was safe. 

When I think about the negative effects of the pandemic on the industry that I love, I mostly think about the part-time workers and the students. Besides the full-time staff at my facility getting laid off, over 1,000 part-time workers—ushers, ticket takers, concessions workers, suite attendants, operations employees, box office staff, security staff, stagehands—were now without their usual event gigs. Part-time staff typically have the opportunity to work 300-plus events every year, and while it's supplemental income for some of them, for others the part-time grind is their main source of income. Overall, an incomprehensibly large number of people had just lost their ability to work for the foreseeable future.

Put yourself in the shoes of a sports management student in the current landscape. You are studying an industry that is currently dead, where there are virtually zero jobs. You have almost no ability to get hands-on experience in the industry, even part-time, and there are no full-time jobs available. 

Once large groups can gather again and positions in the industry slowly become available, your application will be up against those with full-time experience who were laid off during the pandemic. Many of the connections you made during your internships are now useless, since your previous employers are also unemployed, or working in a totally different industry. All of the knowledge that you previously gained in your part-time positions has significantly lessened in value, as post-pandemic operations will be vastly different from what you experienced. You dedicated your money and a good portion of your young life to a career that is virtually unattainable for the foreseeable future. 

Now think of all of the sports facilities, arenas, stadiums, theaters and other venues across the country that were forced into a similar position. Not only was your favorite artist’s world tour canceled, but the thousands of laborers, truck drivers, business partners and road staff who make their events possible are without work. 

Not only can you not go to your favorite team’s home games, but the thousands of employees who make a living out of coordinating the events for you to enjoy are not there either. Many careers have ended, many dreams have been crushed and many great people have been left lost due to the effects of this awful pandemic on the sports and entertainment industry. 

We were the first to go and we will be one of the last to come back. 

Athletics

I Was Laid Off From My Sports Arena Job Because of COVID-19

In 1995, after he lost his wife to leukemia, my grandfather wrote letters nearly every week and mailed them to his three children. The letters lay out in incredible detail my grandparents’ lives and the lives of their family and friends. 

In 2020, my grandfather died due in part to complications from COVID-19. I saw him lifeless for an hour or so after his death, and I missed his spirit; when I got back to my room, I returned to his letters. In a masterful one postmarked July 1, 1999, the date of my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary, my grandfather encapsulates every five years of their lives in a concise paragraph.

This list includes their fifth wedding anniversary when they lived in Paris and their baby, my mother, slept in a dresser drawer; their 15th anniversary, when they moved into “a lovely Eichler house in a liberal ghetto in far-right Orange County;” and their 30th anniversary, when my grandmother was diagnosed with leukemia, but beat the odds, living for 17 more years. 

When he reached the 50th anniversary, he wrote of my grandmother: “We have lost Molly…I feel sad. But much sadder for her. She was giving so much. She had so much more to give.”

After her death, my grandfather, in his 70s, still treasured companionship. By luck, he reconnected with a former college sweetheart, Amy, and they lived a beautiful life together in Santa Rosa for 17 years. After Amy died in 2013, my grandfather moved down to Irvine to be closer to my family.

At the time, I was a 28-year-old artist, and my 90-year-old grandfather, still full of vigor and with a healthier body than mine, wanted to see all of the museums in Los Angeles. So I drove from my apartment in Culver City down to Irvine back up to museums in Los Angeles then back to Irvine. He didn’t mind the gridlock; we had a lot of time to talk.

Looking back, I don’t remember all of the words we said, I primarily remember wanting to learn from him. I remember doing my best to catch all of his personal history. Sometimes I would retell the stories back to him, hoping they would stick. But what I mainly remember is our energy, our laughter, and our ability to know each other as friends despite the generational divide.

When I was 20 years old, I came out as gay to my grandfather in a postcard. I told him that I hoped I could find the loves that he had found. I hoped my life would be as simple and loving as his life. I don’t remember us formally talking about the postcard; I knew he and Amy just wanted me to be happy. Years later, on the freeway, I would bring up my new relationships to him shyly, hoping to glean some important knowledge that would turn my love life around.

In one conversation, I remember him telling me that early relationships are so fun and full of possibilities. I never thought dating was fun, but he made me think I could appreciate the unknowing. I wanted to ask him more questions, but I usually let it go after ten minutes or so. Perhaps I was more uncomfortable than he was in talking in detail about my dating life. Though I had good reason to believe we had different perspectives on love.

For an audio project in 2014, I asked him for advice on love. He prefaced in a joking tone, “Dammit if you weren’t a homosexual, I’d have a good one for you.” And as I laughed loudly into the microphone he said, “Maybe it applies, maybe it applies.” I agreed and told him I would let him know. “The only thing I succeeded with in my life was marrying two superior women,” he said.

On July 1, 1949, my grandfather married my grandmother, Molly, in downtown Manhattan. He writes of the marriage venue as tragic at first: “The district is dingy. Papers are flying about on the street in the wind.” But quickly turns upbeat in relating the “charming” chapel and “dignified” officiant. And when the moment comes, he nearly leaps from the page: “We are married! It is as if a great burden has been lifted from me. I have never been so happy. I am floating with joy.” 

He shared a grand and interesting life with my grandmother, who he described as an influential social worker, a successful lyricist, an elegant dresser, a rose among thorns.

Almost 47 years later, and after a loving life with Molly, he reconnected with Amy. She had lived a full life of her own as a chemist and writer with seven children and an array of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. My grandfather and Amy married months after their second first date and lived happily together in Santa Rosa, making strawberry pie and carbonara, attending symphonies, finishing crossword puzzles and enjoying time with friends.

“When I got up this morning and walked into the living room the sun, filtered by the trees, was streaming in through the French doors bathing the room in light. The light reflected off the prism Molly bought and created a rainbow on the wall above the fireplace. I am an unusually lucky man.”

My grandfather knew how to live a full life. It’s unclear how many times my grandfather struggled in his life. He wrote about his fair share of difficulties. But they were always tinged with a sweetness of appreciating life. I, too, wish to appreciate life and love through his eyes.

Ancestry

Tearjerkers

My Grandfather Died of COVID-19: I’m Learning to Appreciate Life Like Him

Drugs & Alcohol

Up, up and away! Time to get out of the house with The Doe.

Travel

Stories that can only be told from the land of the free, home of the brave.

American Stories

LGBTQ Voices

Motherhood

Earth Day or any day, let's celebrate our planet. 

Mother Earth

The Doe celebrates its authors this Black History Month.

Black Voices

Extra, extra, read all about it! The news-media industry has shifted dramatically over the last decade—heck, within the last two years. Between print journalism, podcasting, social media and infotainment, The Doe turns over every rock in this evolving ecosystem.

Media

Stories of starting over and finding the fresh.

New Beginnings

The ol' nine to five has changed quite a bit in the past couple of years, from working remotely to, well, not working at all. This month we take a look at how cash still does rule in our capitalist society and what the future of business and money might just look like.

The Doe's editorial team takes a look back at the year and shares its favorite narratives.

Best of 2021

When I told my father I was planning to move to Cambodia at 20, he said, “Hon, living in a tropical climate is crazy for you. I don’t think it’s worth the risk.” He was concerned because I was born with a chronic illness: cystic fibrosis.

Bacteria thrive in hot, humid environments, and my cystic fibrosis could turn my mucus into sludge. Living in the tropics was taking a risk, but in my adolescent mind, the lifestyle I had found while backpacking in Cambodia was worth the chance of developing a serious infection.

So I made the long journey across the world to my new home. There, I settled in among expats and locals in a sweaty city surrounded by ancient temples and the lush jungle. Months later, a culture of my mucus revealed the presence of dangerous tropical bacteria that had colonized my sinuses in a thick growth of infection. Dad was right.

For a few weeks, I rode my bike to the local clinic twice a day for an IV of antibiotics. My arms were dotted with bruises from the failed attempts of the young nurses to properly stick the needle, and none of the doctors had even heard of cystic fibrosis. After months of recurring infections, my parents and doctors in the U.S. begged me to move back for first-world healthcare. Eventually I did, and my body was immediately greeted with two sinus surgeries, many more IV antibiotics and inhaled medicine to prevent the infection from entering my lungs.

I had gambled my health on a mind-opening opportunity in another country, and I had lost. Although I have never regretted my decision to uproot my life and move to a developing country, the experience did teach me something about taking health risks—knowledge I’ve relied on since the start of the pandemic. While I entered the COVID-19 era cautious and somewhat concerned for my health, four vaccinations and two years later, I am letting that caution and concern go. I wish others who can would do the same.

Living with a serious chronic illness like cystic fibrosis means constantly juggling personal levels of risk. Is it worth risking those stubborn, humid bacteria to join friends in a hot tub one starry winter night? Probably not. But taking a puff of a cigarette or joint on a night out? Once in a while, yeah, sure.

When I was a child, my parents would whisk my sister and me out of school most winters, educating us from the road while we headed south to avoid cold and flu season in New England. The years I did stick around in the winter, viruses that gave my classmates the sniffles would wipe me out for weeks, leading to pneumonia or stubborn sinus infections. In my teens, I deliberately skimped on medical treatments to spend more time with friends. My penance was weeks of sickness that meant missing out on soccer games or school dances.

As a more cautious adult, I warned the staff of the restaurant I worked in what viruses could do to me and requested that they call in sick if they had cold or flu symptoms. Knowing that my co-workers would not likely give up a few hundred dollars in tips because of a runny nose, I weighed the risks of walking into the restaurant each day during the winter. When my fellow bartender came in with a fever, I fell ill just two days later, ending up at the medical center on oxygen while my lungs fought off the aftereffects of a flu.

It hadn’t mattered as much to miss a couple of weeks of school, but two weeks without restaurant shifts meant cutting my monthly salary in half and barely being able to afford the healthcare I needed. Eventually, I left the restaurant industry to write full-time. Those risks were just not worth it.

But if these experiences taught me anything, it was that sometimes the alternative was far worse than the reality of getting sick after taking a risk. Staying locked up inside my house, ticking treatments off a to-do list, staying away from people during cold and flu season and firmly adhering to every possible precaution meant missing out on the life I was working so hard to be healthy enough to enjoy. In doing so, I risked a much greater loss—my peace of mind.

I’m a big believer in the connection between mind and body. When I identify as sick, my sickness consumes me. Conversely, some of my riskier experiences have helped me shoulder the burden of sickness. Like when I took my first breaths underwater to earn my scuba diving certification—something I had been told by doctors that I’d never be able to do. I felt alive as I observed turtles soaring by and schools of fish rippling in the current. There were still cystic fibrosis-related risks to this new activity, but my doctor had signed off on it, so I accepted them. The joy I felt while exploring coral reefs was amplified by the fact that the fatigue I felt on land melted away underwater. This weightlessness and sense of awe bolstered my mood during a time when my body felt too weak to do much else.

I remember sitting with a friend the day after the first news of a respiratory virus in China reached the U.S. “I’m worried what this means for you,” my friend confessed. I exhaled: “Me too.” But mentally, I was prepared. Instead of fear, I chose knowledge and calm action.

When masks were required, I wore them inside and outside in crowded areas. I spent most of my non-working hours home or out in nature and got tested when potentially exposed. Nearly a year after the pandemic had begun, I got sick with the virus after a bare-faced round of bowling. Luckily, COVID moved through me quickly, but it left a sinus infection in its wake that resulted in two more surgeries and another round of IV antibiotics. Still, I chose not to be cowed by the virus.

Part of being chronically ill is finding peace with the myriad ways the world can harm me rather than letting them dictate my every move. Plus, I know that the risks never fully go away; no matter what I do, they just lessen.

Honestly, I’m tired of people who are healthy and not at risk continuing to take an absurd amount of COVID-19 precautions. To me, there’s a certain righteousness to their actions, as if they think that they alone are saving the lives of the endangered.

While I support the decision of those who are unable to get vaccinated or have several underlying medical conditions (and their family members) living a far more cautious life, I roll my eyes at the healthy and vaxxed who still are. Like the people I’ve seen post on Facebook that they’ll never let a plumber or electrician into their house while they’re at home for fear of catching COVID, or the friend of a friend who insists that anyone who meets up with them get tested and wear a mask in between each bite of food or sip of water if they dine together.

When I hear things like this, one of my first thoughts is, “This person probably has never dealt with sickness before.” Maybe they’re scared—for themselves or others—or maybe they’re just trying to do the right thing. I admire that impulse, but from my perspective, the right thing now is to acknowledge how much progress we’ve made against the virus and let up a bit.

Going forward, I’ll assess the risks periodically and adjust my actions. With my third COVID infection just behind me and after my second booster, I won’t wear a mask indoors unless required, but I will wear one on airplanes, as I’ve always done to avoid colds and flus. If I’m visiting a vulnerable friend or family member, I’ll test and follow their requests, but otherwise? I’ll accept the risks both for myself and others. While I believe that everyone should continue to mask if they wish, I feel at peace with my decision not to in most situations. If weighing health risks is a matter of trial and error, I say it’s time for some more trials. A sense of balance and our peace of mind is at stake.

Health

It’s Time to Accept the Risks of COVID-19

My family and I went to see The Northman this weekend. Alexander Skarsgård stomped around the screen bare-chested and bellowing, mouth open in a great wolf howl after tearing out some poor soul’s throat with his teeth. 

In the audience, there was less throat-tearing and bellowing, but mouths were open, or at least visible. I live in a blue city, but we’ve mostly abandoned masks. In the moderately crowded, not very well-ventilated theater, I think I was the only one wearing a face covering. That includes my wife and daughter, who both had snacks and didn’t bother putting masks back on when they were finished with them. I sort of thought I should tell them to wear them. But then I didn’t want to be a spoilsport and have my daughter roll her eyes at me. So I didn’t. 

We’re fully vaccinated—my wife and I got the second booster shot the day after it was available—and case numbers aren’t that high. We are at significantly less risk of death and dismemberment than people who randomly crossed the path of Alexander Skarsgård and his bellowing. 

Still, cases are rising, breakthrough infections do happen, and those sometimes result in long COVID—extended clusters of symptoms that can be debilitating for months, years or a lifetime, no one really knows. Masks help prevent COVID transmission, reducing your chances of getting the disease and of spreading it. Wearing them is a little annoying, but getting long COVID is a lot worse than a little annoying. 

“All of you” would, you’d think, include my family. If I’m going to harangue you (and you!) about wearing masks, shouldn’t I also harangue my nearest and dearest? 

Or, for that matter, shouldn’t I harangue myself? I wear masks almost always when I go into stores or indoor spaces, but that “almost” is sitting there staring at me with baleful masklessness. Sometimes, occasionally, I get out of the car and into the Walgreens and realize I’m not wearing a mask.

And then, sometimes, occasionally, I’ve deliberately not worn a mask. At the low point of the pandemic, during summer 2021, my wife and I went to Iceland. It had low case numbers and high vaccination rates, and we thought it was our chance to travel after more than a year of sitting in the house staring at the cats. Who we love. But a year is a long time.

Iceland was marvelous. But no one wore masks, anywhere, ever. After a few days, we decided when in Iceland, we would do as they do in The Northman and not wear masks while cleaving our enemies in twain. Or even while doing other things, like shopping.

Anti-maskers love to point to lapses such as this to suggest that pro-maskers are hypocrites. How can you expect reluctant maskers to wear masks when even enthusiastic mask advocates don’t want to wear them in a movie theater or Walgreens or Iceland? Shouldn’t we just stop shaming other people and all take off our masks and let the virus do its worst? After all, I’ve avoided the virus so far, despite occasional failures to mask. Why shouldn’t everyone else do fine?

Everyone else doesn’t necessarily do fine is the thing. Shortly after we left Iceland, it experienced a major surge in case numbers. This probably had something to do with the fact that no one wears masks. Vaccination kept the severity of symptoms down, but long COVID remains a real worry. We didn’t get COVID, which was lucky. But we should have worn masks.

The thing is, it’s a lot easier to wear masks if everyone else is wearing masks. In the U.S. now, we’re treating public health as an exercise in individual responsibility. If you’re worried about COVID, wear masks. If you’re not, don’t. Make the choice that’s best for you!

But public health isn’t an individual thing. Like it says in the name, it’s a public problem and a public responsibility. Community actions and community expectations have a huge effect on how individuals behave. Even when that individual is, say, me. 

People feel like their choices are theirs; you decide when and where you go, and when and where you go with a mask. But if I reflect for a second, it’s clear that what others are doing and what’s expected of me has a major effect on what public health choices I make. 

When I’ve been in places with mask mandates, where everyone masks and where people gently remind you to mask when you enter—I don’t forget to mask. When mandates are lifted and fewer people wear masks, I (and my family) tend to get lazy. I mask less or may forget, even though I still think wearing a mask is safest and even though I’m still worried about getting COVID.

Again, because we frame public health as an exercise in personal choice, we’ve convinced ourselves that mandates, or even recommendations, are an infringement on personal liberty and our right to inhale as much COVID virus as we want.

But in a terrifying pandemic that has killed a million people in the U.S. and disabled who knows how many more, you need government and community to help you get to a place where you can do the right thing for your health and for the health of everyone else. The minor annoyance of wearing a mask is front of mind when you get into the Walgreens and realize you left the stupid mask in the car and do you really want to go back? The major annoyance of possibly contracting a deadly disease and suffering years of grinding fatigue from organ damage seems abstract and distant. You need other people to remind you that you need to protect yourself and them. 

The U.S. has largely abandoned mandates and communal efforts to combat COVID. We’re told that this is pandemic fatigue; people just won’t support masking anymore. But maybe it’s the other way around. 

When governments and communities give up on mandates and nudges, people get lazy and fatigued. We like fantasies where a singular Northman cuts a swathe of fierce pectorals through quaking enemies, his flashing steel driven by indomitable will. In real life, though, when we face adversity, we tend to crumple unless we get support. I’ll keep trying to wear a mask. But I’d do better and be healthier and safer if we hadn’t given up on helping each other make the right choices.

I Believe You Should Always Wear a Mask: Sometimes, I Forget

I’ve been asked this question a hundred times, but I’ve never given a concrete answer. There were many reasons. As a small child, I poked and prodded my parents with the tools from my toy doctor’s kit. The day my brother came home from the hospital, I introduced myself to my mom as “the baby’s new pediatrician.” In high school, I was curious about both the caring and academic sides of medicine, but it was far from my only interest. I’ve thought about pursuing careers in psychology and international relations. I’ve loved singing, acting and art. I ended up with bachelor’s degrees in English and religious studies. Many nurses say their profession is their “calling,” but I can’t shake the feeling that I became a nurse by accident.

After graduating from college, I started a career in early childhood education. I love children but didn’t love the pay and the reputation that came with what many people consider “glorified babysitting.” I knew from family members’ experiences that nursing paid well and that it was possible, even common, to go to nursing school after several years of working in an unrelated field. So, one weird March day in 2018, while contemplating my life’s purpose in a Dunkin’ Donuts, I decided to apply to nursing school.

In May 2019, I was accepted into an accelerated, 11-month Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at an in-state university. I knew learning a new trade in less than a year would be challenging, but this program had a stellar NCLEX pass rate, and I’ve always been a good student.

I loved nursing school. I had wonderful professors and excellent clinical rotations. I made friends with a few classmates, some with even odder backgrounds and paths to nursing school than mine. I made A’s in all my classes, and I could picture a clear career trajectory following graduation.

Then, the pandemic hit. What we thought would be two weeks of online classes turned into two months and then the rest of our program. Challenging in-person labs and clinicals were replaced with lame virtual simulations. We earned optional four-week hospital internships in July. With no curriculum to guide me, I spent most of my internship confused.  

Our program should have been extended a semester. Instead, we were allowed to graduate and sit for the NCLEX on time, barely scraping the state’s requirement for in-person clinical hours. I received under seven months of hands-on training before earning a license that allowed me to practice nursing. If this fact doesn’t terrify you, it should, because I wasn’t the only one.

My university had a solid relationship with the area’s major hospital system, so I had no trouble finding a job. I really wanted to work on the pediatrics unit, the only unit that was (at the time) downsizing due to the pandemic. I ended up in an adult neurology intermediate care unit. Patients in intermediate care units are considered “critical but stable.” Most of the patients in my unit had suffered massive strokes. Many had both neurological damage and COVID-19.

New graduate nurses work alongside preceptors for a few months before they’re allowed to work independently. My first preceptor fit the “eats her young” bully stereotype that all new nurses fear. She offered me little encouragement and hands-on instruction. She expected me to remember every line of my nursing textbooks. She humiliated me in front of a patient’s family. I knew I was doing poorly, and she didn’t let me forget it.

After two weeks, this preceptor went part-time, and I was assigned someone else. My next preceptor was more understanding and a much better teacher. Under her five-week instruction, I gained a lot of confidence. On our last day together, she told me that I was doing “fucking amazing.” But after she transferred to another unit, there was no one available to be my permanent preceptor. Once again, I struggled.  

I was led to believe that my lack of consistent training was not the reason why I was failing. My manager blamed my shortcomings on my personality, never mind that she hired someone with no previous hospital employment and a pandemic education on a difficult unit that lacked reliable preceptors. When I expressed that her constant questioning of my potential was not helpful for my professional development nor my mental health, she declared that she would “not take responsibility!”

She was, however, totally right that I was not ready to be a nurse on a large critical care unit. Ultimately, I was thankful to her for saving me from further failure and humiliation.

I worked for another three months in an outpatient setting. It was a decent job, but I felt unfulfilled working below my education level. I was also paranoid about screwing up again. This time, I received a lot of support and reassurance, but was still let go “at will.” Basically, “We didn’t hate you enough to fire you before the end of your probationary period, but we don’t like you enough to keep you on. We didn’t owe you any warning or any explanation.”

I told my boss at my second job that I was quitting nursing. She moaned about how I had so much potential, and I shouldn’t give up. “You’ll forget about this experience in a few years,” she said.

Well-meaning doctors and medical journalists like to claim that if we want COVID-19 nurses to stick around, we should “try paying them more.” During my time at the hospital, all nurses and nursing assistants received five-dollar raises. The nurses who worked through the early months of the pandemic were also given higher-than-usual holiday bonuses. Better pay was not enough to increase morale because nurses are not just underpaid, they’re also undertrained and overworked.

I was responsible for feeding, bathing, assessing and administering medications to three critically ill patients at a time. I had to do so safely, swiftly and happily while sporting layers of PPE. I was also expected to complete several hours’ worth of charting each shift. If I didn’t take my 30-minute lunch break, I’d get called out for coming off slow and shaky. If I did take a break, I’d fall behind. My co-workers were better than me at hiding their stress from patients and from our manager, but I watched them cry in hallways, bathrooms and break rooms every day. Over half of these nurses had one year or less of registered nursing experience. Most of the rest were travel nurses, who have the luxury to ignore office politics and take several weeks off between jobs, as long as traveling fit their lifestyle. 

When I tell people that I quit nursing because of COVID-19, I don’t mean that watching people die from the virus was too much for me to bear. I knew that getting up close and personal with death and suffering would be part of the job. I also knew that working 12-hour shifts, nights, weekends and holidays would be part of the job. I knew that I would feel exhausted and terrified the first few months. I never imagined that my supervisors wouldn’t give a shit about how I felt.

Nurses “eat their young” because they know that it’s easier to scare straight or scare away the newbies than it is to fight against the status quo. Before the pandemic, around one-third of nurses left the profession after two years. Now throw in fear of contracting COVID-19, constant understaffing, increasingly unsafe nurse to patient ratios and frustration with anti-vax patients. In September 2021, The Washington Post reported that all healthcare workers were leaving their jobs in record numbers. We should be more worried than ever about the state of the nursing profession. 

In a world without a pandemic, I may have had better career counseling and landed a hospital job that better fit my qualifications and interests. Even in the real world, I could have found another nursing position following my two failures. A desperate doctor’s office or nursing home would have taken me on—anxiety, incompetency and all. Eventually, I could have learned to be an excellent nurse. An excellent and very unhappy nurse.

This horrible experience helped me realize what I value most: my friends and family, my creative expression, my independence, my mental health. I still strive to help others through my writing, through volunteering and through everyday acts of kindness. Nursing will always be an important part of my past, but it’s not part of my future.

I Quit Nursing Because of the Pandemic: I Am Never Going Back

It might be more interesting, more convenient even, if my entry into the world of OnlyFans and online sex work had a long and complicated backstory, but really it all started when the world began shutting down as COVID-19 quickly made its way around the world last spring. I had moved to New York only a month earlier, and suddenly I was unemployed and panicking as I tried to figure out how I’d keep myself afloat without a job. So, when my best friend started talking to me about her own recent foray into online sex work via OnlyFans, I made an account and began posting content—with only a minimum of hesitation. Of course, I had my anxieties about doing sex work so publicly, but not for the reasons you may imagine. 

I’d already done some in-person sex work a year prior when I saw my first client, a former wrestler in his 60s who wanted to talk to me about organic farming and Burning Man. It was nerve-racking when I first showed up to our “date,” and even more nerve-racking when I had sex with him, but there was an undeniable excitement that I felt as well. It felt almost too easy, but after our first session, I never saw him again and decided to put a pause on sex work. 

As a performer, my online brand had always been linked to my openness regarding my sex life and sexuality. For years I’ve tweeted about my sex life in explicit detail, posted thirst traps on my Instagram with captions about my life that have let my followers know some of the most intimate things about me, and I’ve worked to keep my online persona that of an open book. When I began doing OnlyFans it just made sense that I would be open about this new part of my life online. 

What worried me was whether there was a market for me on OnlyFans. I had friends who were on it long before I started my own account, but none of them were trans. They were conventionally hot cis girls and cis gay guys, and beyond that, they were making hardcore porn with scene partners, something that I couldn’t do when I started my account during the beginning of lockdown. I knew from experience that trans women with penises often raked in money as sex workers, both in-person and online, but would anyone be interested in a trans woman with a vagina?

Still, I decided to forge ahead, inspired by the success of my own friends and convinced that even if it would be difficult at first, I’d still find some way to break through on my own—with or without making hardcore porn, with or without being a cis person and with or without any experience making online pornographic content. 

Would anyone subscribe to my account? In my own misguided and insecure mind, I figured people would much rather see a cis girl make the same content on her OnlyFans, rather than spending the money on me. 

The first few months of making content and promoting it on social media felt frustrating and, at times, embarrassing. I thought that I would have absolutely no issue with promoting my OnlyFans on Twitter because, like I said, my brand has always been linked to my lack of inhibitions, specifically related to my sexuality. But the stigma that comes with doing any kind of sex work quickly crept into my psyche. Suddenly I found myself feeling anxious about sending that tweet telling people to subscribe to the account. I had moments of anxiety regarding the very real fear of my content possibly being leaked on the internet, and my family and friends seeing videos of me masturbating on camera, doing stripteases in my bedroom and replacing scene partners with sex toys. 

On top of that, I was only averaging between 20 and 40 subscribers a month, while some of my friends were getting hundreds. I felt like I was doing something wrong, and at times I wanted to just throw in the towel. But that simply wasn’t an option. I needed to make money. I knew that if I just stuck with it, it would eventually grow into something worthwhile. (At least I hoped it would.) 

The shift kind of happened overnight. I woke up one day and decided that I wasn’t going to give in to the stigma that people put on sex workers, the one that tells us that we should hide in the dark while we do our job. Over time, I have found that the more open I am, and the more that I lean into the micro-identity of being a sex worker, the better I am at my job. And that leaves me feeling empowered. The more confident I got with marketing myself on social media, the more I was able to attract subscribers and make money.

I’ve been on OnlyFans for a little over a year, and now I have over a hundred loyal subscribers. Like any job, there are days where I don’t feel like showing up, but there are even more days where I’m excited to log on, post my content and chat with the people who are also logging on to interact with me.

I love my body, and I love being a sexual person, so being able to share both of those parts of myself with people who are literally paying me to access that side of me makes me feel excited and celebrated. I love knowing that there are people I don’t know who are getting pleasure out of watching my content. And an even more gratifying part of the whole experience is that many of my subscribers were following me on Twitter long before I started OnlyFans. 

They’re there to see my naked body, but also because they loved my personality enough to want to see the rest of me. It’s almost humorous to say that sex work can feel wholesome, but my experience on OnlyFans really has felt that way. Helping people experience euphoria and a release during this pandemic by putting my body online has been nothing short of magical. 

The hardest part of being on OnlyFans hasn’t been trying to grow my account, it’s been the process of deciding how open I want to be about my life as a sex worker, walking the fine line of claiming my power without taking up space as someone who has layers of privilege that keep me more protected than a survival, street-based sex worker or a sex worker of color. 

I’ve had to accept that openly being a sex worker puts me in the line of fire of peoples’ judgments and stigmas, but as a transsexual woman I’m no stranger to that, and I’ve been able to use that as a way to lean into my life as a sex worker. At times it has felt scary being so open about the life I live and how I choose to make money, but since coming out to my family as a sex worker and feeling the love and warmth they approached me with after telling them, I’ve found it easier to do it unapologetically. After telling my grandmother during breakfast that I’m a sex worker, and her very casually validating my choice as an adult to make my money however I want, something radically shifted for me. I felt for the first time since starting sex work like I could actually take a breath. 

I got on OnlyFans during the height of the pandemic as a way to keep myself afloat after losing my job. It was initially just a way to survive, but the ship has long since sailed. The world is opening back up, and as my friends go back to the jobs they had before the pandemic began, I’ve been asking myself what I want my life to look like in this new normal. I know that I don’t want to live the way I used to, working an exploitative service industry job where I was treated poorly by customers, taken advantage of by my managers and run ragged trying to keep up in an industry that chews you up and spits you out.

OnlyFans hasn’t just been a way to make money. It’s been a vehicle for me to reclaim my sexuality, a way for me to really and truly love my body and an opportunity for me to see what it’s like to run my own life and to make money on my own terms. I don’t see myself leaving OnlyFans anytime soon. In fact, I see myself doubling down on my commitment to this lifestyle where I feel empowered, safe and in charge of every aspect of my life.

OnlyFans Helped Me Survive the Pandemic

We run a private members club in New York City offering sex-and-cannabis-positive experiences, events and education. We opened it five years ago to fill the gap that we saw in the city for an elevated experience for all genders, identities and orientations looking to explore empowered pleasure. If you’re feminist, sex-positive, poly, queer, kink-friendly, and/or a cannabis consumer—or like us, all of the above—it’s very easy to feel like you’re “too much” or “too lewd” or whatever in just about every space you’re in. But at our club, there’s no judgment, it’s just community and acceptance. 

Pre-pandemic, we were in expansion mode. We’d begun hosting massive parties for up to 400 members at spots around the city. We were working on a travel show with a famous TV person’s production company, in which we’d bring the philosophies developed at our club to new countries through elaborate sexual stunts. Membership was booming, with plans to open doors in other cities. 

Last March, nearly every project we had going was halted. We had to close down our clubhouse in SoHo. We lost a second unit for our expansion that we had just started renting. We were set to hit $1.5 million in revenue for 2020, and then the world stopped. 

The week we went into lockdown, one of us was flying out to a music festival in the Caribbean for a birthday trip. The next day all flights were canceled. We realized this would be the last time in a long time we’d be able to party like this. When the following Monday rolled around, we knew we needed a plan. Once we deleted our events calendar and ripped apart the megabed, it was as sudden as a slap in the face: the play parties we went to just weeks ago were a thing of the past. We needed to pivot fast, not only for ourselves but also for our team, our performers and all our members.

Pure necessity inspired our virtual play parties. We had a community of people looking to us to be there for them. We launched online chats through WhatsApp to keep people connected, before eventually moving to Discord. At first, we were hesitant about the virtual parties. The thought of having to be on camera felt like torture, especially during those first few weeks of COVID when it was hard not to feel like the world was coming to an end. (One of us grew up in a doomsday cult, which didn’t really put us in a good mindset for a global catastrophe.) But we knew we had to be strong for the membership and to come up with something that could keep us together.

The virtual parties launched and it was definitely a bit awkward at first. The idea of getting naked on camera was new for so many of the people who joined in. But it was also exciting, and there was a feeling of relief once people started getting comfortable. I remember having sex with my partner for the first time on camera and just feeling so sexy. Members from all over the world were joining in and, within a few weeks, we had an event that people loved and came back to. But gosh, it was a nightly learning lesson. (It turns out a double-ended dildo is an effective prop for a ring light!) 

Our virtual play parties really showed us that our members feel the same way we do: that our club isn’t just about the sex or the play, but more about the community. We had 30-plus couples dialing in every weekend from around the world: Mexico City, Paris, Barcelona, London, Sri Lanka, Columbia and across the U.S. Our host would open up with erotic readings and games of Truth or Dare. Members would show up in lingerie and show us their toy collections. They couldn’t leave their homes, but they could look forward to these virtual meets. 

For many, it was the escape they needed. It gave them something to get dressed up for and excited about. By the end of each party, various screens would be filled with solo and partnered couples coming together. We’d spotlight people who were being extra sexy and you could see how watching someone in pleasure would get others to do the same. As stressful as the time was for so many people, going virtual showed us the potential for our community and made the goal of building a global community of sexy fucks more attainable.

The community is now building fast. I feel we’re stronger now because so many saw us fight to stay alive during a time when many places closed down. We have a waitlist for new locations and all the international press we received has brought in a lot of people offering to fund. The goal now is to make our little club for the adventurous more accessible, a place as common as an Equinox or SoulCycle—a reminder for people to prioritize their sexual health, to connect to a community and to make an effort to be better lovers. To be someplace that will be there for them even when the world feels like it’s ending. 

Everyone is eager to come to events. Folks who weren’t interested in the club before now can’t get to it fast enough. The whole experience taught us a lot. It showed us the power of our community. It showed us that even in the worst of times they will be there to support us and keep us going. It made us realize that this is so much more than just a fun time but something bigger that we need to keep building. The pandemic made our New York City club international. It opened the door for our club to exist in more places and attracted serious funding to make that opportunity real. 

The main change now is that we’re less worried about our future. COVID changed many peoples’ perceptions of sex and intimacy. It made those quarantining alone more aware that they wanted partners, and helped couples realize that they might want to spice things up. It gave people time to consider the things that make them happy in their lives and made sex a higher priority. People are leaving COVID with a greater sense of desire to not be stuck in the things that made them unhappy. We’re seeing it in people not returning to low-paying jobs and we’re seeing it in people not returning to low-libido lifestyles. After the Spanish Flu, we had the Roaring Twenties. After COVID, we’re predicting the Whoring Twenties. It’s more than just a hot vax summer, it’s a hot vax lifestyle and one we’re expecting to be a major part of.

We Kept Our Sex Club Going Through Quarantine

It took me until my Saturn return to figure out I was trans. I got along just fine as a gay boy for many years. Well, mostly fine. Looking back now, it’s easy to see early signs of my egghood. (“Egg” being the sometimes endearing, sometimes condescending term for a trans person who hasn’t figured out they’re trans yet.) There were lots of little examples, like raiding my mother’s closet when she wasn’t home or opting to sit with the girls in middle school once I was freed from the confines of my religious, single-sex grade school. 

In a diary entry from Halloween four years ago I wrote, “I feel so good in women’s clothing.” There were other entries about how thrilling it was to wear heels, how poised and powerful I felt in them. But I wasn’t trans. I just donned a slutty witch costume for one weekend a year all through my 20s. And painted my nails, and wanted long flowing shampoo commercial hair, and only felt truly safe and at home in the company of other girls growing up. 

My annual Halloween cross-dressing ritual carries a deeper significance to me now. I realize what I was feeling was my first experience of gender euphoria, the heady glee of engaging in high femme antics mixed with a deep feeling of relief.

If I had to point to one moment in my gender awakening—the thing that officially cracked my egg and made me admit my transness—it would be hearing a nonbinary trans femme talk about their hairline dysphoria, and the dread they felt about going bald. It wasn’t a matter of vanity, they said, it was a matter of being in the wrong body. 

For the previous couple of years, I’d been scrutinizing my hairline in the mirror every morning, willing my fivehead not to get any bigger. I wallowed in despair at my looming baldness. I’d kept my hair short for most of my 20s, hoping that would get me more attention from gay men. It felt like a cruel betrayal of my body, imagining I could see my hair thinning before my eyes just when I had decided to grow it out again. 

Hearing that enby speak, I had a surreal out-of-body moment. How they were speaking aloud my secret innermost thoughts. Me, a cis person! 

After that, I slowly acquired more and more trans friends. I insinuated myself in trans spaces as someone who was “questioning.” Feeling emboldened by my peers, I started going by they/them pronouns and calling myself nonbinary. 

I felt such a rush of relief that I didn’t have to be a man anymore. I could set aside all the expectations of masculinity that I never really lived up to. Even surrounded by cis gay men, I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I felt despair that I couldn’t find comfort there, in the community I was supposed to feel at home in. I thought I was plagued by some debilitating anxiety disorder, but no. Just trans.

Then the pandemic happened. I lost my job. All my acquaintanceships evaporated as the Zoom happy hours quickly lost their appeal. I left the house as little as possible. Freed from the burden of other people’s expectations, I was able to imagine how I might like to live without fear getting in the way. 

My curiosity and explorations eventually led me to a Zoom call with a doctor I’d never met in person, who thankfully believed me when I told him I was trans and I wanted to try hormones. 

Once I had the prescriptions waiting for me, I hesitated. I was terrified of trying hormones and changing my mind later. It wasn’t that I was worried about what it might do to my body, or what society would think. I was more scared of letting my trans friends down, that if I started the process of transition only to stop later, I would somehow be damaging “the Cause” and alienating myself from the community I had found. It was grandiose to think the integrity of the entire trans movement would crumble at my hypothetical future detransition. 

One friend told me, when I called them, spiraling, that starting hormones wasn’t like jumping off a cliff—it was more like wading into water, and I could slow down or turn around at any point if it didn’t feel right. I would still be trans even if I decided hormones weren’t for me. No one could take that from me. 

I told myself I was only starting hormones in an effort to keep my hairline from receding, but I have been so grateful for all the other changes. It’s like I needed plausible deniability in my own feminization. After nearly a year on testosterone blockers and synthetic estrogen, I cry more easily. I laugh more easily. My backne went away. Once the antiandrogens got my testosterone low enough, I stopped making semen and instead now produce a small amount of clear nectar when I come. Pre-transition, for many messy years, I was an extremely heavy shooter, which I always found vulgar, a distasteful hassle and one I’m relieved to be done with.

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