“But, like embracing the woman I am, I couldn’t stay back from the allure of the waves. The pull of my trans-ness and queerness, of course, would always be stronger, the strongest impulses I have ever known. The sea, like them, was a place that represented a kind of forbidden love. I needed to overcome my fears or I would feel that I was holding myself back from living authentically.”

“When they see you happy, they’ll accept it,” someone told me once. When there are tears about something unchangeable, people can only be optimistic. It’s the only thing that is left.