The Power of Having a Lovely Fucking Day

In the face of increasingly dire transphobia, I’m learning that joy can help me survive

This is the way. Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

For most of my life, whenever anyone wanted to compliment me, they would call me “strong.” It was the go-to piece of praise, from everyone — parents, partners, bosses — and I got sick of it. I wanted to hear that I was smart, funny, kind, insightful…