Fascinating New Thing: Trans Embodiment and Our Sacred Salience

I'm surprised that you've never been told before, that you're priceless. Yeah, you’re holy—even when you are not new.

—Semisonic, F.N.T

January 7th, 2026

On the eve of my 34th birthday, approximately one hour before getting my quarterly haircut, I am writing in my corner spot at the coffee shop around the block from my place. I wear my favorite yellow jacket, my neck adorned with a silver star necklace—once carved from beeswax by a friend, then carefully cast in metal. Core warm, hands cold, I take breaks from typing to spin the ring on my right hand—given to me by my therapist in our last session. She knew I liked rings (clearly) and wanted me to have a token of the work we did together. Per her instruction, I wear it on the days I need to feel closer to myself. Closer to home.

I have adorned this body with clothing and sentimental objects, sprayed it with my favorite cologne. I look down at my hands on the keyboard, and the mirrored tattoos on the tops of my palms: a leaf unfurling, a broken chain. I draw awareness to the backs of my eyes and consider, in the most impossible way, what it feels like to be this person—looking out through this body, in this room, on this street, in this city, in this world. In this society. On this planet. In this universe.

I think about what it has felt like to be in this body. I feel my chest rise and fall with each breath. The chest I was given. The chest I was born with. A chest that grew. That evolved. That was seen, touched, admired, hidden, bound. A chest that ached. A chest that did its job. A chest I resented. A chest I honored. A chest that no longer feels like mine. A chest in transition. A chest that is transforming. A chest that will soon have scars. My beautiful and sacred trans body.

A few weeks from today, I’ll undergo a life-changing, life-saving procedure. A few months from now, I’ll be healing. I’ll treat my scars with ointments and silicone tape—layering care where pain has lived.

A year from now, I’ll slip a t-shirt over my head and feel the flat surface with my hand as my palm runs across this chest. I’ll sleep on my side, my back, my stomach. It will feel different. I’ll run and swim and dance, and it will feel different.

But I’ll still be me. I’ll still be Joy. I’ll still be trans. Everything will have changed, and nothing will have changed.

The Day I Turned 34

Years from now, I’ll be in love—or recovering from heartbreak. I’ll stub my toe. I’ll forget to pay a bill. I’ll get a big job, make good money, pay off some debt. I’ll get in a fight with a friend, and we’ll make up. I’ll have a dog. I’ll lose out on something I thought I wanted. I’ll vote. I’ll cook a meal for someone who’s hungry. I’ll burn the toast but cook the egg perfectly.

Everything will be the same, and different. My chest will still be my chest. The scars will fade. My body will move the way it wants to. There will be lightness in my chest. And sometimes, heaviness in my heart.

Because suffering still exists. Because this body will always be mine to carry, to question, to enjoy, to honor, to play in, to grieve, to grow with.

To let it be seen. And to surrender to the ways I’ll be seen that I can’t control.

The beauty and grief of being trans—of being human—is to contend with the ever-changing, ever-evolving bodies we’ve been given. To seek out treatments, procedures, practices, rituals, and habits not as solutions, but as ways of embodying what it means to be alive: to live inside our physical, salient bodies.

To recognize, celebrate, and question the things we can change—and the things we cannot.

To live beyond, beside, and within the confines of language, culture, scripts, and rules we are meant to challenge, meant to break.

There is no final destination. No problem of the body to solve.

There is only body, skin and flesh to see, to feel, to engage with.

To make choices about—choices that may or may not ever reflect the richness, sacredness, and complexity of our internal landscapes.

Yes, we are limited by our bodies. But the canvas is ripe with potential.

We find freedom in the places we can.

We make brave choices to embody our salient nature.

And when the world tries to forget us—or reduce us to novelty—we remember:

We are priceless—we are holy

Even when we are not new.

more soon,

JOY

p.s. as I cross this threshold, I’m gathering support both material, emotional and communal. I’ve created a GoFundMe to help cover the tender in-between which will include time off work as a freelancer photographer, purchasing healing supplies and the slow work of rest! If you feel moved to contribute, or to share this link, it would mean the world to me. Thank you for being here, for reading, and for helping me see myself more clearly <3

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