Under Construction

I get in deep thought mode when I'm not at the wheel on these long road trips me and my cohorts frequently embark upon.

When me and Polar were south of Morgantown, WV we passed through a construction zone on I-79 as we zipped south toward Charleston. When my turn at the wheel was done, I thought about the orange signs announcing the presence of the construction zone and thought about it in another context.

A highway is always a work in progress. It takes maintenance to keep it in travel worthy shape. Over time they get improved, get rebuilt, repaved or reconstructed.

Like our highways, trans people also are never finished products, but are works in progress. We are always looking to perfect our gender presentations, improve things about ourselves either through surgical or other means, or striving to be better specimens of human beings to paraphrase the title of transwoman Sharon Davis' book.

In a sense, we are always under construction as well. You work toward and hope for continued positive evolution as you enter two, five, ten, twenty or however many years its been since the easy part of the body morphing started. What you hope for is that when it's all said and done, you end up being a better person today than when you first started down the transition highway.