Poeaxtry's Prism

Spell. Stone. & Sparks that Ignite Change

Tag: trans man story

  • Part Two- National Coming Out Day Reflection

    Part Two- National Coming Out Day Reflection

    The Second Coming Out

    National Coming Out Day isn’t just about one announcement. It’s about every version of ourselves we’ve had to reintroduce to the world and to ourselves.

    This is Part 2 of my coming out story. The first time, I came out as a lesbian. This time, I came out as me.

    The Second Time Someone Saw It Before I Did

    I was 19 when I met an out trans man for the first time. It was at a wedding, and he came up to me like he already knew something I didn’t.

    He said, “Oh my god, it’s so cool to meet someone like us in public.”

    I glitched. I remember thinking, What does he mean, “like us”? I didn’t think he was right, but I also couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wasn’t aware he was trans I just saw a cis man and I was so confused.

    It was one of those moments that doesn’t make sense until years later.

    The Quiet Realization

    Fast forward to when I was 21. I was in an online community space surrounded. This man was filming a Q&A video, answering random questions, when it just… hit.

    I started asking the influencer questions about t and transitioning etc.

    And I thought, Wait a minute. Maybe that guy was trans at the wedding.

    I laughed it off at first. Said thing to myself like, “No, bro.” But, Deep down, I knew something had shifted.

    That’s when I realized: I wasn’t a lesbian who looked masculine. I was a trans man who had finally found the words for what had always been there.

    Transition and Transformation

    At the time, I was in a long-term relationship with a lesbian partner. I didn’t say anything right away. I didn’t feel like I had the space to explain myself.

    My identity wasn’t up for debate, and it didn’t need validation to be real.

    A little while later, I moved to Las Vegas, started testosterone, and began living fully as myself. Two years after that, I got top surgery.

    Now, I’ve been on T for almost 11 years, and post-op for nearly 9.

    No spectacle. No huge reveal.

    I just made a post, changed my name everywhere, and kept living.

    Coming out as a trans man wasn’t some cinematic event. It was quiet, steady, necessary.

    It was me updating my social media, me existing without apology, me living a truth that had been simmering under the surface since long before I even had the language for it.

    Every year on National Coming Out Day, I think back to both moments. To the young girl who came out as a lesbian, and the man who came out as himself.

    Both were acts of courage. Both were survival. Both were me.

    Coming out isn’t a one-time performance. It’s a lifetime of peeling back layers until you recognize yourself: fully, completely, without shame.

    I came out twice.

    Once for who I loved.

    Once for who I am.

    And both times, I chose to live.

    Because that’s what coming out really is. It is choosing life, truth, and freedom, again and again.

    A man and his first chest binder
    A man and his first chest binder

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  • Carrying the Unspoken: A Trans Man’s Journal on Loss, Love, and Survival

    Carrying the Unspoken: A Trans Man’s Journal on Loss, Love, and Survival

    “I still carry the sound of your promises that never made it past your teeth.”

    -Axton N.O. Mitchell

    Hi Jake.

    I know I swore I let go of all this shit.
    All of you.
    But I still carry the sound of promises that never made it past your teeth.

    Dad
    the disappearing act that always came with excuses,
    the birthdays you ghosted like it was a tradition.
    The ball games, the plays, the sick days, you’d call for them all big or small.
    I carry the echo of your words:
    I’ll be there this time.
    You never were.

    I miss you Momma!

    I carry the way Mom said my name
    right before everything stopped.
    Eight days before I turned 30, my sisters both not even 21. She stopped existing in a world that never deserved her.
    I still talk to her like she can hear me.
    They did teach us energy gets replaced it never leaves.
    Maybe that’s the part I haven’t let go of.
    I doubt I have let go of much but her physically.
    Maybe that’s the part I never should let go.
    I won’t. I can’t let more of her slip away. She falls through the cracks between my fingers as I pretend. I was definitely not crying again. Not that anyone asked.

    I’m the Problem, so They must be the Reason.

    I carry the weight of being told I make people miserable,
    like I’m a curse wrapped in skin.
    The way an ex said I’d ruin everything I touched the opposite of that king Midas, I think. I don’t remember, but as a kid, my mom would read me a book. It was about a king who turned everything to gold.


    As well as other Ex’s and other things they said they never meant to say… but still said.
    Anyway, for a while, I believed them.
    Because when you hear it often enough,
    it doesn’t sound like abuse anymore.
    It sounds like proof.

    The Demons they Left behind

    And honestly, if I’m being real, it still does when the demon bpd shows his ass. It’s way further apart than it was known to be in history but I’m still clearly sore in many places. I don’t like to talk directly about that shit.
    It’s hard when the person you talked to the only one is located on your shelf in an urn. What a joke.
    The weight of all this is sometimes enough to drown me, I fear.

    Those People who left When Axton stopped Hiding


    The people who said they loved me
    until I came-out, found me, or loved me.
    I chose a name that fit, and they couldn’t try to call me it.
    I started to look like someone they hadn’t imagined. So they didn’t come around and get used to me as I changed. They decided it was better to walk away.


    I carry the silence that followed coming out,
    the way their love had fine print and conditions. That I didn’t see until I bled through it, of fucking course.
    They loved the version of me I had to bury.
    But I didn’t die with her, she was always a shield for a boy too weak to exist. You just knew him by a different name and set of pronouns.


    I became something more. I was lonelier at first. Fresh out of my shell. I found my tribe, and the more, I grow the louder I am about equality for everyone.
    That scares them,
    so, it is theirs to hold.

    I’ve got enough of my own weight to carry.
    And I do.
    Every damn day. I carry all the things I said I had burned.
    The truth is I just folded them up,
    pressed them behind my ribs like a sad collection.
    I still read those letters sometimes.
    They still sting.
    And I can’t do a thing to stop them from opening.

    “Every damn day, I carry all the things I said I had burned. I still read those letters sometimes.”

    -Axton N.O. Mitchell

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