I've been inspired to do something recently. First let me explain what inspired me to do this.

My boyfriend is an artist. I have a discord server for friends and family and many of them are artists. I have an art sharing channel and it was barren until my boyfriend decided, "fuck it" and posted a whole bunch of his art, good and bad. This inspired multiple others in the server to do the same. One person even thanked him for going first and getting that started.

A little closer to home, I've been made aware of a thing that many trans men are doing lately where they're using women's bathrooms by choice even in places where they're not required to do so to highlight how absurd anti-trans legislation is.

Seeing these things happen has shown me that it can be very inspiring to see someone being brave enough to be loud in the face of discomfort and/or personal risk. This has inspired me to do the same.

I have attempted to be quiet about being trans so as to draw less negative attention to myself but no more. I've resolved to be as loud as I can. I live in a small red city in Nevada. People leave each other alone here so I've had no issues so far but I suspect that's largely because I'm not loud at all aside from dressing goth. I know we have a small trans community here and one time a transfem friend of mine and I were approached by a closeted trans woman who complimented us on our outfits and explained that she's trans but still goes out in boy mode. I want to inspire people like that to have the courage to decide it's time to be proud of who they are.

Here's what I'm doing to be loud in the face of discomfort and risk. I've started singing along (in my masculine voice) when my favorite songs come on on the radio at work. (I work in a casino) I've started wearing pride colors as much as I can. I thought about removing the trans pride pin from my purse but it's staying put. I like to go for walks in the park with music from my Bluetooth speaker playing and now when I do that I'm gonna sing along to the songs I play. I've committed to going to karaoke at a hotel/casino that hosts karaoke in a nearby city and singing at least one song at least once a month in my masculine voice. I've been told by a lot of people that I pass reasonably well and I honestly don't know if that's true or not but it doesn't matter. I want everyone to know who I am. I want to be as loud and openly prideful as I can be in the hopes that people seeing me will be inspired to do the same. I am lucky enough to have the privilege of a strong support system and the personal strength to spare for this kind of thing and it's about time I start using that to try to inspire my community.

Safety steps I'm taking for this. I have pepper spray in my purse and when I walk through the park now I will be carrying it in my hand. At work when I sit down for breaks I will be sitting with my back to a wall. Any time I go anywhere my boyfriend and roommate will be informed of where I'm going and roughly how long I should be out for. Phone is staying on me at all times. I'm going to make an honest attempt to interact with my neighbors more. I'm going to interact with my co-workers more. Just in case shit gets really bad, I am building an emergency escape plan to get out of the country with a group of friends.