Here we celebrate viewpoints from traditionally disenfranchised communities.

Marginalized Voices: Part One

It’s been 11 months and three days since I started hormone replacement therapy. My skin is softer and smoother. While I’m mulling over the words to write here, I run my fingers gently against each other and embrace the comfort of my smooth skin. Looking over at my body mirror across the room, I admire the subtle changes in my figure—even my neck seems to have gotten slimmer. My face has a beautiful glow to it, and you can even see it in my eyes. Every glance at my body fills me with joy.

The road to get to this place took a lot of strength and patience. I can’t help but bask now in the feeling that everything is finally OK—things might be good, even. I’m enamored by my body more than I ever thought that I would be. My romantic and sexual life has blossomed beyond my wildest dreams. I know who I am and what I want to do with the rest of my life, and it feels so wonderful.

I Knew I Was a Girl Years Before I Started Transitioning

Around the age of 14, I discovered that I was a girl. At the time, I hadn’t given much thought to how other people might react to this. I’ve always been an open and vulnerable person, so I was just excited to share this new element of myself. Most of my friends took it well and were very respectful. Others gradually faded out of my life. However, my parents responded with intense dismissal. They said things like, “There were never any signs,” and, “That’s an adult decision to make.” Aside from the fact that it would be incredibly difficult for me to undergo hormone treatment without my parents’ consent as a minor, my parents’ love and support meant everything to me, so I decided to wait until they accepted me as their daughter before I attempted to transition.

The following eight years of my life fluctuated between unbearable and just tolerable enough to keep me from spiraling. Some days, my facial hair didn’t bother me; other days, I was unable to do anything but stare at it in disgust. I’d analyze every element of my face for minutes at a time whenever I looked in the mirror, building up the insults in my head until I couldn’t bear to look at myself anymore. In my mind’s eye, there was no way this body could be saved. It would take an act of divine intervention to turn my body into something I could love.

There were moments of peace scattered throughout the years, times when a friend would do my makeup or take me shopping for dresses. I cherished those moments, not just for the opportunity to experiment with my gender presentation but also for the casual love and tenderness that my friends would give me by just letting me exist around them in a form closer to my authentic self. I even stumbled across a deep and romantic love from someone who was always able to see me as the girl of their dreams—and more importantly, the girl of my own dreams. 

Gradually, I became more disillusioned with the concept of waiting for my parents to express their support. The more transgender people I met, the more impatient I grew. I began to realize that I was putting my entire life on hold, and there was barely any growth on my parents’ end. My dad and I would avoid the subject for months on end, only to end up in another intense and tear-filled argument, followed by him saying he would try to understand. Then, we’d rinse and repeat—the same unwillingness to budge, with a different wording.

Meanwhile, I could hardly stand to exist at all. If I kept this up, this would become the rest of my life. I remembered a conversation I had with a couple of my trans friends regarding hormones and had the realization that I could set up an appointment by myself

 I was 22 years old by then, more than old enough to not need parental consent. It sounds ridiculous now to have had this revelation, but at the time, this was the moment when I moved past the compulsion to care about what my parents would think.

The day that I went to my appointment for hormones, I was so nervous that something would go wrong. Surely, something would mess up—the doctor would tell me that I’m mistaken, that I’m not 

 transgender, that I should just go home. Sitting in the waiting room felt heavy and infinite, like I would never see what was on the other side of the door. 

The consultation with the doctor wound up lasting less than 30 minutes. Within a couple of hours, I received my hormone prescription.

Eight years and many longing, painful nights filled with fantasizing about transition culminated in me accessing hormones in less time than a 

 movie. I was astounded. It felt surreal, like I had entered yet another fantasy that I could snap out of at any moment. Yet, I could feel the first dose of estradiol dissolving under my tongue, moving through my system—this was fucking real.

The first few weeks were touch and go. Despite my therapist’s assurances that the changes wouldn’t be noticeable right away, I still spent most of my days staring into the mirror and struggling to notice a difference. Then, there it was—after one month of HRT, my facial hair reduced significantly. A few weeks more and my face looked like it was glowing. A couple months in and my breasts began to reshape. Over time, I began to see myself. With each passing day, she was chiseled out of the body and face that I had grown so detestably used to. The moments when I saw her, I couldn’t help but grin. It turns out that I didn’t need an entirely new body—a few tweaks to the old one were more than enough.

Around seven months in, I became more courageous. I started accumulating an entire wardrobe that made me feel comfortable and cute. The hormones gave me the confidence to start sneaking dresses out of the house and wear them at work. Eventually, I stopped sneaking them out and would just leave the house wearing them. I became more steadfast, telling my parents that I was going to pierce my ears instead of seeking their approval. After experiencing all of the wonderful physical changes that hormones were bringing me, there was no way I could go back to tucking myself away for the sake of other people’s comfort. 

My romantic and sexual life also took on a whole new form. I finally could see what my partner had seen throughout the years. Even at my lowest points, when no amount of makeup or dressing up convinced me that I’m a beautiful woman, they’ve always been by my side and adored me like a girlfriend, like a wife, like a princess. Being able to recognize this made me more brave and willing to explore how much deeper our love could go. Sex became more than the brief, timid fumblings I’d been used to. I could actually feel the pleasure I deserved, and I became excited and eager for more opportunities to express my passion to my partner. Polyamory was suddenly something I was comfortable with doing, now that I recognized my body as worthy of being cherished by people. One of my friends who I had been thinking about for a while invited me over to hang out, and we inevitably hooked up. Now we’re girlfriends. If I went back in time to even a year prior and told myself that I would be in two relationships, or even that I would be exploring so many types of pleasures through sex, it would sound unbelievable.

Sometimes, I find myself imagining what would’ve happened if I had started hormones sooner. At the end of the day, however, I’m just glad that I finally did it. HRT has allowed me to grow into myself in a way that I never thought was possible. Every feeling that I have is more intense than ever, and I finally feel like I can see my future in a positive light. After so many years of holding myself in, I can exhale. My life is beautiful. 

Before I started transitioning, I never knew life could be so good.

Getting on Hormones Saved My Life

There are some words that can't be translated in a way that captures the essence of their full meaning. There are some places that once you visit, you will never forget. There are some memories that will haunt you forever. 

 is a Portuguese word that loosely translates into “a feeling of longing or nostalgia.” But not just any type of longing: a kind of longing that you feel in your bones. A kind of longing for someone or something that is deeply entwined with uncertainty because you aren't sure if you will ever get to experience it again.

I believe that, at some point, we all have to make peace with what we long for, or at least deep inside myself, I felt that I had to. It was a warm summer's day when I received an email informing me that I had been accepted into a special advanced studies program in Lisbon, Portugal. Ever since I first visited Portugal five years prior, I had yearned to return to the city that had charmed me in a way that no other place had. The 

: colorful, hand-painted tiles that adorn the inside and outside of buildings that tell stories of what was and reflect the beauty of what is. The 

: a fish they know how to cook in a million ways. The 

: viewpoints that offer breathtaking views of the beauty of Lisbon. The trams that are the best way to traverse the strenuous hills and take in the romantic aroma of everyday life. The river Tejo that laps up along the shores of Lisbon. All of it was calling me from across the Atlantic.

Lisbon had grown in my imagination like a lofty dream that I wondered would ever come true. I recalled the heat of the night when I walked through the streets, heartbroken by a relationship I knew would never become what I hoped it could be. I arrived feeling broken, and the city made me feel whole. Lisbon made me feel like I belonged. Over the years, I would hear the haunting reminder, "You said you would live in Portugal—one day." I would hear that voice and do nothing about it, until the day I woke up and Donald Trump was President of the United States. I was fearful—rightly so—of where America seemed to be headed.

I wasn't fully aware of it then, but Lisbon was the first city where I felt like I was a human first and not a skin color. I knew Lisbon was where I belonged, and when I finally moved there, the city welcomed me with open arms. I lived out many of my dreams. But as with many places, things there had changed without the rest of the world knowing. As if overnight, the energy of the worst form of commercial exploitation descended upon Portugal in the form of Airbnbs that took over the entire historical district called Alfama and digital nomads driving prices up while taking more than they gave during their short stays—then leaving before they’d have to deal with the negative consequences. Before long, what I loved about the city began to drift away, and I found myself yearning for the Lisbon I knew before.

Portuguese Racism Became Just as Real as Racism in the U.S.

As gentrification took hold of Lisbon through the front door, Portugal's hidden legacy of slavery and racism also crept in, but through the back door. The first signal I received that racism was becoming more overtly entrenched there was when I arrived in Lisbon after a brief visit to the United States right before the pandemic. My plane arrived very early in the morning, and rather than take a private car home like I usually do, I wanted to take the train as part of my return ritual.

I was bone-weary and so happy to be back after a visit to the U.S., where someone who was like a brother to me had passed away from long-term complications with diabetes. I entered the Lisbon Metro, still in a daze, when a man pushed me forward as I made my way through the turnstile. I realized he had done it to enter for free with my paid entrance pass. I was so stunned by the way the man treated me, as if I didn't matter, that I decided to address it. I told him that he had no right to push me that way and that if he needed a free pass, all he had to do was ask. The man didn't even have the decency to say he was sorry. It angered me, the way he spoke to me with a sense of entitlement, as if he knew he could do whatever he wished to me with impunity. I decided to engage him, and before I knew it, we were both embroiled in a full-on disagreement. He followed me onto the train, yelling that all Black people were a disease and giving 

 salutes. People on the train watched in silence. I was horrified.

My picture-perfect image of Portugal shattered, and my heart once again began to break. This time, I wasn’t sure that Lisbon would make me feel whole again. While riding home, wiping away my tears, I realized that the place I thought would shield me from the racism that was eating America alive was no longer safe. I felt violated, disgusted by what I had experienced. Little did I know that less than six months later, people all over the world would feel the same disgust over the racist atrocities that culminated with the murder of George Floyd.

Fighting Racism in Portugal Means Fighting Racism Everywhere

When I attended the Black Lives Matter protests in Lisbon, I stood in solidarity against the injustice that exists all around the world. Injustice made even more painful because I was living in Portugal as a Black person trying to escape America's special brew of racism, only to realize that escape isn’t an option. What happens in one place affects us all.

While all of this was taking place, many in Portugal repeatedly said, "We are not a racist country," even as André Ventura, leader of the right-wing populist party Chega, began making a stir in Portuguese politics—and amassing a sizable following—with a platform of vitriol. During the Black Lives Matter protests in Lisbon, I learned that Portugal has its own stories of racial injustice. When Bruno Candé Marques, a 39-year-old actor and father of three, was shot four times at point-blank range on a busy street in Lisbon, I was sad and angry. The man who did it seemed to have as much flagrant bravado as the man on the Metro who had told me that my Blackness was a disease. The killer was in his 80s and might still have held bitter feelings about the wars of independence that took place in the middle of the last century that forced Portugal to release control of its African colonies. Perhaps he was nostalgic for a time when a man with African parents like Bruno would have to listen to what he said, based on nothing more than his status as a white Portuguese man. When Bruno exercised his voice, as I did on the train that day, this Portuguese man snuffed out his life.

My move to Portugal was motivated by a sense of 

, that longing for something that I knew I must have experienced before. Something that no matter how hard I tried, or where I moved, I couldn’t seem to find. I now realize that what I really wanted was to feel like I did before I knew what race or racism was. I was nostalgic for a life experience where I could truly be free to be Black, without having to worry that the shadow of racism would follow me onto a train in Lisbon.

I wonder how I can feel so nostalgic for something that existed so long ago. Sometimes, I wonder if my moments of early freedom were ever real or the projection of my own desire for it. When I go within myself, I know deep inside that those moments were real. We all do, and I believe that many of us long for it as well. Despite how bleak the racial healing landscape looks sometimes, I still maintain hope. I long to live in a world free from racism. I have a 

 for justice. I will continue to hold space within my heart for healing. No matter what, I will continue to believe that one day, my desire for a just world will become a reality we all get to enjoy.

My return to Lisbon was marred by race-based hate.

Saudade: How Racism in Portugal Reignited a Deep Longing to Move Beyond Race

Imagine living in a state larger than West Virginia that has only 13 grocery stores. Imagine if only half the homes in your state had access to broadband internet, and yours didn’t. Imagine one-third of homes in the state lacked electricity and/or running water, and your home was one of them.

Imagine you couldn’t get mail delivered at home, and instead had to drive 45 minutes, maybe even two hours, to a post office to pick it up. Imagine you lived six hours away from state offices, and had to make the trip every time you needed to access basic governmental services like obtaining a driving license or government identification. Imagine the road you took to get there was unpaved, just like 10,000 more miles of road in your state. Imagine you don’t have your own car, but instead have to share with members of your family to get from place to place.

Imagine you can’t find a job, or your job doesn’t pay well, and every penny earned must be spent thoughtfully.

Now, imagine you’re living in this state during our current pandemic and it’s hit devastatingly hard. There are not enough hospitals, doctors or nurses to handle the outbreak, so traveling medical professionals have to be called upon. Your state government restricts the movement of everyone on the weekends to slow the spread. You live at home with your grandparents, parents and kids. Your home is not large enough for you to maintain social distancing, so any virus that gets inside will easily spread. You have personally lost friends and members of your extended family. Naturally, you’re worried. You want to register and vote in November. Tell me, how will you do that?

This isn’t a hypothetical on the Navajo Nation in northern Arizona, or for many of the 22 tribes living throughout the state. There are more than 19.8 million acres of tribal land, and living on them can be starkly different than life outside. Voting was already fraught with barriers for Native Americans in Arizona prior to the pandemic. Now, cracks in the system that routinely fail Native voters have spread and grown into chasms that require large scale institutional efforts to remedy.

The Voting System Wasn’t Made for Native Americans; Voting by Mail Isn’t Any Better

COVID-19 has completely changed our political landscape. County and state officials are imploring people to vote by mail because it is an extremely effective way to manage an election from a public health standpoint. But for Native Americans living on tribal lands, it’s not a frictionless system.

Native Americans in Arizona do not have equal access to mail. Non-Hispanic whites are 350 percent more likely to have at-home mail delivery than Native Americans. For voters living on tribal lands, mail is primarily delivered to a post office box that can be 45 minutes to two hours away. Given the time and distance it takes to get there, many people only check their box about once a month. There are approximately 48 post offices on tribal lands in Arizona, servicing 19.8 million acres of land and over 100,000 residents. Unsurprisingly, this does not provide enough individual post office boxes for all residents, and many families, friends and households have to share. Some post offices have limited hours, and many are not open on the weekends.

Voting by mail was designed with a vision of voters walking to their home mailbox, walking home to fill it out and walking back to the mailbox to send it. It wasn’t designed to accommodate Native voters who have to travel two hours down dirt roads each way, or for monolingual elders who only speak their indigenous language and require in-person translation. It was not designed for Native Americans who have to share a post office box with ten to 15 other people, since the state passed a ban on carrying ballots that don’t belong to an immediate family member, ward or household member.

Lack of equitable access to mail is one barrier Native Americans face, but there are many more: lack of equitable access to in-person early-voting opportunities, cumbersome election laws, language barriers, voter identification laws, voter intimidation and misinformation. Simple tools like looking up your polling location don’t help Native voters who don’t have addresses. Online voter registration (that doesn’t accept tribal ID or non-standard addresses) is wholly inaccessible to voters living on tribal lands. All of these build upon socioeconomic and infrastructure barriers, such as underdeveloped roads, lack of access to broadband internet, housing, electricity and running water.

I Believe in the Power of Voting, Even If the Government Has Failed Us

I have been involved in election protection efforts in Arizona since 2016, and with Native American voting access in the state since 2018. I’m a member of a tribe in Oklahoma and consider myself a part of the community of urban Native Americans in Phoenix. My work in this field can be unbearably frustrating because I spend the vast majority of my time convincing people that these barriers for Native Americans even exist, that Native American voters matter and that it is unlawful and offensive for us to have to ask for a right as fundamental as voting.

Despite the years of advocacy and awareness-raising on the part of tribes and tribal advocates, these calls have largely gone unheard. Only now are election administrators reaping what the state has sown for them. Now that state and county employees would prefer to have everyone vote by mail, they can feel some of the effects of the institutional failings of this country toward Native Americans, and how election laws have neglected to meet our reality.

The right to vote for Native Americans in Arizona is fairly new, only achieved in 1948, and it’s been an insecure right ever since. Poll taxes, literacy tests and intimidation efforts have continued to keep Native Americans from the ballot. Tribal communities have worked to increase civic participation and create generations of Native voting blocs nearly from scratch. For many non-Native voters, voting is a forgettable activity. For Native Americans, reaching and depositing a ballot is a victory against centuries of discrimination and disenfranchisement. There are elders who vote because they have a living memory of a time where Native Americans couldn’t.

It Isn’t Easy for Native Americans to Vote, Which Is Why We Need to Do It

Constantly having to fight for a basic right is exhausting.

In my work, I have to grapple with how to encourage Native people to vote when we know it’s unduly difficult, when we know the ways, past and present, that the government has failed us. I encourage people to vote out of hope for a better future, but even as we protest, raise awareness, advocate for change and engage in all the other forms of civic engagement we have available, we can also recognize that the government has failed their most basic obligations to us. Voting is one tool in an arsenal we can harness to build a better future where Native people do not just survive, but thrive.

COVID-19 has been life-changing and will continue to be so. It will take decades for us to heal from the wounds it has caused, and we can never regain the lives lost. For the sake of democracy, this moment should be one where we do everything possible to increase access for marginalized communities who have been bearing the brunt of this pandemic.

An activist from Arizona writes about all of the voting obstacles her people encounter—especially this year.