What if the clearest view of life came not from privilege, but from erasure? In this unflinching letter, a transfeminine voice speaks from the margins, where dignity is denied, toilets are unsafe, and legal recognition has vanished. Yet from this pressured silence emerges clarity, resilience, and a lighthouse’s light. This is not a cry for pity. It’s a call to breathe, to see, to feel, and to remember what truly matters before the world forgets itself.

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In the UK today, as a transfeminine person, I know I have been legally erased by the law passed in April 2025 defining “woman.” Many will understand that being transfeminine means struggling to be seen as simply part of everyday life. You struggle for work, for safety, for dignity. And now, we have no legal place to pee.

Yes, in many ways, being transgender is a disability, one I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. As I approach my 56th birthday, after decades of masking, striving, surviving, learning and trying to get used to being transgender since the age of five, I accept, brutally and completely, that I give up.

I accept the legal erasure. I accept the absence of safe, dignified toilets. I accept that despite years of managerial experience, I will only ever earn just enough to keep food on the table and a roof over my head, and I am grateful for that. I accept that I will never be “normal” in society’s eyes. I accept that I belong to a group lashed to the whipping post of life, where cis women and cis men alike can vent their anger. Transgender people are the last group it’s still socially acceptable to attack, and few are willing to stand beside us. Even those closest to me won’t join arms for lawful representation. Why? Because they are cis.

Being trans isn’t a fight you can take home to your trans family or your trans neighbourhood. There’s no march on Selma or Wigan, London or New York. We go home alone, even in families of ten or more, we almost always go alone. No matter what cis people say, they don’t truly get it. And why should they? They don’t live it. They don’t feel the paradox wrapped around you, suffocating you until invisibility becomes the only safety. Like disabled children locked away in the 1970s, we are hidden so the 99% can carry on without thinking.

So yes, I give up. But they say enough pressure forms a diamond. And it’s true: when force is applied, an equal force pushes back. Squashed and trapped in this samsaric existence, I see life clearly now.

I listen as people speak of mental health struggles, university pressures, demanding careers, and the compulsion to tick off bucket-list achievements. These things matter. But I notice that most people still have freedoms I do not: the right to exist without fear, the right to pee without anxiety, the right to walk through life knowing the law acknowledges your presence.

I see people reaching for quick fixes, gazing into phones for fleeting joy, chasing the illusion that more is more. Yet deep down, they know the cycle won’t end. The hamster wheel spins until the horizon darkens.

And then I see myself, transgender, visible yet legally erased. Denied normalcy. Denied dignity. No safe toilets. No fair opportunities. A legal system that refuses to understand my truth. Cis white, cis Black, ADHD, PTSD, bipolar, gay, lesbian, loyalist, democrat, republican, Russian, African, or simply loving life on the Isle of Man, your struggles matter. But for me, even the act of living carries burdens society refuses to name.

Yet with this transgender curse comes clarity. With disenfranchisement comes vision. I see humanity racing toward a cliff, cheering its own destruction, blinded by distraction. And in this new sight, there is a gift: the chance to pause, to breathe, to see life as it truly is.

The real treasures are not events or possessions. They are breath, light, nature, the simple moments that remind us we are alive. To be transgender may feel like a curse, but it has shown me truths most never see. It has forced me to witness the fragility of existence and the preciousness of each moment.

I do not need validation. I do not ask anyone to see me. I ask only that we all see ourselves. That we stop. Breathe. Feel. Sit with the pain, the frustration, the challenges, and see them for what they are. A woman I know, facing cancer, accepted her diagnosis. In that painful acceptance, she saw clearly. She glimpsed life’s raw beauty. She understood what mattered. Few ever stop long enough to see this.

I am caught in social and legal paralysis, watching the world race ahead while a few of us stand steady, like lighthouses. Bending, but unbroken in the storm. And lighthouses do not exist for themselves. They guide, silently, for those willing to pause.

We all share one unalterable truth: we will all take our last breath. Would you rather that breath be lived fully, cherished in its simplicity, or spent scrambling for the next fleeting distraction? The world won’t wait. But the “gravy train” of illusions will stop. And one day, all you’ll want is to breathe fully, see clearly, and feel the miracle of being alive.

So start today. Practice seeing. Choose what endures: breath and sight, presence and wonder. Let them be your gifts, not for punishment, not for display, not for validation. Let them be the only things you truly treasure. Breathe and feel. That is enough.

Learn to be a lighthouse for yourself first. It’s hard. But stand tall. Bend with the wind. Shine even a small light into this dark, dark new world. Breathe fully, then see the beauty of life’s free gifts. It’s the smallest miracles each day that make life real, not the moments that feed the greedy wheel, sending lemmings over the cliff with a cheer, a whoop, and a final Instagram post, only for more lemmings to follow.

I could sign off with “Stop the world, I want to get off.” But I don’t. I just hope and pray people stop navel-gazing, chasing this fix or that, and reach deep down. Appreciate what they have at the heart of them. Build a life of total love for the things real life is always about: breath, sight, speech, movement, and above all, love for the miracle of every life, every day.

The rest is soap bubbles. Wallpaper. Fashion. Competition. Likes. Followers. Less breath. Less living. Less appreciation.

Stop. And please breathe. It’s free. It’s analogue. And each breath is uniquely yours and each one maybe your last, even the one you breathe ……. NOW.