Resident Tranny

I’ve been out as transgender for about two decades. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say I’ve been living authentically for that long. Before I “came out”, before hormones, before aligning my mind and body, I was technically out to a couple of close friends. But not to the public. Not to work. Not to family. Not to the broader world.

Even back then, we had queer friends in our orbit, and there was an ongoing joke we used to laugh about: straight people thinking all queers know each other.

It always came out the same way. “I have a gay friend, Ricky Morell. Do you know him?”

Or worse, the assumption that the one gay person they know is now the Oracle of Queerness. “My friend Ricky wears pink laces in his sneakers. Is that a gay thing?”

The storytelling afterward was hysterical. We’d sit around laughing at the absurdity of it all, the idea that queer identity came with a directory and a handbook.

But eventually, I actually came out. I told my family. My kids. My friends. My workplace. Everyone. And this was more than twenty years ago, back when being transgender wasn’t something you discussed casually over lunch. The world was colder. Less forgiving. And I wasn’t working in a yoga studio.

I worked in the military-industrial complex. A male-dominated environment. Veterans from an era where slurs were casual punctuation.

Coming out was not easy. Not even a little bit. There were career consequences. I was reclassified. My trajectory stalled. I watched people I hired in with rise into leadership roles while I stayed parked, despite giving everything I had to the job.

So I did what I’ve always done: I kept my head up and did excellent work.

My path to leadership was longer. Steeper. With sharper turns. I earned every inch twice. Sometimes with a smile.

And somewhere along that road, I became “the transgender one.” The resident authority. The person people quietly reached out to when policies were being drafted. When guides were being revised. When someone had a question.

All while I was privately fighting exclusions in our own healthcare policies, exclusions that directly affected me.

Those barriers eventually came down. But the calls didn’t stop.

So yesterday, my work phone rings. Unknown number. I answer.

It’s my former boss. He has a question about a transitioning employee. And for a split second, my gut wanted to tell him exactly where he could put that question, given a few recent professional decisions that didn’t exactly tilt in my favor.

But I didn’t. Because that’s not who I am.

So I answered his questions. I coached him through it. I gave him perspective. I modeled leadership.

And now I’m sitting here tonight, a little smug about it. Because here’s the irony: I complain about being treated as the resident transgender person. I bristle at being the default resource. I resent being the walking FAQ. And then I pick up the phone and do the work anyway.

Which makes me a little hypocritical. Or maybe it just makes me complicated. Because maybe the truth isn’t that I hate being asked. Maybe I hate that I had to bleed for decades to be taken seriously, and now the world calls me when it needs help. Maybe what irritates me isn’t the question. Maybe it’s the history behind it.

Either way, I answered the call. And if that makes me the resident tranny, so be it. Just don’t ask me about Ricky’s shoelaces.