Someone in a trans support Discord server commented how sad it was to see so many people leaving the community. She felt like she was losing her friends. This is what I wrote in response.

It was like that in the 90’s too. It’s just the nature of the trans community. It is fleeting. People come in when their egg cracks and they need advice, comfort, and to be in the company of other trans people who will accept them unconditionally and actually understand what they are going through.

But we all move forward. We get HRT. We get electrolysis, or maybe grow a beard. We start living as our true selves 24 hours a day. Gradually, over the course of a few years, we get our lives in order with help from our trans siblings, and once our transition is complete, or at least complete enough, we find that we no longer need that kind of intense community support. The pain of dysphoria has receded.

That pain, though, pain shared with others, is what binds the community together. It’s what brings us together in the first place, and once it’s gone, we start seeking community based on actual shared interests: music, religion, jobs, art – the same kinds of things that bring cis people together. We may keep some friends from the trans community, people we’ve bonded with over things other than being trans, but mostly we find ourselves moving on into the wider world.

After my surgery, for example, I no longer really got anything out of attending support group meetings. I was starting to make friends in the Irish music scene, and the pagan community though. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, I just stopped going to support group meetings. It wasn’t really a conscious choice, it was just that my world had opened up to other things, the things that really brought me joy, and I no longer had time to focus on the pain of others that I no longer experienced myself.

The trans community is one where we are brought together by shared pain, and we only stay in that community while the pain lasts. Some people, like me, might eventually come back. Honestly, the reason I’m here is because looking at all the anti-trans sentiment going on even a few years ago made me realize that younger trans people were starting to have a very rough time of things. I decided that given where I was in my life, that I had the time, money, and emotional energy to give back and try to help newly cracked eggs and others still on the journey. That’s how I ended up here.

So when someone leaves the community, it may make you sad, but remind yourself that it means that person has finally been able to move beyond the pain that comes from being trans and is now able to find joy simply in living their own life. And some day, you will too.