Mavka,
Your words brought me joy too. 💜 The way you wrote about your "gray mask" is very powerful. Many of us here use that same language. For years, I talked about my own mask as a role — something I put on when I could not safely be myself, and took off again when I was finally alone or in a safe space.
At work, in public, around people who were not safe, I played that role. It looked like a "normal" life from the outside, but it was exhausting. Then, when I was home or with trusted people, the mask would come off and I could finally breathe. That back-and-forth was survival, but it was hard.
Over time, as I transitioned, I reached a point where I could put that role down permanently. I completed my transition mentally and physically, and now I am just Susan, all the time. I fought for my legal right to live as myself, and I will not put that mask back on – not ever, even if things here become as dangerous as they are for you in Russia.
But I need to be very clear about something important: that is my choice for myself. I am not asking you or anyone else to make that same choice.
Even though things where I live are better, they are far from perfect. There is a loud "moral panic" driven by religion and, frankly, a lot of the same rhetoric you are facing. We are facing the same forces, just at different points on a timeline.
The far-right leadership in the US wants to reach exactly where Russia is now, and religious hate groups are actively mapping the way for them. The machinery that has criminalized your existence in Russia is being built here too — we're simply earlier in that process.
With that said, I am still much safer than you are right now. Here, being transgender is not yet criminalized in the way it has been for you in Russia. You are living in a place where simply existing as yourself can put you at real risk from the government and from others.
So while I have made my decision about what I will and will not do, I will never judge you or anyone else for doing whatever you need to do to stay alive and safe. If that gray mask protects you when your safety depends on it, there is no shame in wearing it. Surviving is not a failure. It is strength.
What matters is that underneath that mask, you already know there is a real you, and she is starting to show herself. When you stood in front of the mirror with your makeup and felt that relief—that was her. That was a moment with the mask lifted. It might have been a mix of trying something new and showing your inner self, but the important part is that it felt right enough to give you comfort.
You do not have to rip the mask off all at once. You can lift it slowly, in small, safe ways:
- A little makeup in private.
- A quiet moment with your girlfriend where you are fully yourself.
- A post here where you can speak as the girl you know yourself to be.
Those small moments add up. They help you learn what feels like you and what does not. They help you understand yourself, even while the outside world is trying to deny that you exist at all.
Please, keep exploring your feelings in the safest ways you can find—here on the forum, with your girlfriend, and in your private time. Notice what brings you relief, what makes you feel more real, more alive, more like you. That will guide you, even if it takes time.
And whenever you need a place where the mask can come off for a little while, you can come here. You are not a burden. You are not "too much." Your questions, your doubts, your joy in front of the mirror—all of it belongs here.
We will be here walking beside you, as long as you need us.
Пожалуйста, береги себя. Ты нам важна.
— Susan
