First and foremost I want to say hello, and thank you to one of my dearest friends Cal for inviting me to share my story in this year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance ceremony. When he initially asked me if I’d be interested, I was nervous and a bit hesitant because I wasn’t quite sure what to write about. But then I decided to just write….and let my thoughts go where they needed to go. My name is Gina L. Mangruem and I’m a 47 year old transgender woman. When I began transitioning, I was 19 or 20. I grew up in fairly strict home with parents who didn’t understand my desire to dress in women’s clothing. I distinctly remember prancing around the living room in my mother’s clothing and getting caught. Sheesh, was I scared. Terrified even, because in our house boys we’re boys and girls were girls.
After that I was forced to attend church more, and undergo therapy. Because to them it was a phase. But to me…it was reality. It was what I felt deep inside, and who I felt I was meant to be. Therefore, when I became of age I moved out of my parent’s place, engaged more with the lgbtqia+ scene, and started unapologetically living my life. I don’t think I could’ve been myself had it not been fore the support of my biological sister Stephanie C., and my chosen mother/mentor Michelle P. Their continued love and support for me has allowed me to blossom into the person that I am today. Sure, there are days when I still find myself struggling with the woman that I am now. Because we live in a world where people who aren’t happy with themselves find it fit to see that others aren’t happy as well. They don’t understand it. They think it’s a sin, or mental illness, and so forth. But it’s not. I’m not ill. In fact, I am happier now that I have ever been before. And you should be too. So stay focused, keep going, don’t worry about the things you can’t change, and surround yourself with people who wish to see you succeed with happiness. I hope that my story can and will help someone else achieve their dream. Thank you.
— Gina L. Mangruem-Kenworthy (Gina D’licious) | Find me on Facebook and Instagram
Girl in the Glass
by Amy Nadboralski
A street I have walked a thousand times.
I was just passing by.
There she was.
A girl in the glass,
caught mid step,
hair lifting in the wind
as if the world made space for her.
Moments passed without recognition,
a soft beauty I had only ever aspired to reach,
someone I thought existed far outside my grasp,
moving with a quiet graceI could only imagine.
Her gaze met mine,
The slight turn of my head mirrored,
the breath I drew rose quietly in her chest.
And slowly it settled.
This was not a stranger.
Not a dream.
Not a future version of myself.
She was me.
A reflection that did not argue.
A window that did not deny.
A girl in the glass who finally
said yes.
I walked on with a different weight in my chest,
something lighter, something new,
as if the part of me that had been waiting
finally stepped out of the reflection
and took my hand.
Refuse
by Amy Nadboralski
They never made room for me.
So I grew sideways.
Bloomed in alleys,
under neon,
behind velvet curtains and whispered names.
I stitched myself together
with safety pins and spit,
painted truth across my face
so loud it became camouflage.
They called it rebellion.
As if survival was a choice.
I learned the quiet art of vanishing
in rooms that demanded I shrink.
They do not see me,
not really.
Only the outline
of what they fear.
But still, I exist
in backrooms and basements,
in stolen eyeliner
and borrowed boots.
Dancing like I’m shaking off extinction.
I am what remains
when erasure fails.
When a body refuses to forget
how to take up space.
When they finally notice,
and see the beauty,
in the scars,
they carved.
They never made room for me.
So I carved a shape they could not name
and stayed.
