Respect

Day 166 – May 8, 2026

Today was the funeral service and celebration of life.

And I keep coming back to one word. Respect.

Not the cheap kind. Not the performative kind. Not the one people throw around when they want credit for basic decency and a good blazer.

The real kind. The kind that lands in the body. I was one of 4 trans women at this service and we were clearly outsiders at this gathering.

And I could not have felt more seen, heard, accepted, welcomed, and truly part of that community honoring the life of this incredible woman.

That mattered in ways I’m still trying to put language around.

Because let’s be honest, this country is not exactly handing out warm, uncomplicated spaces of belonging to trans women right now. Especially not in ways I’m willing to trust immediately. Especially not in spaces where history, grief, community, and faith are all in the room together and the stakes of respect are not symbolic.

They are felt.

So to walk into that service, and into that celebration, and not feel like an outsider in the way the world often encourages women like me to preemptively expect. That did something to me.

And then, afterward at the celebration of life, one of the family members approached us and said that simply by walking into the service and celebration, respect.

That sentence has been sitting in me all day. Because first of all, what a compliment.

And second of all, what a fascinating thing to say.

Respect.

No thank you for coming. Not admiration. Not approval. Not tolerance. Respect.

And it made me think about what respect actually is.

Because today, all of us were there out of respect for that woman’s life and for her family. We were there because she mattered. Because grief matters. Because showing up matters. Because love requires bodies and time and presence and not just statements. We walked into that space not asking for anything, not taking up more than was ours, not demanding to be centered, just there to honor a woman who deserved that honor.

And somehow, in doing that, we were met with respect too.

That is beautiful to me.

And also bigger than the moment.

Because respect, real respect, recognizes the energy you bring into a room. It recognizes posture. Intention. Presence. Heart. The fact that some people know how to enter a space with humility and dignity at the same time. The fact that some women, even women the culture would very much like to flatten into easy categories, arrive carrying themselves with enough grace, sincerity, and self possession that the room feels it.

That’s what I think happened.

And I’m proud of that.

Not because I need validation from every room. I absolutely do not.

But because there is something deeply meaningful about being recognized in a place that mattered, on a day that mattered, in a context where the respect was not frivolous. It was tied to grief. Community. Life. Legacy. It was spoken in the wake of a woman whose own soul and presence clearly shaped the standard in that room.

That means more than almost any random compliment ever could.

It also made me think about how often the world misuses the word respect. How often it really means obedience, social readability, comfort, agreeability, or “you made me feel unchallenged enough that I can now call you good.”

That is not respect. Respect is deeper.

Respect is how you show up. Respect is what you carry. Respect is what you are willing to stand inside with other people. Respect is letting someone’s life matter enough that you come all the way there for it. Respect is seeing four trans women walk into a church service in honor, dignity, and truth. And understanding something real about them without needing a speech.

That’s power.

Roger did not attend the church service, obviously, which is probably for the best because his current theology centers mostly around snacks, close contact, and immediate moral outrage at closed doors. But he would have deeply respected the post service atmosphere if there was food and enough people calling him handsome.

And honestly? Fair.

There’s something in me that still feels undone by today. By the welcome. By the acceptance. By the sheer humanity of it. By the way grief can make some spaces more honest, more open, more spiritually accurate than the outside world ever is on its best day.

I won’t forget it.

Because days like this remind me that community is not always where you expect it. Respect is not always where the culture says it will be. And sometimes, in the middle of death, life still reveals a room where you are not just tolerated, you are truly part of it.

That is no small thing.

Chaos in one hand. Grace in the other.

And respect, real, felt, hard earned respect, still ringing through me from a room that knew exactly what it meant.