I began to call myself trans before it was as common as it is now. I started going by he/his/him pronouns early. I dated straight women. I found OM through one of those women, my boss, at a restaurant where I worked. She wasn’t just someone I dated; she was a catalyst who helped set me on my spiritual path. My ex put honesty first, even if it was hard to hear.
The big truth that I came to in that relationship was that there was more to me than my trans identity. When someone transitions, we think of them as “done.” Like it’s this huge secret that they’ve finally been brave enough to tell, and now that they’re living as another gender, they’re somehow more complete. What I realized was that being trans was, for me, more like being in transit than arriving at some settled state. Otherwise, it was just another cage I needed to break. There was something bigger for me, and I needed a community to explore what that might be.
The first time I came to an OM class, I saw a woman I’d grown up with. I hadn’t seen her since we were kids, but we reconnected instantly. She asked if she could OM with me and be my stroker, so my first experience with the practice was with her. That was incredible because she’d known me before, so it was as if she could not only witness my transitions but not be limited by them. I’m generally reluctant to stick with anything, but OM felt different.
I’ve always struggled with jealousy. One time, I saw my ex’s ex-boyfriend in a class pretty early in my practice. I had known vaguely that he OMed, too. I got triggered and felt this overwhelming impulse to leave. Instead, something inside me said, “Stay, stay, stay anyway.” I’ve always been so impulsive to bust out of things, and that’s served me well – but sometimes, I need to stay and do the work no matter what.
After the ex’s ex left, I felt this rush of energy from having done something contrary to my normal way of being in the world. I’d broken out of a cage of my own making. As a result of that break-out, I realized how much I was pigeonholing myself with this limited view of my own sexuality. It wasn’t just important to stay in the room to push through my jealousy. It was important to stay focused on myself and my own experience because freedom came from listening to my inner voice, which only came when I did something difficult.
There is a theory around child development. One of the first periods a child passes is when they’re incredibly sensitive to details. So, when you’re reading them a story from a picture book, they’re likely to interrupt you to point out some tiny detail on the page. To the adult reading, it’s just background information and not the point of the page – but the child in this phase is tapped into a significance that we dismiss as background noise.
The adult wants to move on to the “point.” The child says, “Wait, I want to talk about why that dog in the background is yellow and not black.” The theory teaches that we should let that stage last as long as needed--it opens up a child’s perception and psyche.
OM has helped me return to that hyper-awareness stage without being trapped in it. I can still see the big picture, but my psyche opened up to an entirely different way of looking at the world. I can see the smallest details now and know someone’s story, from how they dress to how they walk down the street. That’s not making snap judgments; it’s intuiting real truths through heightened observation. That power keeps growing and growing the more I do this practice, and I hope it never stops.
