Being Trans: An Introduction

In a previous post, I wrote that I had to decide if I was going to use the feminine or the masculine when I was speaking Czech.   

 

Why is this even a question for you?

 

Because I’m genderqueer transmasculine. I changed my name to Saar because it’s more gender neutral. In English, I use they/them pronouns.

 

(In another previous post, I had said I was going by any pronouns. I had been procrastinating picking a pronoun because I’m still not sure which pronouns I want to use and am still considering he/him pronouns. But I’ve decided for now that they/them fits me best for where I’m at right now.)

 

What does that mean—“transmasculine”?

 

It means that I was Assigned Female At Birth (AFAB). But in terms of what I know about myself, how I see my body, and how I interact with society, I'm not a girl. I don’t want to be perceived as a woman. I’m not a woman. I don’t want that box and I don’t want that label. I’m a human who likes to present masculine.

 

Why don’t you say “transman”?

 

Because I’m not a man either. Transmasculine is used to describe that I am trans (aka not cis gender) and I present masculine, but that I’m not fully transitioned either.

 

Why don’t you want to fully transition?

 

Because I don’t want to right now. I feel good where I’m at right now.

 

Am I ever going to fully transition into being a transman?

 

I don’t know. Maybe. But for now, I feel good with presenting as transmasculine.

 

What does that mean for you and your life?

 

I am presenting as clearly AFAB—I know people can tell that I’m a female dressing like a man and I’m okay with that. I’m using they/them pronouns. I’m using a new name. And that new name is a signal that I don’t want to be Sarah anymore. 

I want to be Saar. Is it hard to spell? Yes. Is it a little hard to pronounce? Yes. But it makes me feel good having a gender-neutral name. Are they/them pronouns used in the singular a little confusing? Yes. It's annoying and frustrating and I get it. But hearing myself described as "she/her" makes me uncomfortable. Life is uncomfortable and I know that. But why put yourself in a cage when you don't have to? 

 

That’s really the best way I can explain presenting as transmasculine: it just simply makes me feel more like myself and more authentic presenting to the world. Do I look “weird”? Sure. But I’m saying to the world, “Look, this is just who I am. I’m not trying to force anything on anyone, I’m just saying, this is me, this is who I am.”

 

Do you want to get surgery?

 

Probably not. I’m not trying to fit into the box that says “man” either. But I am trying to feel good and I know that presenting as masculine feels good for me in this moment and time in my life.

 

Inside, nothing has really changed. I’ve always felt this way. But I do have more self-love and self-acceptance. On the outside, I have a new name and new pronouns. And now, for the first time in my life, I like what I see when I look in the mirror.

 

Does using they/them pronouns mean that you are non-binary?

 

I don’t identify as non-binary or agender. Those terms don’t really make my soul dance. But genderqueer and transmasculine feels much more at home for me.

 

The pronouns are not really what is important. They are just one grain of salt in an ocean of possibility and expression when it comes to the trans experience. Being trans is about how you are and how you relate to others. The external expression of that is just one piece. And pronouns and names are just one piece of that. That being said, pronouns are, of course, an important part of trans identity.

 

Does this mean you’re only going to date women now?

 

Gender and sexuality are two different things.

 

You can be a transwoman who dates women. You can be a transman who dates men. The gender you identify with does not determine the gender of the person you are attracted to. Being transmasculine, I’m just as bi/pan as I ever was and will continue to date all genders of the spectrum.

 

Ok, so will you be Saar (they/them) for good now?

 

Gender is fluid. It is possible moving forward that I will decide to fully transition into being a man. It is possible I will decide to start using he/him pronouns. It is also possible that I will go back to she/her pronouns. These things change over time for people and that is okay.

 

It is okay for me to change my mind.

 

Ok, so what’s your point? Why should I care about your gender identity?

 

Ultimately, gender is just one piece of the puzzle in a much wider and beautiful mosaic. That mosaic is the infinite color, possibility, beauty and creativity of our universe and our Spirits. I do believe that we can all love and live more fully and more beautifully if we embrace all aspects of ourselves, our world, and our universe—the beautiful and the ugly, the yin and the yang, the masculine and the feminine, the pain and the joy. This whole “gender revolution” thing is not really about just gender: it's about people fully expressing themselves. This blog post and my trans journey is ultimately not really about gender or identity: it's about being myself. Transness is for me, in the end, about loving and being every single part of myself and being genuine and authentic.

 

It’s not like: I’ve always been like a boy and therefore I am trans.

 

It’s not like: I like wearing boys clothes and therefore I am trans.

 

It’s not like: I have more testosterone than “normal,” and therefore I am trans.

 

It’s not like: I feel like a boy and therefore I am trans.

 

It’s not like: I want to be a boy and therefore I am trans.

 

It’s not like: I want to embrace all identities and expressions of gender and therefore I am trans.

 

It’s more like: Genetic + Biological + Evolutionary + Cultural + Representation + Acceptance + Spirit + Creativity + Wholeness + Authenticity = Transness

 

It’s a lot of parts. Ultimately, it’s a joining of mind, body and spirit. In the next three blog posts I’m going to talk about three main aspects of being trans: the biological, the cultural, and the creative. I hope you join me for the ride!

 

So, again you may ask: Why should I care?

 

We can all ask ourselves the question: What makes you feel authentic and genuine? What makes you feel most true to yourself and most true to the people around you?

 

For me, right now, that means a new name and new pronouns. Maybe for you that means a tattoo or a piercing. Get a haircut or a new hat. Start a new hobby. Maybe it means doing the thing you’ve always wanted to do: Write a book. Paint a canvas. Go roller skating (real life example from a dear friend ;). Start a family. Publish a play. Quit a job. Move to a new city. Start your own business.

 

How will you approach the world today with these questions? What can you do for yourself today that will make you truer to yourself? I hope you do what makes you feel true to yourself today. The world will be a better place because of it. You will not only allow others to be true to themselves, but you will also live a fuller life and open yourself up to more possibilities to love, learn, and evolve. 

And please. Feel free to reach out to me if you'd like to talk or connect with me personally. I'm happy to talk more about my trans journey. As some people close to me know, sometimes it seems like the only thing I can talk about these days, besides ethnic minority policy in China (HAHA lol but seriously it's true). That being said I do feel really shy about it. I have found I can express myself through writing better than most other modes of communication, so I hope you do feel connected to me through my writing of this. I feel connected to you (I know who you are because I have approximately 6 readers of my blog and I love each and every one of you so much). 

Gender Non-Conforming: Part 3

In a previous post, I wrote that, “People are scared of the word trans...They don’t understand it and they are scared to ask questions.”

I have felt the same way: ashamed of my ignorance and scared to ask questions. It was not long ago that I didn’t know any of the terms of the trans community or the correct way to use them. I didn't even know the correct terminology for transwoman and transman. I had always felt the need to ask, "Wait, does that mean that they are male-to-female (often written as MTF) or female-to-male (FTM)?"

(As a reminder, transwoman means someone who identifies as a woman, but was Assigned Male At Birth, or AMAB. Transman means someone who identifies as a man, but was Assigned Female At Birth, or AFAB). 

**I'm going to pause here. The previous sentence is an example where I might have just fucked up. Some people prefer the acronym CAMAB and CAFAB to stand for Coercively Assigned Male At Birth and Coercively Assigned Female At Birth. For some, the above paragraph might be offensive and need to be edited. I include this example as a way to show that everyone messes up and that these terms are constantly changing. There's no need to get defensive about it: "It's impossible to keep all these terms straight!" Just recognize that this is a foreign language to you and that it's okay to mess up, it's okay to ask questions, it's okay to apologize and correct yourself. All that matters is that you recognize that this is a learning process for everyone, and acknowledge that you are an outsider looking into a gender minority culture that you're not familiar with.**

Now, as I've learned more about trans identity, I know that the question "wait, what gender did they transition from originally?" is actually pretty offensive to people. It’s really none of your business what their genitalia is or was. It's really not that important to know what they had been assigned to at birth. The only thing you need to know is that they now identify as a woman or man. 

But everyone messes up sometimes and these terms are new for a lot of people. And that is okay. 

It was also not that long ago that I didn’t understand when people chose not to have pronouns at all. I really didn’t get it and thought those persons should just go by they/them. I didn’t understand that sometimes people don’t identify with he, she or they. In this case, the person will often choose to go by their name instead.

Or, people like me, who choose to go by any pronouns. I remember when there was a time that such a thing would have confused me.  

I mess up people’s pronouns all the time. Sometimes I forget to ask, sometimes I slip up, sometimes I choose not to ask. Sometimes I forget to--or choose not to based on social awkwardness--introduce myself with my own pronouns. Sometimes I accidentally misgender people.

Sometimes I use politically incorrect language in my writing about the queer community (see example above). When I was writing about my experiences with the queer community in China back in 2017, I sent it to a friend to edit. She sent it back with multiple corrections where I had written things that were offensive to queer people. For example, she suggested things like "say 'masculine-of-center' not 'boyish.' say 'feminine-of-center' not girly." It doesn't matter who you are: there is always more to learn. 

My mistakes were/are because of my own ignorance and lack of exposure. Language is constantly evolving to fit the needs of society and I’m not always up on the most recent changes. But I try to acknowledge and correct myself when I realize that I haven't been precise in my language.

People will make mistakes when confronting people or language in the trans community. I’m not asking for perfection. I know that we will all make mistakes. We are walking together down this new road. We are all evolving toward a new consciousness when it comes to gender. I am not asking for overnight fluency in this new language. 

I am asking for allyship. 

I am asking for you to ask questions and educate yourself. In the world of Google, there are no excuses for "sorry I didn't know" anymore when it comes to the basics. 

I am asking for you to acknowledge when you do make a mistake. 

This person, Ted Ravago, said it better than I could have, so I took a screenshot of this section of their guide to allyship.

Saying it again for the people in the back:

I am not asking for perfection. I am asking for love and support. 

Coffee Break with Brai: Interlude on Discomfort

 My partner, Brai, who is trans non-binary, read my last post and had some thoughts to add. With their permission, I share Brai's thoughts with you now! 

This definitely strikes a chord with me. It is definitely hard for me to say the words, "Hi, I am trans and use they/them pronouns" in an open setting with other people. It is definitely a phrase that promotes awkward silences. 

It makes me wonder, what do I fear with the word trans? Perhaps I fear the fear that people have of this word as much as I may hear the word as weird itself.  I fear that I may bring discomfort to the people in my life. I fear that when I think of me, they will disdain fact that I expect them to use my pronouns. I fear that they will have a problem with the way that I dress, and that that will make them uncomfortable.

It is interesting to think about this with respect to meditation. For me, one of the things that makes meditating so hard is the fact that it can be uncomfortable. Especially given the amount of knee hip and back pain that I have had in my life, discomfort has often been my go-to reason for why I don’t meditate. Part of meditation is learning to sit with the discomfort.

I have been dealing with a lot of discomfort around bathrooms and locker rooms lately. When there’s an option for a gender-neutral bathroom, I always go for that even if it’s a little bit longer of a walk. (I have gender-neutral bathrooms at work, but only on certain floors.)

But since work does not have a gender-neutral locker room, I have been using the women’s locker room. Ultimately what I feel more comfortable with depends on the moment. At work I am trying to be out and proud about being trans feminine and non-binary, so using they/them pronouns and the women’s bathroom feels like I’m being true to myself. 

In the airport I just want to take a piss as quickly as possible and be on my way. This is obviously much easier if there is a urinal. So I use the men’s bathroom. Otherwise it often depends on how I’m dressed. If I am wearing a dress, the woman’s bathroom feels more comfortable. However, that does not mean that I am comfortable in that moment. If I am wearing jeans and a T-shirt, I may be more likely to go into the men’s bathroom, but that doesn’t mean that I’m comfortable there either. 

Life isn’t comfortable. 

Gender Non-Conforming: Part 2

 I think people are scared of the word trans.

It makes them uncomfortable. I think there are multiple reasons for this. I think first and foremost people fear the word and the concept of “trans” because people don’t understand trans people. They don’t understand what it’s like not to fit in to the gender assigned to them at birth. 

For the liberals among us, they feel uncomfortable with their ignorance. They are not willing to admit that they might be behind the times. They choose not to see that there are marginalized people among them. They don’t understand it and they are scared to ask questions.

The second reason why people are scared of the word trans is because it is something that they are familiar with. They might be wrestling with their own internalized homophobia or transphobia, and they’re also scared to come out of the closet. When presented with someone who is unapologetically genderqueer, they are smacked in the face with their own cowardice. The trans person’s courage makes them uncomfortable.

Maybe this person who is feeling this fear is straight, but I would argue that everybody has a masculine and feminine side of themselves, a yin and a yang. Some people are uncomfortable when others show the possibility of embracing different sides of oneself.

But let’s say you’re reading this and you’re saying, “Nope, not me, I’m cis through and through, I’m super feminine (or "I’m super masculine") and this is not something I could ever relate to.”

Well, good for you. BUT, is there something that you are hiding from the world? 

Is there something that you wish you had the courage to share with the world? Maybe it’s your faith or your spirituality. Maybe it’s your political affiliation. Maybe it’s your substance abuse you've kept hidden from your family. 

Maybe it’s the book you’ve always wanted to write, the thing you’ve always wanted to do. For whatever reason, you are scared to share that thing with the world. And the trans person’s courage makes you uncomfortable. If they’re sharing themselves with the world, why can’t I? If they’re open, why aren’t I? If they’re free, why aren’t I? These are the questions your subconscious might be asking you when you see a trans person.

So the next time you see a trans person, and you want to look away, or laugh, or are just feeling confused and uncomfortable, or it’s your friend who wants to use a different name or a different pronoun, ask yourself, “Why does this make me uncomfortable? Is there something that I’m hiding from the world? Is there something that I’m too scared to be open about? Why does their courage make me shudder?”

Take a look really hard in the mirror. What is it that you aren’t confronting about yourself? 

Gender Non-Conforming: Part 1

 Slowly, but surely, our society has been starting to get used to trans people. 

I say "get used to" instead of "accept" very intentionally. I think there is a type of passive acceptance that comes before "getting used to" something. Acceptance of trans people might mean saying, "Sure, there's nothing wrong with that, people can do what they want." I think this attitude of "you do you" does capture most people's feelings around being trans. 

But "getting used to" captures a different feeling. When I say our society is getting used to trans people, that means people saying, "Sure, that seems normal to me, there is nothing surprising about that." 

The transgender identity and existence is becoming more and more a part of our collective consciousness. Generally people understand without explanation what it means to be transgender. From celebrities like Caitlin Jenner and Laverne Cox, people admire and sometimes even fetishize trans people. People are starting to understand that when people are “born into the wrong body,” that they desire surgery and thus change from one gender to the other, changing their appearance, name, pronouns, and which bathroom they use. I think nowadays most people are okay with trans people—as long as they fully transition.

One thing that society is still trying to grapple with and only starting to understand--and some are still really confused by--are people who choose not to fully transition. People often don’t understand when a person has decided not to fully transition from one binary to the other. Man to a woman? Woman to a man? People generally are like, "Ok, that's cool." Woman and man are two binary ends on a gender spectrum. When people fall between those ends, ending up in the gray area between them, cis people get confused. 

I can see why someone might be confused if they've never met or heard of someone who is non-binary--someone who doesn't identify as a man or a woman. The way I would explain the growing “non-transition trans” phenomenon is in two different ways. 

First of all, deciding to transition is like going through puberty. Puberty takes about 10 years (hormones start to change around age 10 and--if CU Boulder students are any indication--don't really mature into adults until age 20 or later). From the time someone comes out to themselves as trans, it might take them up to 10 years or longer—and I would argue that the trans journey is a lifelong one—to fully transition. And "fully transition" means whatever that means for them: it might mean taking hormones or getting surgery, but it might not. The trans journey is a long one, and doesn’t need to be rushed.

Second of all, some people don’t identify with either side of the gender binary. They identify as non-binary, genderfluid, genderqueer, Two Spirited, gender expansive, or something else. Some people identify as androgynous or agender, some people identify as transmasculine or transfeminine--they are trans but not "fully" transitioned into being a transman or transwoman. Some people identify as having and celebrating both masculine and feminine traits—having a beard and wearing make-up and high heels, for example.

Jonathan Van Ness at the 2019 MTV awards.

Van Ness is non-binary. His gender pronouns are he/him/his, but he has indicated that he is okay being referred to with she/her or they/them as well. Watch a video to learn more about his experience.

Note: Janelle Monáe is another celebrity who is openly non-binary.

This blog post will set out to explain my own experience with these different ways of understanding gender. In our information overloaded world, you could read countless articles and YouTube videos about non-binary people. Just Google it. But I have found that when people are learning a new concept, having personal stories or having someone they personally know tell them their own experience is helpful. So this blog post is an attempt to shed some light on my world.

Saying it again for the people in the back:

Living in Prague and Learning Czech: Part 2

So, there I was, five days into my stay, and I introduced myself in the virtual classroom using my very broken Czech. Grateful that I had been studying Czech since early January in preparation for my arrival, I was able to at least stumble my way through a few sentences. 

Ja jsem Americanka. Pracuji jako vyzkumnik. I am American. I work as a researcher. 

“Super! Just one thing,” the teacher said in English. “Unfortunately, in Czech we have gender when we are describing ourselves. When you said 'Americanka,' you used the feminine. When you said 'vyzkumnik,' you used the masculine. You just have to be consistent."

Her voice was kind and understanding. Just her use of the word “unfortunately” to describe the gendered language made me feel seen and understood. 

People can usually tell from my haircut, my clothes and my name that I’m genderqueer. The teacher and I had been emailing earlier, so she knew that my given name was Sarah. But in the virtual classroom, I had signed in as Saar. For more aware people, this discrepancy between official name and preferred name is an immediate tip-off that someone might be genderqueer. 

Besides, the teacher was a volunteer for a liberal organization and was clearly very aware of identity politics. While it was awkward for her to point out that I needed to choose a gender when speaking Czech, she did it in a thoughtful way. After all, I am still just fumbling through the language, and at least getting the gender down will help people understand what I’m trying to say through my accent and other grammar mistakes. 

The feminine and masculine as a major feature of the basic grammar structure of a foreign language is new for me. Besides she/he as third person pronouns, we don’t really have gender in English. Chinese and Uyghur don’t have gender in their language at all, not even in the third person. The third person pronoun in Chinese is “ta” and Uyghur is “u”; there are no aspects of gender at all in their respective grammars, except for words for relatives like brother and sister. But it's not like Spanish, for example, which has gendered articles (el/la) and nouns (la puerta as feminine for "door"). 

The gender-neutral language in Chinese and Uyghur was really nice when interacting with the queer community there, since you didn’t have to navigate genderqueer or non-binary identities in the language. And my girlfriend in China could talk about me freely with her co-workers, often telling them about her foreign partner (Ch: duixiang), without worrying about accidentally disclosing that she was a lesbian. She couldn’t be out at work, but she liked to talk about me anyway. She could use “ta” and not worry. It was the same. People assumed she was talking about a boy, but since there were no features in Chinese that suggested otherwise, it was never an issue. And duixiang was a gender-neutral term. 

Besides the gender-neutral grammar of the language, of course the society, especially Uyghur society, was still extremely gendered. I’ve written about this elsewhere. For example, I remember when I was learning how to have simple conversations in Uyghur, the first three questions I learned—the ones most important and most common—were: Where are you from? How old are you? Are you married?

Now, in Czech I’ve learned the first question: where are you from (Odkud jste/jsi?). And I’m learning other questions to ask people: What do you do? What are your interests? Typical of a more privileged society, where our jobs and hobbies are two of the most important aspects of our lives. 

But the second two questions? I’ve learned “how old are you” in the context of talking with children, but I don’t expect to use those questions in everyday life—at least so far, those are not questions that have come up and it does not seem normal to ask people if they are married or not. I’ve written elsewhere about the fact that because Uyghurs experience territorial anxiety, getting married and having kids is a central concern of any adult’s life. But for Czech people? This does not seem to be an issue. It has been really nice not to be interrogated about my age and marital status everywhere I go while I've been here. 

A related but tangential comment about race and our society: It has been really different to blend in racially here. When I walk down the street or exercise in the park, go skiing or ride on public transportation, nobody knows that I’m not Czech. In China, people constantly wanted to talk to me, whether on the bus or the bank, in a restaurant or in a store.

Now, of course, the second I open my mouth and start speaking Czech, they know immediately that I’m a foreigner and start asking me where I’m from, why I’m here, etc. But until then, I can walk around with the privilege of white skin and blue eyes. 

As I'm remembering how hard it was to live in China and constantly be stared at and interrogated, I know that was only a fraction of what people of other skin colors must feel living in white majority countries. It is so interesting how race really does affect our life in so many insidious ways without us even realizing it. 

And the grammar of the language you speak is the same way. It structures thought and therefore structures your reality. Structures, not determines. But still, linguistic grammar has an influence in how you think. 

Gendered language is no different. 

The masculine and feminine aspects of the Czech language will be one of the main new grammar features that I will have to get used to. 

In the end, I decided I would use the feminine with myself. 

"If you are using the feminine, you should have said 'vyzkuminice,' not 'vyzkuminik" my Czech teach explained patiently. "I'll put the spelling in the chat." 

As I've learned more Czech since then, the gendered aspects of language are frequent, since adjectives and nouns have to agree in gender, similar to Spanish. But occasionally, I also have to gender myself. When talking about what I like and dislike, and what I would like and would I would not like (such as when I'm ordering food), I need to use different forms of the words if I'm going with the feminine (rada instead of rad, chtela instead of chtel).  

Why is this even a question for me?

Stay tuned for more commentary and analysis on my gender and my queerness. 

NOTE: I'm sure in the queer community, non-binary or genderqueer people probably use a form of neutral verbiage with themselves and each other. But I'm not skilled enough at the language yet for this. So for now, I am conforming to the grammar rules until I learn the basics well enough.  

Living in Prague and Learning Czech: Part 1

Ja jsem Americanka. Pracuju jako vyzkumnik.

I am American. I work as a researcher. 

I was in Czech class. Our assignment was to introduce ourselves and I was practicing some of my new vocabulary. 

It was late February 2021 and it was my first week in Czech. Unbeknownst to me (and yes, I should have done my research), Czech was experiencing its worst—and a brutal—COVID19 spike in cases and deaths. At 1,800 deaths and almost 115,000 cases per every 1 million people, it was ranked as second in the world for COVID19 deaths per capita. 

So, yes, the COVID situation in Czech was actually worse than the US. I hadn't done my research because I just assumed that the US was the worst. Who can blame me when we are at over 520,000+ deaths to date? 

In spring of 2020, Czech was praised around the world for being one of the first to institute a mandatory mask policy, and their case numbers remained low for the first six months of the pandemic. It wasn’t until October that they saw an alarming increase in cases. 

Yeah, I can't read the Czech either. But you get the idea. Numbers were low and now they're high. I got the image from this website if you're interested in more. (Remember that Europeans write dates opposite of us. So the first date on the X-axis is March 11th and the most recent date is February 26th.) 

Just as I was arriving, the cases just kept increasing and hospitals were filling up. Soon after I arrived, all the countries surrounding Czech—Austria, Slovakia, Poland, and Germany—closed their borders to anyone coming from Czech. 

Three days after I arrived, the government instituted a mandatory N95 mask mandate in all public places, especially public transportation. 

Can you imagine if the US government tried to do that? People would be rioting in the streets. 

Luckily, my partner’s brother, a dentist, had gifted me an N95 mask before I left Colorado, and I had been wearing that since I arrived. Luckily, because N95 masks were mandated, every corner store carried them at a cheap price and I bought five for 80 crown (less than $5). Were they really N95? Probably not. I think they were counterfeit. But they looked like one, and thus passed any inspections. 

On February 26th, 2021, Czech declared a national emergency. It's because the UK and South Africa mutant strains are running rampant, apparently. 

I say all this to explain that, needless to say, all restaurants, gyms, and ski resorts were closed. The Czech class was, of course, conducted online using a video chatting platform called BigBlueButton. 

The teacher was a volunteer—the class was completely free, offered by an anti-fascist political group called D-Zona. The class was called “Czech for Anti-Nationalists.” 

Eastern Europe was ravaged by war many times in recent memory. The collapse of Yugoslavia alone caused much violence and even genocide, not to mention Soviet occupation for almost forty years and Nazi occupation before that. Czech has had its fair share of hardships and nationalist sentiment has been behind a lot of it. 

More recently, Europe has been torn apart again by the left and the right. With the Syrian refugee crisis since 2011, Europeans started getting protective, xenophobia, racist, and Islamophobic. As a result, right-wing groups, sometimes called fascist, started to take hold in many countries and Czech was no exception. Some other groups started to come together to fight against this. There are lots of groups in Czech working to help migrants out. And that includes D-Zona. Indeed, I am considered a migrant here now. I even had some people reach out through some contacts to give me information about an NGO that could help me if I ever had legal issues with the complicated bureaucracy that offers no English language services. Now, of course, my privilege is above and beyond what most migrants are facing. But the class only had three other people, and the teacher encouraged me to join. It was open to all. 

Stay tuned for more about my life in Czech.