I spent most of the day in a padded bikini lying on a towel over sand at a river beach, collecting overcast sun and reading a collection of transgender-themed fiction.
I got a few stares as I walked to and from the bathroom and a few other times. I looked down at myself and kept spotting the hairs in my erstwhile cleavage that I missed on my last 20-minute tweezing session, and frowning at myself.
But then I looked down at my long, hairless legs finally getting some sun, such as it was on this cloudy day; and the fuchsia-and-teal of my finger- and toenail polish; and the accent of my navel ring; and the increasingly adept gaffing behind my bikini bottom; and the gentle curvature of my testosterone-addled breasts behind this triangle top. And I felt the breeze over my bare skin and the warmth radiating up from the sand and down from the sky, and watched a mom introduce two little girls to dip-netting for minnows nearby after a duck with ducklings came to visit us and wandered off when we didn’t feed them.