About Me

The man in the rainbow mask

I’m the man in the rainbow mask, not in a sexy, mysterious, non-binary bandit kind of way…more in a finally embracing all the queerness rather intensely during a Pandemic kind of way.

This is me unfiltered.

I’m a fun-sized, nerdy guy on my way to becoming some kind of hobbit requiring six meals a day, thanks to Testosterone. I’ve reluctantly gone on an adventure after finding a ring that made me invisible. I often hope I don’t become Gollum, though I do see him above my name sometimes during zoom calls. That doesn’t bother me too much anymore. I don’t owe it to anyone to become a beautiful man; I just owe it to myself to continue to become me.

It feels a little scary even to show you my picture, though I’m out of the closet and have probably long since lost everyone I’m going to lose as a result of that.

Old habits die hard, I guess.

Speaking of which, you should probably know that Logan Silkwood isn’t my real name.

“Silkwood” was on a truck that drove past me as I signed up for Medium while standing on a street corner near a river somewhere in the Bible Belt of the United States. This happened in a town that you’ve probably never heard of that will always mean a lot to me, even long after I flee the scene. “Logan”, meaning “little hollow”, seemed like the kind of peaceful, semi-secret space I wanted to create here, so I’ll happily answer to that.

I’d love to tell you my real name someday, but for now, I feel like that would get in the way of sharing everything that I want to share with you here. Great writing, in my opinion, requires painful levels of honesty and vulnerability alongside a firm belief that those things we’re most afraid to share about ourselves are often the things that resonate most about us.

We’re all terrified of the secrets we have in common.

I will tell you one thing about my real name, though.

He is a character in a book I used to read in a coffee shop with my father while he interrupted me to play our long established game: to guess the secrets and stories of strangers that walked past us. It was a game that combined the powers of observation with the whims of the imagination.

Now, I wonder what story my father would guess if he saw me, a newly pubescent stranger of a man in his late thirties walking by in a hopefully plague-free coffee shop with the very beginnings of a patchy 5 o’clock shadow on his late-to-bloom face. Would he imagine me to be like the character in that book I was once reading alongside him? That would make me happy, because whatever that character went through, he’s going to be okay. He’s in good company, wherever he is. Regardless, I think my real story is often a little stranger than the fiction someone in a coffee shop could spin from a single glimpse of me.

I write a lot about being trans, so I guess I should start there.

Words that resonate with me include non-binary, trans man, and occasionally trans masculine. I go by he/him pronouns.

My gender is a bit of a layer cake of masculinity and femininity. I want to look like I was born a man, so that I can finally throw on a little makeup in a very queer and manly way. Maybe I’ll wear a flowy, comfortable dress that goes swish, and still fit nicely in my masculine skin. Alternatively, I also sometimes long to grow my hair out to match a cute, artsy goatee and rock the aging hipster look unironically after that trend has faded into oblivion.

Most people didn’t see all of this coming because I had long since way over-compensated for being a closeted trans man by doubling down on femininity.

Did my wife sneeze and make me trans?

Well, it might make a little more sense if you see this picture of 18 year old Logan:

Or this very angsty 16 year old Logan:

These are pictures of me as a young man and as a growing boy. If this isn’t as obvious to you as it is to me in hindsight, that’s okay. I was always trans, even before I knew it, even before friends and family knew it. I was always just me.

I’m not a different person. I’m just beginning to see myself a little more clearly now. We all evolve during our lives.

To support my queer trans audience, I proudly write and am an assistant editor for Queerly Trans. To serve a more general LGBTQIA+ audience, along with our wonderful allies, I also write and help edit for Prism & Pen.

KP_the_writer and I have developed the publication Enbyous together and edit/write for that to serve an audience of non-binary people and those who love us. To help serve the trans community and our partners in love, sex, and healing a bit more intimately, I created, edit, and write for the publication Trans Love and (A)Sexuality to serve as a place to share stories and educate each other.

Want to read more about all of this, but don’t have a Medium Membership yet?

• Here is a writing of hope that I would offer to anyone for free:

• I have also written many free writing prompts to encourage trans and queer writers to share their experiences. Feel free to join us here as a writer by commenting with links to your writings, if you would like me to share them with our audience:

After that, to keep binge reading, you might need to sign up for a $5/month Medium Membership to join our community and enjoy all of the amazing Medium articles that this website has to offer, while hopefully sharing some of your own stories, which I can’t wait to read!

If you would like part of your membership fees to support me at no additional cost to you, click the link below or click on the membership link of your favorite writer to support them! Check out the Queerly Trans publication to find more wonderful queerly trans writers to support!

Here is a comprehensive list of all of my trans-related posts:

I also write frequently about queerness from the standpoint of sexuality.

Here is a list of all of my posts about queerness and sexuality:

In addition to all of this, I write quite a bit about having been in a polyamorous marriage for about 5 years now.

Here is a list of all of those posts, if the polyamorous lifestyle intrigues you and you would like to know more about what this aspect of my life has been like for me.

I also write about mental health and trauma.

After all, I’m more or less a writer because I’ve spent so many years writing to stay sane through 4am flashbacks that I’ve more or less forgotten how not to write.

Here is a list of mental health writings:

Sometimes, I just wax poetic for a bit. Here is a growing list of my poetry:

I also speak Spanish and am excited for the chance to write and get comments in my second, but equally beloved, language. Here is what I have written so far:

I frequently write about writing as well:

I write about lots of other stuff, too. For a more comprehensive list, or to skip to writings of a certain mood, feel free to scroll through my list of lists! I tried to organize things to make them easy for you to find something that connects us.

Thank you so much for reading and commenting! I love using this space as a place to have a dialogue with you, as we all learn a little more about ourselves.