https://transrants.com/ An assorted mix of essays, poems and rants. By Adri M. https://transrants.com/word-activism/https://transrants.com/word-activism/Wed, 01 Oct 2025 20:26:15 +0000How I pressurised my words and proved my case In mid-April 2023, I decided to apply for refugee protection in Canada as a trans person from so-called Costa Rica. One of the first steps I had to take was to find an immigration lawyer willing to represent me. Earlier that month, I... https://transrants.com/what-trans-representation-feels-like/https://transrants.com/what-trans-representation-feels-like/Sat, 28 Dec 2024 03:01:56 +0000Why Squid Game Season 2 has one of my favourite trans characters ever. Warning: spoilers ahead for Squid Game Season 2. The end-of-year holidays are a very quiet time for me. My wife and daughter usually travel abroad to visit family and, for reasons I’ve mentioned in other stori... https://transrants.com/about-me-adri-m/https://transrants.com/about-me-adri-m/Sun, 22 Dec 2024 21:12:49 +0000An expatriate from the ancestral land of the Huetar people 1 2 3 4 . Descendant of the few who survived and the colonizers who enslaved them, murdered them and stole their land, their culture and their name 5 6 7 8 . A transgender person who became an uninvited guest to people th... https://transrants.com/elegy-ones-never-were/https://transrants.com/elegy-ones-never-were/Wed, 04 Dec 2024 14:03:33 +0000Love not until death. Love until life. Until love. Free, alive, queer, strong. Along with others, I organized a local vigil. We held meetings late at night, looked for collaborators, and reached out to a community that wholeheartedly answered back. It was busy, chaotic, and soul-... https://transrants.com/null-gender/https://transrants.com/null-gender/Thu, 28 Nov 2024 17:27:33 +0000It was October 2023. I was sitting in front of a desk at an immigration office. The lights were fluorescent, and the office was small: just enough space for the desk and some chairs. Two other asylum seekers were sitting beside me. I was located against the wall, then one in the... https://transrants.com/this-is-not-a-poem/https://transrants.com/this-is-not-a-poem/Thu, 22 Aug 2024 23:08:19 +0000Part of the workshop “What Sex Workers Can Teach You About Craft” by Amber Dawn. Vancouver, August 2024. This is not a poem about trauma. I won’t talk about children terrified by those closest to them. This is a poem about resilience, the will to survive, and the innate strength... https://transrants.com/little-black-tendrils/https://transrants.com/little-black-tendrils/Sun, 29 Oct 2023 04:09:43 +0000Little Black Tendrils My coming out story The little black tendrils are growing out of my body again. I say this facetiously: they are constantly growing. As soon as I’m done with them, they are already slowly, steadily crawling back. Spiteful little things they are. The ones on... https://transrants.com/i-choose-to-fail/https://transrants.com/i-choose-to-fail/Sat, 21 Oct 2023 00:32:00 +0000As a child, life for me was a never-ending test. I repeated and memorized at school to pass the year and be a good student. I kept track of my parents’ whims at home to survive and be a good kid. Those tests were significant. They dictated who I was (dumb, intelligent? good, bad?... https://transrants.com/apostata/https://transrants.com/apostata/Thu, 19 Oct 2023 18:18:30 +0000Being religious without knowing. Living your whole life thinking those values overflowing all around you are not a part of who you are. Realizing you were as religious as everybody else. That fear and guilt were the power tools that ruled your life. That love and pain were the sa... https://transrants.com/my-talk-with-a-self-hating-transphobe/https://transrants.com/my-talk-with-a-self-hating-transphobe/Tue, 10 Oct 2023 18:08:42 +0000This is mostly based on a true story. As many of us do, I sometimes like to meander around dating apps. I like to talk, and I find there’s always a nice cache of people who are willing to talk too (of course there are a lot who don’t, but that’s not the point). So I periodically... https://transrants.com/the-original-debt/https://transrants.com/the-original-debt/Sun, 24 Sep 2023 18:28:33 +0000In God we have Original Sin ( we are sinners because we dared being born). In Mother, in Father, we have Original Debt ( we are debtors because we dared being born). It’s a debt we incur in, from the very moment we are conceived. We didn’t choose it, just like we didn’t choose to... https://transrants.com/drip/https://transrants.com/drip/Transparent, frozen, solid bars hanging from above: they surround her as the cold does. Silence but for her own muted steps on the fallen leaves, her breath and the beating of her own heart. She stops. Silence but for the faint dripping sounds the bars make as they melt, and her... https://transrants.com/home/https://transrants.com/home/I once learned that love was pain. Something to fear and avoid. But then I realized love is nurture and growth. Something that can set your soul free. I once learned that family was imposed. Something to bear and endure. But then I realized family is chosen. It supports you and l... https://transrants.com/illusions/https://transrants.com/illusions/Terse meshes of silk. Delicate patterns of thread. Ethereal, fragile, defying existence, Like words no-one ever said. Chimeras, deceptions, fine wrappings of mesh. Soft feelings against my flesh. A thin, fine net, surrounding my head, made of whispers, shadows and dread. https://transrants.com/la-lastima-lastima/https://transrants.com/la-lastima-lastima/Reflections on difficult knowledge by Adri M. I’ve been doing Lacanian psychoanalysis for 10 years as an analysand. This approach really resonates with me; its famous maxim, “l’inconscient est structuré comme un langage” (the unconscious is structured like a language), capt... https://transrants.com/mirror/https://transrants.com/mirror/“Remember this, son: every mirror goes both ways; every reflective surface is a window to another dimension. We can see it, but it is always staring back at us. Waiting. Bearing its time to snap back.” The memory of a baritone voice with features molded by endless cig... https://transrants.com/my-first-time-singing-this-rhyme/https://transrants.com/my-first-time-singing-this-rhyme/My first time singing this rhyme, sleepy time is most sublime. I will sing this song again, if you wake up one more time. Fifty times I’ve sung this rhyme, I can feel it in my spine. I will sing this song again, if you wake up one more time. Ninety times… I’m like a chime, though... https://transrants.com/she-came-down-from-the-mountains/https://transrants.com/she-came-down-from-the-mountains/Traditions of storytelling are integrally linked to gatherings of commemoration, protest, and resistance She came down from the mountains. Nobody was sure why or how, but one day she descended from the land of Chief Accerrí to the Valley. Maruca, they called her, though they were... https://transrants.com/the-house/https://transrants.com/the-house/This is the house where she grew up. A place that she has known so well for so long yet is now so different. Sounds and smells once omnipresent are no more. Even the light seems to have changed, from bright fiery crimson and almost ultraviolet purple to only shades of gray, sickl... https://transrants.com/they/https://transrants.com/they/They were peaceful. They were quiet. They had their life solved, or so they thought. Even if it meant living someone else’s life. Living but waiting for death’s release. Is peace and quiet even the goal? Is there even a need for a goal? They sometimes still wonder, do...