I met Macy Owens at City Park on Saturday March 6^th around noon. It was sunny and there were a lot of people there. I was nervous to be talking to strangers and asking to take their pictures, so I got some beignets to take my mind off of things. I didn’t think about the black t-shirt I was wearing. The day was off to a great start.

I walked around a bit and did some turtle watching, then came across a woman wearing all denim, (bell bottoms!). My gut told me this was the person I needed to speak to. Soon after approaching her, it was clear that she was comfortable talking to me and was intrigued on what I was doing.

Tell me a funny story.

Macy: “One day, I was down in the kitchen fixing breakfast around 2 in the afternoon. Back then I was wearing my prosthetic breasts around the house to counteract the dysphoria. I could get away with it while my mom was at work as long as I took them off before she got home. That day, she came home early on her lunch break at the exact time I was in the kitchen. Naturally I panicked, and I ran in the laundry room that is adjacent to the kitchen and hid. I had to come up with a reason for why I was in there though, so I started cleaning the cat’s litter box. I took the silicone forms out of the pocket bra and stuffed them in my pockets. I was wearing pajamas so the pockets were big enough to hide them. My mom was distracted by the fact that I was eating breakfast at 2 in the afternoon, so I was able to sneak upstairs and hide them. She never suspected a thing. The same thing happened again a few days ago, only this time I had to hide them in the laundry room. I only wear them for my Zoom classes now, I have one where I’m on camera. She almost caught me right before class the second time. One time, early on, I came home with the remnants of eyeshadow on, and she noticed. I’m not sure if she was convinced when I told her I was just really tired. One time she went rifling through my sock drawer looking for black socks. It woke me up and I had to stop her and tell her they weren’t in the drawer. That’s where I hid some of my stuff, and luckily, she didn’t notice.