Growing up trans and neurodivergent can feel like living without a map while everyone else insists there’s only one right road. In From the Root, trans autistic poet J JvV pulls us into that reality with raw honesty – the confusion, the ache, the fierce reclamation of self. Their words trace the journey from being misplaced by the world to finally becoming rooted in their own truth. It’s tender, unfiltered, and quietly triumphant.

Here is their story, in their own voice.

From the Root

By J JvV

Shirtless on a farm,

sheltered from society—

inexposure as the root of happiness,

truly me,

my first seven years.

Kindergarten was never for me;

I felt like a foreigner —

the same tongue,

but different entirely,

alien almost.

Cried and clung to my father

as he handed me over the half-

wooden door

to the strange lady.

I could not understand

why I had to be alone —

with children the same size as me,

but no one

like me.

An overwhelming ring

in my head —

like a deer, naked

in headlights.

My first day of big school.

Gender was introduced to me

when I was divided into a line —

with the girls

instead of the boys.

Praying became a serious affair —

a secret, late-night call.

Liewe Here,

please let me wake up

as a boy.

A committed attempt —

I gave up

when the first signs appeared:

breast buds,

blood;

I hate this body.

My first day of big school —

I had to relive it

when I got held back a year.

My inability to focus —

the noise stung like ultraviolet

rays on newborn eyes.

Enough pressure shapes diamonds;

the walls of the closet

became concrete —

a prison just for me.

Swallow the key.

I had to reach down my throat,

dissect and rebuild

myself from the root up —

to remember me,

a boy seven years ago.

Bathroom floor, near twenty —

at the bottom of the toilet,

in the reflection lies

all the versions of

who I was never supposed to be.

I’ve had enough

of punishing my gut —

emptying myself

to fit the mould of a world

unmade, unready

for me.

Bathroom floor, near twenty —

it hurts to become,

to crush the grapes

and create the wine.

In the reflection,

I found the key.

A different mind, a different body —

not made for the world,

but made perfectly for me.

I’ve seen aliens like me —

with brilliant, different minds

and bodies

like kites in a grey sky.

Concrete walls broken,

roots six-foot deep

of who I was supposed to be —

the girls’ line isn’t for me.

I have my own rainbow lane,

and it leads home.

Pride as the root of happiness;

beautiful diversity,

like a diamond in the rough.

truly me —

two decades today.