Today I glanced at my profile and realized something that stopped me cold: it’s been over fourteen years since I first joined this site. Fourteen years — and change — of writing fiction, most of it revolving around one central, complicated thing: gender.

Man, I feel old.
(And I know, I know — to some of y'all here, I'm still just a spring chicken.)

By the time I joined BigCloset Topshelf, I had already been quietly writing stories about gender for a while — but I had only ever finished one. Someone suggested my original version of Virtually Twisted might be a better fit here, and so I took the plunge.
A new chance to share pieces of myself — safely hidden behind fiction and a pseudonym.
Something simple: D.A.W. A tribute to DAW Books, which later evolved into the backronym Daniel A. Wolfe, and even later still into Daniela A. Wolfe when I began my transition.

For most of that time, I wrote in secret.
Terrified to show anyone I knew in real life.
Terrified to admit even to myself how much those stories meant.

I posted anonymously. I made sure no trail led back to me.
I lied about not being Mormon.
I lied and said I lived in Idaho, when in reality, I’d been in Utah all along.
The shame was a heavy thing — a constant companion.
Even just reading these kinds of stories filled me with guilt. I didn’t fully understand why — not then.
I only knew I was drawn to them, and that being drawn to them made me feel wrong. Broken. Unworthy.

I worried I was transgender — and just as quickly, I worried that I wasn’t "trans enough" to claim that word.
There’s a very particular kind of agony in not knowing where you fit, but being certain that wherever it is, it isn't anywhere good.

There were moments when my egg almost cracked.
When the truth almost clawed its way free.
But every time, life and fear and deeply rooted beliefs pulled me back.

Until one day, I stumbled across a blog post — a simple, unassuming thing — that changed everything.
I can’t even find it now.
The post itself wasn’t earth-shattering. It wasn’t some grand manifesto.
It was just… honest. Raw. Ordinary in the way that only profound truths can be.

And reading it broke something open inside me.

I realized I couldn’t keep living the way I had been.
I could either embrace myself — fully, painfully, joyfully — or continue existing half-alive, hiding from my own reflection.

I chose the former.
I chose me.

And I’ve never looked back.

That’s not to say it’s been easy. Far from it.

Coming out was messy, terrifying, beautiful.
I lost people. I faced accusations, assumptions, hostility.
There’s a certain kind of pain reserved for those who dare to live visibly in a world that tells them they shouldn’t exist.

But even now — even with things in the United States growing more openly hostile toward people like me — the joy has outweighed the pain.

The past four and a half years, since beginning my medical transition, have been the most authentic, transformative years of my life.
For the first time, I stopped hiding.
I came out publicly.
I stopped tiptoeing around my truth.
I began living it — loudly, visibly, and without apology.

I became a Pride organizer in one of the most conservative areas of one of the most conservative states.
I’ve been on local television four times.
I’ve had social media posts go viral.
I’ve helped build spaces where trans people, queer people, and questioning youth can find support and solidarity — the very spaces I once thought would never exist for someone like me.

And perhaps most fittingly, I now write stories about gender openly.
Still under a pseudonym — but now Daniela is my real name, and Wolfe is the only fiction.
Most people close to me in real life know about Daniela A. Wolfe.
Which is very different from who I was before.
Now, Wolfe isn’t even a secret — it’s just my pen name.

In a little over half a year, I’ll turn forty — something my younger self never believed she would live to see, let alone celebrate as herself.

It’s been a hell of a ride — and I have no intention of slowing down.

If anything, I’m just getting started.

Because visibility matters.
Because stories matter.
Because we matter.

And because there are still countless others out there reading, wondering, hoping — trying to find the courage to crack their own eggs wide open.

I hope they do.
I hope you do.

Because on the other side of fear, there is a life waiting for you that is more beautiful than you can possibly imagine.

Trust me.
I know.