I hesitated to write “Top Surgery,” and I hesitated even more to submit it. In it, I wrote that “I stand with my back to the wall, drawing silence around me like armor.” In this current political climate, the identities and rights of transgender people have never been so imperiled. I was afraid of what publishing this piece might reveal about myself.

In her Field Notes piece “String of Pearls,” the chaplain Elizabeth Ryder ponders another hot-button issue: reproductive rights in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision. “There’s never been a more hostile time to be a woman in our country,” she states. Idaho, the state where she lives, bans abortion after 6 weeks, which is when many women might just realize that they have missed a period. Idaho is hemorrhaging reproductive healthcare providers, and those who remain are overwhelmed with patient demand. Ryder writes: “Various OB-GYNs pass by me in the halls every day, running back and forth between their clinics and the hospital. I whisper little prayers for their well-being: may they be at peace; may they be happy and free.” This line mirrored what I felt as I finished a suture on a trans man getting top surgery: “Stitch by stitch, I sew the body back together. I weave into each stitch a prayer for healing, a prayer for joy.”

May women who need reproductive healthcare be safe. May those who deliver necessary, life-saving care to women be safe. May trans people and gender affirming care providers be safe. Is that too much to ask? I pray that it is not.