Frozen sunbeams

Lenette A. Towers
Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:46:50 PDT

Much of this autobiographical work is about the metatextual growth I go through with each piece; pieces are ordered and organized to highlight that growth. In the opening section, “Frozen,” I document the earliest stages of my life as a closeted trans woman, using italicized “day-dreaming” sections as a coping mechanism for not being able to express myself in reality. This comes to a head with my grandmother calling me by my deadname, and me agreeing to allow her to do so, even after my transition. In the second section, “Sunbeams,” I take on a different approach to transition, one in which said transition is a mostly political stance against a transphobic world. This is useful for showing the connections between fascist movements and body autonomy, in which fascist movements must crack down on body autonomy in order to control the transfeminized subject. One of the main points of this section is to showcase how a trans person is expected to become an activist in order to be taken seriously, and there is an emphasis on research over personal experience in order to highlight that. In the final section, “Re:Frozen,” I attempt to correct the earlier two approaches. Here, shorter pieces are written in conversation with the pieces that came before. Within this section, I attempt to write myself back into my own stories and find healing for my previously closeted self. In many ways, this last section is meant as a victory lap, and a dash of hope. No longer obsessed with the impossible desire to turn back time, I end the thesis on a reclamation of myself for all that is yet to come.