This is the entry for my journal from June 24th, 2026
Obviously spoilers for The Amazing Digital Circus
It has been 20 days since episode 9 of The Amazing Digital Circus came out, and it has given me a lot to think about. I have been thinking a lot about how Jax is a trans woman, what her life looked like as a result, and the painful parallels I see in my own life.
Seeing Jax made me feel shaken because I saw how much worse my life could have gone. I saw how rejection, shame, and silence can trap a trans woman inside herself until she becomes cruel and isolated as a defense mechanism. I saw how someone can become so accustomed to being unsafe that tenderness starts to feel dangerous. I saw how pain can harden into bitterness when it has nowhere safe to go.
That scared me because I understand parts of it. I had more support than Jax, but I still felt many of the things she did to a lesser degree. I still felt like a burden. I still wished I could be cis. I still feared that my transition would break my relationships. I still had moments where my support system felt fragile, where it seemed like the people I loved might not be able to keep loving me through the reality of who I was becoming.
I also know what it feels like to reach a point where staying no longer feels survivable. Jax felt like she had to run away from her life for her own safety, and I had to do the same thing. Luckily where I ran to I was able to find the peace I was looking for, but Jax wasn’t so lucky.
I am grateful that I have been able to find more peace than Jax could, but at the same time I think about people like (friend 1) and (friend 2) who haven’t been as lucky as me in being able to get out of Idaho. I am scared that they might suffer a similar fate as Jax either to a lesser or greater degree.
Jax’s story does not feel distant; it feels like looking at a possible version of myself under different circumstances. I see a version that had less support, fewer exits, more rejection, and no safe place to land. I very clearly see the road that Jax went down. Hell, even the original copy of Jax (Leeroy) ended up being in different enough circumstances.
I am extraordinarily happy that I started from a better place than Jax and even more proud that I survived through Idaho, didn’t destroy my relationships beyond repair, got myself somewhere safe, and have been able to start rebuilding.
However, I am grieving not only what DID happen, but how close I may have come to losing everything. I am grieving the years I spent afraid. I am grieving the version of me who thought she had to apologize for existing. I am grieving that my relationships have/had to absorb the shockwaves of that fear, displacement, and survival instinct. I am grieving that my friends like (friend 1), (friend 2), and (friend 3) may not be as lucky as I have been. I am grieving that my transition unfolded under so much pressure that even love sometimes felt fragile beneath it.
It’s an odd mix of survivor’s guilt, grief, terror, and relief. All because of some dumb purple rabbit!
