Their backyard was wide open, separated from the other houses only by a roundpole fence that Mum had built in order to keep out the Caddells' dog.

So weake my powres, so sore my wounds appeare, that wonder is how I should liue a iot, seeing my hart through launched euery where with thousand arrowes, which your eies haue shot:

Clearly, these were folks who chose to view my transness as an “affliction” (despite the fact that I did not portray it that way myself).

But it is in our power, if not to dissanull, at least to diminish the same, through patience[…].