When I'm lucky enough to visit the Hamptons in the summer, I always stop by the Prada store. Even if you don't shop, always take a peek. And if you're familiar with Prada, you know that certain stores sell exclusive products that aren't available anywhere else. Especially bags.
When I walked into a store in the Hamptons last summer, I was immediately drawn to the collection of custom painted bags in front of me. It was as if a ray of light shone into the store and hit those bags, making it feel like they were gliding straight down without taking a single step. It was magnetic. Before I knew it, I was holding it in my hand and probably drooling or hyperventilating. The salesperson explained to me that he only designed 12 of these custom bags worldwide, and only four of them made it to the Hamptons. Suddenly I felt like I had struck gold. The rarity of those bags, the joy that only select people can touch them, see them, and even call them their own, made me want to cry. I was in retail heaven.
Now, I don't even need to start telling you the prices of the bags, but needless to say, they are out of my price range, and rightly so. After all, they were works of art.
That bag still haunts me. Any shopaholic like me will understand. This made me realize the unforgettable beauty associated with rarity, and I began to question it. The fact that the bag was available in limited quantities and difficult to obtain made me appreciate it all the more. I started thinking about myself and how rare transgender people are. A poetic connection began to resonate with me, but it was only later that it sparked a personal revelation.
Suddenly I felt like I had struck gold. I was in retail heaven.
A few months later, while scrolling through Instagram, I was shocked to see demographic statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Survey. As of August 2023, it is reported that 1.03% of Americans identify as transgender. That's 2.6 million people nationwide. I was surprised at first. The transgender community has a small, everyone-knows-all feel to it, and 2 million people seemed like a lot to me. But when we dissected it, we started to realize how rare it really is, like a limited edition Prada bag.
I think it's common for transgender people to wonder, “Who will love us?” or “Will I ever find it?” And maybe that's what we all feel, cis and trans alike. The fear of being unloved causes us to pursue relationships out of a sense of hopelessness and scarcity, leading us to make unfavorable romantic decisions. I started thinking about what would happen if, instead of scarcity, transgender people chose to recognize that only 1% of the population is like us in matters of love and life. People can't just go out on the town, go to a bar, or even go on a dating app and easily find someone like us. That we are literally diamonds in the rough. The best part about this realization is that it applies to all people in a broader sense.What you can do all Choose to think of our uniqueness as part of what makes us unusual.
The rabbit hole of information started to feel addictive. I was like, “Oh, I'm unusual!” It led to even more speculation about how unique transgender women really are. Let's do the math. In the United States, the ratio of cis men to cis women is about 50/50. If we apply this to trans men versus trans women (which is obviously flawed due to the broad nature of the term “transgender”), we end up with approximately 1.3 million trans women across the country. . However, we know that in reality, the number of transgender women is probably significantly lower, but this is because these numbers take into account non-binary and gender non-conforming people who fall under the transgender umbrella. Because there isn't. So let's take our hypothesis a step further and estimate that there are only one million transgender women in the United States. She is one million people in a sea of 332 million people across the country. When we frame it this way, we begin to realize that transness is what makes us remarkable, unique, and unique.
The transgender community has a small, everyone-knows-all feel to it, and 2 million people seemed like a lot to me.
Of course, as a fashion girl, my thoughts kept returning to the Prada bag of all bags. Something that still bothers me as I write this article.One day you might be able to own a Prada bag, but it's unlikely. that The bag is incredibly slim and perhaps impossible to find anything comparable. When I left the store empty-handed that day, I knew I would never encounter anything like it again. Because once something extremely rare slips through your fingers, it's often gone forever.
I know this is a silly analogy at first glance, and I don't mean to compare it specifically to Prada's exclusive bags, but that moment in the store and the ensuing Census Bureau rabbit hole made me realize a few things. I noticed that. I realized that scarcity is one of the things that makes us so beautiful. Rare means it cannot be replicated. People may be in awe of your uniqueness, some may not understand it, and some will do anything just to be in your presence.
Prada never discounts bags as rare as the one I fell in love with. Moreover, it will never be distributed for free. So why do we downplay our love or settle for someone who doesn't value us? It's hard for us, especially trans women, to see and believe in our own scarcity. What happens when you are guided? What if, instead of despair and fear, we believed in our uniqueness and saw our differences as magic? We shouldn't settle for love that doesn't meet our standards. We stand tall in our scarcity, and there are no bargains about who we are. We have to realize that most people cannot appreciate that. Because that means it's rare. At the same time, we believe there are people who are eagerly looking for limited edition Prada bags. And once you find it, you're not going to let it go.