A post from outside Medium.

I spent years on Medium, building up a following, using every trick in the book, every content hack I could find. I spent years building up an audience of 125,000 followers, with millions of monthly views.

And for the most part, it felt empty. I knew the person I had become, in order to gain that level of exposure. I had bought into my idea of what a tech or startup “influencer” should be like. I wanted to be a Tim Ferris. A Gary Vaynerchuk. That kind of confident hustle porn was my ultimate end goal.

The changes I had been going through as I came out as transgender and pursued my real self for the first time threw all of that into such stark contrast. It was so far from who I actually was.

I wasn’t some ultra-confident tech bro.

I was a scared person, full of doubt and anxiety, struggling through an intensely dark and disturbing period of my life where nothing was certain.

I couldn’t escape the feeling that I had built my entire audience on false pretences. That I had built it up under an absolute and all encompassing lie. That by adhering to that lie I was only going to do further harm. The truth is, whenever I embarked on a creative or professional project, I found myself being bound by the blog and bound by the persona and bound by the audience.

When I made the call to shut down my Medium blog, it was a terrifying prospect. But it was also the most freeing thing I had done in years.

A friend asked me if I regretted doing away with such a huge asset. I honestly didn’t, and I honestly don’t. I no longer feel like I’m held down or held back by a false version of myself, or a contrived image. I feel raw, and honest in a way that surprises me, and scares me a little, and in a way that I wouldn’t give up for anything.

The projects that matter to me now, feel less cosmically urgent. Less obsessive. Less consuming. That’s a wonderful feeling. Where the Medium blog felt like a beast that had to be fed, like a marker that I couldn’t escape, the work I’m doing right now feels smaller and more careful. More considered.

This week, I released something that I am more proud of than anything I have created in the past 10 years of my life. It’s an open sourced transgender inclusion policy for startups and technology companies in Australia. I worked hard to compile and curate it, and I think that it can actually do some good out there. You can check it out here.

And of course, I have put together this new blog. It’s not fancy. There is not a single fancy thing about it. It’s built on a little indie platform called Svbtle that I quite like for its simplicity and honesty. It’s a place where I’m looking forward to publishing a little bit of my work without the pressure of a huge fucking audience to piss off or please. I see this blog as being almost a throwback to what blogs used to be like when I was younger - a diary of a life, an insight into the way I work, and a collection of thoughts that you aren’t ever obliged to give a fuck about.

I’ve been doing so much more, too. I’ve been back in the studio for the first time in almost a decade, recording with some old band mates and producers and putting together some tracks that will finally see the light of day. That’s something I always felt held back from doing by the blog and the image I had, and it’s something I’m thoroughly enjoying all over again.

Today, writing this post, I’m sitting in a little cafe called Paramount Coffee Project. if you’re ever in Sydney, check it out. Solid vegan options and coffee to die for. I’m heading to my endocrinologist soon for an update on getting to take hormones as a part of my transition, so I’m nervous but excited about that.

There’s not much left to say today.

Thanks for reading, if you are.

Hugs and kisses.

Joany 🍕