When Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli speaks, she translates this world through poetry.

Every time I think of her, the phrase “rapidly mutates like a retrovirus” reverberates across my temples, from her talk at last year’s national conference on making healthcare trans-affirmative.

“In India, the dowry system is banned, but it continues in other forms, re-Christens itself: instead of calling it ‘dowry’ it’s called gifts,” Vyjayanti had said. “So it rapidly mutates like a retrovirus and so does social exclusion.”

The intensity of this reverberation comes as strongly as the softness of our first meeting.

Vyjayanti would preface every question with “If you don’t mind me asking” and I would purse my lips, as a not-minding gesture welcoming the overwhelming flurry of a homecoming that I didn’t know how to express as our conversation unfolded.

This theme of homecoming has continued since — with Vyjayanti recalling the benevolent Sorceress Teela-Na in Masters of the Universe, to her most recent analogy that compares me to fledgling sparrows who forget to maintain their nests.

Two days ago, on April 25th, Vyjayanti’s access to feel at rest in her own nest was disrupted from a violence imposed upon her by five cisgender men and two women who are transgender.

What do we do with ourselves when we find the retrovirus of transphobia re-christening through intra-community violence?

From the day we met, I’ve always felt like Vyjayanti has consistently been making a home for those around her with the care and love that she carries in her being.

Before leaving the conference, she had asked me “Do you ever feel anger?”

At the time, I wasn’t sure how to respond. A lifetime of masking had severed me from any sense of self. Everything I feel is fleeting and I couldn’t pinpoint it if it doesn’t occur in the moment.

But I know now Vyjayanti, I am raging for the numbness in your swollen cheek, for the pain in your jaw, and for this attempt to rip apart the care with which you weave homes around us all.