All My Current Answers to All The Questions I Desperately Wanted Someone to Answer When I Was First Realizing I Was Trans
AM I TRANS?
Yeah.
NO BUT LIKE LISTEN: AM I TRANS?
Enormously so, yes. Big time. Someday it’s going to feel ridiculous that you ever didn’t know.
BUT HOW CAN YOU BE SURE THAT I’M TRANS?
Well, for one thing, obsessively wondering “Am I trans? Could I be trans? But what if I’m trans????” isn’t, like, a particularly cis thing for you to be doing.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN?
Okay, so being cis — based on my understanding, which is admittedly inherently limited — means you’re more or less comfortable with your assigned gender, right? Couldn’t be me, but that’s what I hear. So, you know, feeling so uncomfortable with that assigned gender that you constantly wonder whether you’re trans, what life would be like if you were trans, how it would feel to be trans, whether or not your feelings of discomfort with your gender could possibly in some universe count as being trans.... that’s some pretty trans shit to be getting up to, if you see what I’m saying here.
OH.
Yeah.
IS IT REALLY THAT SIMPLE?
I mean, in one sense, no, but in another, realer sense: yeah, more or less.
IN THAT CASE — HOW DOES ONE GO ABOUT BEING TRANS?
You pretty much just do whatever you want.
WHAT?? NO, I MEAN — WHAT ARE THE RULES? THERE HAVE TO BE RULES, RIGHT?
I mean, you know, don’t kill anyone or anything? All the same basic rules about how a person should treat other people — be respectful, be as kind as you can, do no harm but take no shit, that sort of thing — all that still applies. But in terms of like, a correct way to be trans? There simply isn’t one. Just do what you want and that will be right.
BUT MY CURRENT UNDERSTANDING OF GENDER REVOLVES AROUND DESPERATELY ATTEMPTING TO FOLLOW ALL THE RULES??
Right, sure. That’s because you’re trans,
and you’ve built yourself a little checklist of things you’re supposed to do and rules you’re supposed to follow as a member of your assigned gender, because you understand your gender as a series of compulsory behaviors that you must manufacture, because you’re trans. See how that works?
I know you know that Siken poem, the one that goes “A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river / but then he’s still left with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away / but then he’s still left with his hands.” Well, the journey you’re embarking on here is going to involve taking all your sadness and shame and scrabbling desperate posturing on topic of gender and throwing it into the river. You will be left with the river, and with your hands — and won’t that be a relief? Think of everything even one hand can build. Think of how powerful a river is. Think of what it would feel like to walk around without that sadness and shame and desperate posturing clawing all the time at the back of your throat.
WOW, THANKS FOR THAT LITERARY ABSTRACTION IN MY MOMENT OF PERSONAL CRISIS.
Ah, well, you can’t really blame me, can you? I’m just you from the future; you’re familiar with what I’m like. Also — though I know right now you will not be able to hear this from anyone, least of all from me — you are not in a moment of personal crisis. You are in a moment of personal growth, and that shit always hurts like nobody’s business, but it isn’t a personal crisis. Every moment you lived in before now was a personal crisis, because you’ve spent every moment before now crushing down most of yourself for the sake of what you believe other people want from you. Finally acknowledging that this isn’t a sustainable way to live is actually, in a real way, crisis management.
I — YOU KNOW WHAT, WHATEVER. ARE THERE LIKE, BOOKS I CAN READ? TO TELL ME HOW TO DO IT? TO TELL ME HOW TO BE TRANS?
I knew you’d ask me this, because I remember calling the Trans Lifeline (US 877.565.8860 or CAN 877.330.6366) and talking to a lovely and incredibly patient person who suffered me asking them this question. They said, “Look, I’m just a guy. I don’t keep a list of trans literature directly to hand, you know? But there’s plenty of stuff out there written by trans people. I’d try reading some of that? And maybe, uh, calming down a little.” I have, as you well know, never calmed down a day in my life, and view the very concept as something mythical and beyond my earthly reach. Still, it was good advice and you should follow it, however mortified I am now to have asked the question in the first place. (Not that asking questions is wrong, of course. Ask as many as you can! Just know that in a few years, you will look back at those some of those questions and shake your head ruefully, knowing full well that whoever was answering them was thinking, “To me, you are like little baby,” and very kindly not saying it out loud.)
IS — IS IT OKAY FOR ME TO BE TRANS? LIKE... AM I ALLOWED TO BE TRANS?
Absolutely, yes. There are a lot of problems in this world at present and the ways those problems intersect and manifest have installed in you a bunch of little complexes about what you are and aren’t allowed to do and be and think and feel. That’s grim, but the thing is: almost all of it is bullshit. It’s just bullshit! You are the only person who is ever going to live your life, and to the best of my understanding, you only get the one. Do what you want with it.
BUT WHAT IF I’M FAKING IT?
While I’m sure they exist, I have never, ever met a trans person who has not at some point wondered if they are somehow “fake trans,” and/or feared that they were adopting the mantle of transness undeservedly. I’m not entirely sure why it is that’s so common, why so many of us fear so deeply that we’ve assessed ourselves incorrectly, but if I had to hazard a guess in my own case, it probably has something to do with the 20+ years of forcibly assessing myself incorrectly in order to perform the gender identity I felt I was “supposed” to.
OKAY BUT AM I FAKE THOUGH?
No, of course you’re not. If you weren’t trans, why on earth would you be so desperately afraid of not being trans? I am reasonably certain the thought of not being trans doesn’t keep cis people up in the night.
IS BEING TRANS GOING TO MAKE MY LIFE IMMEASURABLY HARDER?
No. It’s going to change a number of things, and certainly, yes, introduce some difficulties you would not otherwise have encountered. But on the whole? It will actually make your life immeasurably EASIER to be trans, because you are trans, and right now you are expending an enormous amount of energy, every day, on pretending otherwise. You can’t imagine how much more you are going to be able to do and see and feel and become and experience and attempt and remember and enjoy once you are no longer using roughly one third of your brain space to shriek at yourself about the pieces of your gender performance you feel you’re getting wrong.
ARE PEOPLE GOING TO BE AWFUL ABOUT IT?
I’m not going to sugarcoat this for you: yes. Some people are going to absolutely suck and it is going to feel like being served a plate of hot buttered garbage for dinner, being punched in the solar plexus by Mr. Rogers, and standing under a tree filled with birds at Shit O’Clock, all at once. I’m really sorry and I wish it wasn’t like this! But many people will be better about it than you ever imagined they could be, and you will meet new, more interesting people who would never dream of being festering, mold-covered bastards on this particular issue, and eventually you will come to recognize that the people who WERE shitty about it were also shitty about a variety of other things, in a variety of other ways, because people who struggle with accepting the basic personhood of others are often not... the best, in terms of general kindness and respect.
AM I GOING TO MAKE MISTAKES?
Of course you are.
BUT I HATE MAKING MISTAKES!
Yeah, I know.
ISN’T THERE A WAY I CAN DO THIS WITHOUT MAKING ANY MISTAKES?
No. No matter what, you are going to do some things that you look back on and think, “Wow, I was so right to do that!” and some things that you look back on and think, “Woof. Jesus Christ.” I believe that this is simply the cost of personhood, and true in a variety of arenas other than gender. Do your best. Try not to get caught up in your own fears and screw-ups and neuroses; when, inevitably, you do get caught up in those fears and screw-ups and neuroses, try to learn something and forgive yourself. That’s all there is, really. It’s one of those things transition won’t really change.
WHAT ELSE WON’T TRANSITION CHANGE?
Oh, god, loads of stuff. Your favorite foods; the songs you like to listen to when thinking about eras of your life you’ve left behind; the way you feel about Rian Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom and the collected works of Terry Pratchett; how much you enjoy driving down country roads with the windows open at the height of autumn; your fear of the dentist. All kinds of shit. Gender aside, you’ve still been you this whole time, and being a person always involves some things changing and other things staying the same. This is no different.
AND WHAT IS TRANSITION GOING TO CHANGE?
A lot. But mostly — and most importantly — the way you feel about yourself.
[QUIETLY] WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE? WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE TO TRANSITION?
It feels like you’re peeling the paint off of a large white wall with your fingernails. At first it’s really frustrating, tedious work, this awkward, scrabbling attempt that barely scratches loose a few flakes of pigment — you think it’s never going to happen, that you’ll never get the paint off like this, that someone more informed and better equipped could do this job but you, yourself, cannot. But after a while, you’ve gotten enough flakes off the wall that you can dig your nails into the cracks where they used to be; it’s easier, after that. The paint starts coming off faster, falling around you like snow, and sometimes a big piece comes off all at once, peeling loose as though it’s always wanted to.
So slowly that you don’t really notice it happening, the work stops being frustrating and tedious, and instead becomes intensely satisfying. It’s so satisfying that you don’t notice until you’ve cleared the whole wall what was underneath the paint: an enormous mural that you’ve been sketching out for years, mostly in moments when you weren’t paying much attention, and then immediately painting over before anyone could see it. It’s a sloppy mess, of course — how could it not be? — but now that you can finally see the whole thing, you can clean it up, connect all the disparate lines, add color and texture and perspective. The work isn’t just satisfying now; it’s actively fun, though of course there are moments of frustration when something doesn’t look the way you wanted it to, and moments of sadness when other people don’t enjoy what you’ve created as much as you do. Some of them even seem, inexplicably, to miss the blank white wall, but after a while you recognize that as such an absurd stance, something so obviously wrong, that it stops bothering you quite so much.
After a few years of work on the mural, you’ll recognize that it will never really be done, that you’ll be adding and changing things as long as you live. That’s okay. Even unfinished, it’s so beautiful that some mornings you can’t help but stop as you pass it, just to admire it. Just to marvel at what you’ve made where nothing used to be. You never really knew that you could do this before — you were always too afraid to find out — and now that you do know, you can’t help but take a few moments, every day, to be grateful.
WOW. THAT SOUNDS... NICE.
It really is.
THANKS FOR ANSWERING MY QUESTIONS.
Least I can do, really. You’re the one who’s going to get me here, after all; I should be thanking you.
I KNOW I GAVE YOU SHIT ABOUT IT BEFORE, BUT — CAN I HAVE ONE MORE LITERARY ABSTRACTION BEFORE YOU GO?
Sure. From Andrea Gibson’s I Sing The Body Electric, Especially When My Power’s Out:
I said to the the sun
“Tell me about the big bang”
The sun said
“it hurts to become”
HUH. I’LL THINK ABOUT THAT.
Boy, don’t I know it.
.