Hey Folks,
I posted a little while back about me being trans, and my name change.
In that post I kind of kept it brief, so I thought I would share a little more. This post is just about what’s going on in my head and where I’m at right now; of course there’s the much bigger picture of how I’m negotiating the world with all of this, but that’s for another day. There’s also the background of where these feelings came from, but I think that story has been told enough that it would sound pretty familiar.
Because my mode of transition is gradual, feeling my way toward “me”, rather than having a specific picture in mind, I’ve found it challenging to explain who I am and who I am becoming. In a lot of ways I’m just the me you already know, there really isn’t that much different. It’s not like my declaration has suddenly been followed by sunbonnets and sundresses (nothing wrong with that, just mostly hasn’t been my story). I’ve flirted with the non-binary label and I think certainly some of that applies to me (I do use they/them pronouns) but I identify as feminine. But…I hate makeup. But this, but that…lots of exceptions and qualifiers. All of the pieces and markers that mark me as male or female are getting mixed up, and for now I’m mostly content seeing where that takes me. I’m a trans woman who wants to wear Carhartt’s and cut wood. I’m a non-binary person and like hanging with NB queer folks. I have Poshmark and Stitchfix accounts. I’m okay with my face one day, and the next all I can see is an old dude with sagging jowls. Dysphoria comes and goes in waves.
I think that this ongoing process, where transition is a journey that meanders rather than flies like a crow to the final destination, is what is confusing for many when I talk about this stuff.
My narrative of transition doesn’t seem to fit the ones you read about in the papers, where guy comes out as trans, goes away one weekend and comes back to work Monday a woman, complete with a discarded deadname, and an embrace of their new authentic self. That narrative is easy to understand because it’s like gender is a switch you flip, and you’re not challenged by what happens between - the gender binary remains intact.
I don’t have a deadname. “Colin” isn’t dead to me, it’s who I’ve been for 51 years, and I’m proud of both the name and the life. Yes, I am reaching for authenticity, but to me being authentic is about merging all of the parts of me so that I don’t have to leave any part hidden, denied or damaged. It’s about setting aside the persona and embracing the person.
Certainly as a trans person there has been a bit of persona, a front created to fit into the part of the gendered world I was by default assigned to.
But I was, and am, still me. A changing me.
I can declare that but the truth is we all change, all the time. We’re never not changing, it’s just that because yesterday was kind of like today and tomorrow looks to be similar, we think that our own identity day-to-day is fixed. Kind of like the moon traversing the sky, we mostly change too slowly to know that it’s happening.
In that way, transitioning is a gift. I get to embrace the change that was happening anyway, and my intentionality guides it.
I still don’t know the full story of what happens next.
But really, who does?
And does it help any to pretend we do?