Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we’re discussing something that can be difficult for some trans people who transition as adults. Hop in your chair and initiate splinter sequence, because it’s time to talk about: THE PAST, AND WHY IT HAUNTS US.
Each person in the world (or frankly, universe, I don’t discriminate), cis or otherwise, has their own unique relationship to the past. That’s frustratingly just how linear time works for us mortals. But for trans people who transition as adults, it’s a little different.
Every memory I have from before I transitioned is tinged with sadness, a longing for things to have been different. It’s really hard to explain to cisgender people. Can you imagine your past, your memories, feeling like they’re not really your own?
Even my happiest memories pre-transition… the day @susanlbridges and I got married, the day our son was born, when we hit amazing moments in our writing career that felt like they’d never arrive… they’re beautiful, happy moments that I cherish.
Buuuuuut they’re not ENTIRELY happy memories. I don’t have a single 100% happy pre-transition memory, because I was never able to be 100% myself before transitioning. When I revisit them, they’re all from behind the wall keeping me out, from underwater as I struggled for breath.
The wall, being underwater… these are metaphors I’ve used before to try and convey what it’s like to have GENDER DYSPHORIA and move through the world, trying to get close to the people you care about.
I’ve had gender dysphoria my entire life, even if I didn’t know what it was or have a name for it for a really long time. And once you can spot it and name it, you see it was always there and all your memories (or mine, anyway) are refocused through that lens.
The most important day of my life was when Susan and I were married, and I just love her so much, she’s my entire world. But I married her in a tux, feeling extra horrible and dysphoric because that’s what suits did to me.
See my essay on CLOTHES, and how terribly gendered (and sexist) they are for more info:
And I also had a buzz cut, which I talked about in my first thread on HAIR and how important it was to me and my sense of identity.
For further reading on the importance of hair, see the follow-up HAIR 2 when I got my first haircut and started to actually find myself through my hair.
To top it off, after the wedding people called me her new “husband” and hoo, what a mixed bag that was. On the one hand, it’s a distinctly male descriptor so I hated it and it made me feel bad. On the other hand, it meant Susan was my wife and that ELATED me.
And of course I have reminders of this everywhere, because of our wedding photos, which I talked about (also specifically mentioning one of our wedding photos) in my first thread on PHOTOS (and reflections).
If you’re curious when/how photos finally changed for me post-transition, see PHOTOS 2: THE SELFIE APOCALYPSE.
Related, you know those memes that ask you to post a photo of yourself as a kid and also now? Or from ten years ago and now? Yeah can be awful and painful for some trans people, myself included. We don’t have that. We never got that. It’s… rough.
I’m now okay posting photos of myself from ten years ago and now, finally, because (as referenced in PHOTOS 2 above) I no longer associate that dude with me anymore. But it’s still rough to NOT have photos of ME from ten years ago, you know?
some scruffy dude in glasses and a Disneyland baseball cap on the left, in poor lighting, looking miserable, and me over on the right, in great lighting and a red halter top and my hair up in a pineapple in blue-framed glasses, dark eyeliner, and red lipstick with a much rounder and less angular face. these do not seem to be the same person!
And there’s no escaping it, there’s no getting around it, there’s no trying to pretend I was fully ME back then. I dunno if cis people can understand what it’s like to have that with EVERY SINGLE THING associated with the best day of your life?
Now just multiply it by EVERY MEMORY FROM YOUR ENTIRE EXISTENCE. The well of melancholy that is my memory is dark and infinitely deep. I didn’t get to be a little girl, or a teen girl, or a young adult woman.
I didn’t get those experiences, I didn’t get those memories, I didn’t even get the memories of things I DID experience from the perspective of my true self. So every single bit of it is just… I don’t know. Sitting there waiting to cast me into the pit of despair if I let it.
So follow me on a little sojourn, a little dalliance, a trip down memory lane that will tie into everything soon, I promise.
Back when I lived with my parents, I had a very difficult relationship with my mom and step-dad. They didn’t know I was trans at the time, because neither did I. But I can tell you if my mother HAD known, it would not have gone well.
Regardless, the result of that difficult relationship is that when I moved out on my own, all I could bring with me is whatever I could fit into the car I booked a one-way rental for, to drive to the first place of my own near where Susan lived, some 400 miles away.
I couldn’t bring much with me, and a lot of what I DID bring I no longer have… guy clothes, shoes, bedding, etc. I’ve spent most of my adult life having absolutely NOTHING from my childhood. Not even photos. It’s almost like it was all wiped from existence.
Just about the only thing I have from my childhood, and it may actually be the ONLY thing I have, is this (I come by my Superman fandom organically, since I was but a wee Tilly).
a small red Matchbox-style truck that has an advertisement for the Daily Planet on the side. it shows the front page of the paper with the headline “Superman Saves the World” with a photo of superman in black and white. but next to that is a color picture of clark kent ripping open his shirt to reveal his superman costume underneath.
Sidebar: yes, as an adult, I wonder why Clark Kent is revealing that he is Superman on the side of a truck selling copies of the newspaper he works for. Seems like a poor choice! I expect better from you, Clark. C’mon, man.
Anyway, if you think I treasure this little truck maybe a bit more than I should, you’re absolutely correct. It’s my only tangible connection to my past. I don’t really remember playing with it, but I remember pulling it out of my toys and saving it as I got older.
I know it’s mine, and was always mine. I know I always loved it. But in this instance my not being able to remember playing with it is weirdly beneficial. Since I don’t have specific memories attached to it (only vague, general ones), they’re not there to be tainted by dysphoria.
It’s clear. Pure. Genuine. Real. It’s a thing I can love and remember always loving, and there’s NO BAD FEELINGS associated with it whatsoever. It’s a red die cast metal unicorn. Or so I thought!
One of the worst things to happen after I moved out, which I only learned about a short while ago, is that my mother basically poisoned all of my siblings with distortions and outright lies about me and things I said, did, and felt.
There’s a big age gap between me and the next oldest, eight years. And the other six of them (yes, there were a lot of us, 8 in total) were all even further from me in age. The youngest and I are sixteen years apart.
So when I moved out, most of them didn’t know me much yet. I loved them all dearly, I took care of them ALL the time. But most of them have not spent much time with me, and had no reason to not believe the things my mother told them about me.
I only learned about these things after reconnecting with my brother @joshuasbridges, the oldest of them. I learned I was so poisoned in their minds that he used to tell people he was the “oldest of seven kids.” To say that’s a knife through my heart is an understatement.
To be clear, I do not blame him. It’s not his fault. No kid thinks their parents would lie to them, especially about their own siblings. And yet.
Reconnecting with him has been a complete joy. I adore him and tell him so every chance I get. He’s tried to tell my other siblings I’m not who they think I am, but most have shown little interest in trying to reconnect with me.
That’s got to be their choice, I can’t force it. But I send them a message here and there, letting them know the door’s open. A couple of my sisters have talked to me a little.
So here’s where this tangent of my messed up childhood and sibling relationships dovetails with the past and all my tainted memories. I guess my step-dad was cleaning some things out, and found a bunch of my old stuff I didn’t take with me when I moved out.
One of my sisters asked if I wanted them to throw it out or would I like her to mail it to me. I had no idea what it was, she said it was mostly papers and some clothes. But for someone with no connection at all to her past, it was a lifeline.
It was agony waiting for the box to arrive. It was all at once filled with hope AND despair. What wondrous, or horrific, things did it hold? I had no way to know.
When it finally arrived, I found some things I remembered from my childhood… a Christmas card holder my grandmother made for me was a particularly nice find.
But even that’s tainted because my deadname is stitched right into it. I could rip it out, but I’ll always know it was there before, so I’m not sure that’s much help.
There were old school papers and art I’d done and… stories! Little Tilly wrote some stories and finding THOSE was just… well I can’t even tell you. One of them is actually going to get further discussion in a thread of its own, so keep your eyes open for that.
Most of it was abstract ephemera and didn’t mean anything to me. Except. EXCEPT. There was one baby outfit my mother had saved for some reason. It was a bright red pair of overalls and a dress shirt, which seems like an odd thing to dress a baby in?
Anyway, included with this outfit was a matching fire engine-red bow tie, meant to clip to the collar of the shirt.
a large, bright red bow sitting in sunlight on the edge of a folding chair
If you don’t understand the potential significance of this, let me direct you to the thread on SEXUALITY IS NOT GENDER (and bows, Bows, BOWS).
Do you… do you understand what happened to me?
This is mine.
It has ALWAYS been mine.
It’s as old as I am.
IT IS A BOW. AND IT IS MINE.
I have NO girly things from my childhood. No connection from the me of now to the me of then. Except now… I do? Because a bow is a bow, buddy. And this one IS MINE.
Out of nowhere, falling in my lap out of the clear blue sky… is a sudden connection from my present to my past. A little sign that says sure, maybe your mom put this on your collar and not in your hair, but it was there. It was with you.
It’s a piece of you, a piece of your past, a tangible connection that says not only do you exist finally as your true self… but you’ve existed that way your entire life, even if all the parts weren’t in the right places.
This instantly became the single most important physical object in my life. And if you think I’m not going to wear it every chance I get, then you’ve not been paying attention (come on, I telegraph my personality in these things).
THIS IS MY BOW! 🥰
Me with long curly brown hair and curly bangs, wearing dark eyeliner and red lipstick, blue-framed glasses, and a light blue dress with rainbows, unicorns, and hearts on it. My childhood red bow is in my hair.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com