Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we’re talking about something surprising that recently came up and that I never anticipated being a thing, much less one to talk about. And it’s hard to describe, but I’m gonna call it: SEARCHING FOR MEANING (when you’re trans and don’t know it).
This is going to be a little more speculative than other topics, but stick with me because I think you’ll understand by the time we’re done. Or I hope so, anyway, otherwise I’ve completely failed at communicating this incredibly nebulous thing. Hooray!
Recently this image crossed my social media. It’s an artistic cutaway of the Death Star from Star Wars (by Hans Jenssen from “Star Wars: Incredible Cross-Sections,” 1999). And I hear you already, “but Tills, how is this trans?” LOOK JUST STICK WITH ME, OKAY?
I have always, always, ALWAYS loved images like this. Not just of sci-fi stuff, though I absolutely did love seeing the insides of spaceships and sci-fi gadgets and all those fun goodies, but houses, airplanes, buildings, underground missile silos… doesn’t matter, I love them all.
When Susan and I first moved in together, we even had a giant poster of the Enterprise-D from Star Trek: the Next Generation on the wall, and it had cutaways like this so you could see the different decks, and where all the different parts of the ship were. I adored it.
An artistic cutaway poster of the USS Enterprise D, with different locations numbered and explained in a key on the side
Something about these things has always fascinated me. I’d spend hours as a kid poring over them, just staring and getting lost in my imagination. For that matter, I also loved my Star Trek: TNG technical manual, and any kind of blueprints or diagrams of ANYTHING.
So when that Death Star image crossed my feed, it immediately gave me pause. It’s absolutely stunning on its own, and I fell right back into those old feelings, staring at it in wonder, getting lost in my imagination. You can see it right in the tweet I made.
A screencap of a tweet I made on April 1, 2023, as a quote tweet of @retroscifiart (that shows the above death star cutaway image and its credit). My additional text reads: I love cutaways. Always have. Let me see inside a spaceship or a house, I love when comics use them to show motion through spaces… I dunno, something about them has always grabbed me. This one blows my mind.
But something was different. I still loved it and was getting lost in my imagination, it still sparked this same feeling that I always used to get but never had a way to describe. Except it was… less? And then it dissipated entirely, and was replaced by a DEEP sadness.
And when I tell you I was completely baffled, that’s not hyperbole. What the ding dang was going on here?! Well by now you’ve realized I’m somewhat introspective, but I think almost all trans people are. We HAVE to be, to figure ourselves out in spite of transphobic society.
And then I remembered that my high school for some reason offered architecture courses, and I took them for FOUR YEARS. I thought I wanted to be an architect! But I didn’t actually like drawing them with exact measurements, wasn’t good at it, and the math annoyed me.
I didn’t want to MAKE those things, just LOOK at them. But why? What was I hoping to gain by this? Why did they fascinate me so? What was it that drew me to them like a moth to flame (or like a Tilly to pizza)? And then it hit me like an anvil out of the sky.
Someone mentioned in the replies that they used to love the Richard Scarry children’s books for the same reason, and then I remembered THAT I DID TOO. As I recall he used them rather frequently.
The cover of Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever, the relevant portion of which shows a house with a cutaway view, with rabbit people going about their little rabbit lives inside
A two page spread from one of Richard Scarry’s books, showing a cutaway view of a ship and all the different compartments within
So what was the revelation, the epiphany, the discovery that made my love of cutaways and diagrams and schematics and blueprints all make sense? And why my wonder turned to sadness?
A reply to my previous tweet, which reads:
So it occurs to me
That I was always so fascinated
Because I wanted to SEE WHAT WAS INSIDE and how it was DIFFERENT FROM WHAT WAS OUTSIDE
When you’re a trans kid who doesn’t know you’re trans, every little thing can be a window to trying to find yourself
Might go have a cry
And that was it. That was it EXACTLY. And it’s why my feelings about it changed somewhat. When I looked at these cutaways, I was filled with this… LONGING. And it wasn’t just because I wanted to go adventuring on a starship (though I DO want that, don’t get me wrong).
I WAS SEARCHING FOR MEANING ~~ABOUT MYSELF~~. I was hoping that in understanding why things inside were different from their outsides, I could somehow understand how MY insides (I’m a girl!) were different from my outsides (not a boy!).
And why didn’t they match? Was there a word for that? There is: GENDER DYSPHORIA!
Is there something that’s the opposite of that, when your outsides match your insides?? There is: GENDER EUPHORIA!
Some of you may think this is kind of a stretch, so let me say you may be surprised to know I immediately heard back from other trans folks… who were suddenly having the same realization about themselves after seeing me talk about it. I think this is officially A Thing.
Because what I mentioned above about transphobic society is true. When you are not raised in a home environment that is conducive and accepting of exploring your gender and your truth to find the real you…
When you are not even TOLD that trans is just something people can be, and it’s a perfectly normal and okay way for humans to be, NOTHING MAKES SENSE. You don’t understand the world. You don’t understand yourself. You feel broken inside.
My parents, my friends, my family, my schools, ALL OF SOCIETY AROUND ME acted like cisgender boys and girls were the only way you could be. The word “trans” was either unknown, or never spoken by those who did know (as if it was some sort of demonic curse).
And so I didn’t understand why I felt the way I did, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just be the girl I knew I was, why I couldn’t do the things I wanted just because they were for girls and everyone told me I wasn’t one and couldn’t be one.
And this is why I was overwhelmed with sadness. It was for that poor girl who just wanted to know herself, to understand why she felt the way she did, and why she looked for it in every piece of cutaway art she could find as if they unlocked the mysteries of the universe.
We all search for meaning, for truth, anywhere we can find it. We have to find ourselves in places that were maybe not even intended to be for or about us. And we STILL have to do that as adults, because our representation is nearly non-existent (or often awful).
See the trans tuesday on FINDING OUR OWN REPRESENTATION (P!nk).
See the trans tuesday on THE PAST 2: THE NEW PAST (KJ and Paper Girls), which gave me back some of what transphobic society has stolen from me.
You can even see the trans tuesday on PHYSICAL REPRESENTATION, which is really about having to find our own representation through somewhat similar body types, because we’re left with so few options:
And, yes, sometimes we find our own representation in cutaways and blueprints and schematics and technical diagrams… because maybe if they can help us understand THOSE things, they can somehow help us understand OURSELVES.
Don’t be afraid to look inside the things around you, or inside society, and inside yourself. All of us want to better understand ourselves and the world around us, and you never know where those answers may be waiting.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com