Welcome to #TransTuesday! This is the second part of the most difficult trans tuesday I’ve written. I’m gonna rip my heart out for you as we conclude our talk on TRANS PEOPLE AND A.I. in THE PAST 4 aka THE NEW PAST 2 aka TRANS GRIEF 2.
It’s vital you read the first part of this before continuing on to see how the AI-generated yearbook photos affected me, and all the things they brought up. And read all of that one AND this one BEFORE YOU YELL AT ME. Please. The first one is here.
And just to reiterate before we dive in, I DO NOT SUPPORT AI being used to do creative jobs humans should be doing. AT ALL. I mean it’s not even real AI, actually, but that’s an entirely different discussion. So what did getting these yearbook photos do to me?
Seeing them was a COMPLETE jumble of emotions. Because it’s AI, some are hilarious and awful, but a lot were surprisingly very good. And it seemed to lean less into stereotypes than FaceApp… I got nerdy and sporty and girly and butch photos. It was a trip.
Lots didn’t look like me. But lots did. And it was this heady feeling of… I could have been her. I always WAS her, but I was forced to bury her. But she was in there, with me for my whole life, and this might have been me if I was allowed to let her out.
If you’ve followed me on social media for any length of time, you know I’m a writer and my brain never stops. You can see it in my daily pre-coffee thoughts. You can see it in the thread of screenshots I’ve been posting as I play through Starfield:
Twitter version, Mastodon version
And what I want to make clear is I’m not sitting down and writing a story based on my screenshots. I’m just writing out what’s GOING ON IN MY HEAD as I play. It happens with every video game ever. Truly: my. Brain. Never. Stops.
So as I sorted through every yearbook photo the app gave me, tossed the ones that were bad or not me or whatever, something formed. A history. An alt but not quite alt, a real but not quite real, history of the me I didn’t get to be. Events I went through, but as if I got to be ME.
And I’m not the only one. I have a friend who turned theirs into an actual printed, physical yearbook they could hold. And my friend Miriam even turned hers into a video!
I do NOT see mine as me being born a cis girl. They are me, and by that I mean *ME*. She’s trans. But she was born into a much more accepting home life, with family who encouraged her to be whoever she really was. This is Tilly who got to transition as a kid.
This is alt-Tilly’s seventh grade class photo. The curls were definitely coming in and she realized being able to see would be somewhat helpful, so got glasses. She hated the tie, but was talked into it by her friends in the chess club (yes, I was in the chess club. Shut up.)
A young Tilly with brown and moderately curly hair, in glasses and wearing a suitcoat, collared shirt and tie.
Eighth grade alt-Tilly found confidence, being with the oldest kids in middle school and one step from high school, and discovered how to enhance her curls. She also discovered sports were cool, and was able to deal with contacts (unlike me). She also… got crushes on girls.
A younger Tilly in a t-shirt and winter cap, with very curly brown hair.
This was alt-Tilly’s high school freshman photo. She leaned into her nerdery. Physical science class was her favorite, and she got into running track and joined the volleyball team. She had her first girlfriend, and it didn’t end well because she fell really hard. Too hard.
A young teen Tilly in a gray pleated skirt and navy blue sweater, with long brown wavy hair and bangs.
As part of leaning into her nerdery, alt-Tilly joined the high school chess team and was the best player despite being a freshman (true). Her growing confidence convinced her to join the drama club, and she fell for the arts HARD. Creating collaborative art was MAGIC.
A young teen tilly with brown curly hair and bangs, in a light blue polo and white glasses.
Sophomore year was a strange one. No longer the youngest in the school, trying to figure out what becoming a woman meant, and a horrible crush on her english teacher that made her get flushed every day in class. She said it was because she just came from PE. (true???)
A young Tilly with long brown curly hair and bangs, in glasses, wearing a sweater vest over a long-sleeved white shirt.
She was still the best player on the chess club, but tradition said board 1 (of 8) always went to a senior so she had to settle for board 2. She felt this was a grave injustice, and somehow let herself be talked into yet another tie for the team photos.
A young teen Tilly with long brown curly hair and bangs, in large glasses, wearing a navy blue suit coat over a powder blue dress shirt, with a blue bow tie.
By the time drama club photos rolled around, she thought losing the bangs would help her look “more mature” and would help her land a big part in Bye Bye Birdie. But alt-Tilly also could not act, so she ended up on the crew (and loved it).
A young teen Tilly with long brown curly hair and NO bangs, in a gray sweater.
Junior year, alt-Tilly sprouted forth into adulthood in ways she wasn’t ready for. She got another girlfriend. And despite knowing better… she fell just as hard, because she only feels with the entirety of her heart (true). Also she welcomed the bangs back, so she wouldn’t look TOO old.
Older teen Tilly with long brown wavy hair and bangs, in a white t-shirt.
Alt-Tilly was still in the drama club, and got to thinking… someone writes these plays. Who? How? Could… could I write one? Would the drama club perform it? She spent hours in her room writing plays she was sure would make her famous (they were terrible).
Older teen Tilly with long brown curly hair and bangs, in a striped t-shirt and jeans
Still angry about not getting to be Board 1 on the chess team, and having finite time, she dropped chess club for the softball team, because she’d always loved baseball and she was a hell of a good second basewoman. Hated what it did to her hair, tho.
Older teen Tilly in a blue and white softball uniform, holding much less wavy brown hair off to one side with a look of disdain, as if to say “look I love this game but it WRECKS MY CURLS.”
Alt-Tilly once again trimmed her bangs before Senior year, because the sweat dripping from them into her eyes during softball games was too much to bear. She and her girlfriend broke up, only for her to get back together with her first girlfriend. Feelings were so confusing.
Older teen Tilly with long brown curly hair and no bangs, in a white v-neck t-shirt
Her girlfriend talked her into joining the cheerleading team, and while she loved the athleticism, she absolutely hated that she was forced to cheer for boys (ugh) and they wouldn’t let her cheer for girls’ sports. She didn’t last long (looked fab in the uniform tho).
Older teen Tilly with long brown curly hair and NO bangs, in a midriff-baring navy blue cheerleader uniform
She and her girlfriend broke up AGAIN (girl, it didn’t work with her the first time, why would it go any better now?), let her bangs grow back in, and discovered she LOVED seeing her biceps grow and started boxing (not competitively). Buff ladies were hot, why not be one? (true)
Older teen Tilly in a green tank top and black shorts, wearing red boxing gloves. Her brown hair is back in a ponytail (bangs are back tho).
Alt-Tilly got asked to prom by another girl she was crushing on, and they had a lovely time, but they figured out mid-dance they were really better off as friends. And that’s okay, she wasn’t too heartbroken about it (but WAS heartbroken to look back at her prom dress, ugh so ugly).
Older teen Tilly in a red… velvet??… dress and a sparkly tiara, with long brown curly hair and bangs
Freshman year of college, alt-Tilly discovered fanfiction and her play writing morphed into writing stories in her favorite universe with her favorite characters… to the detriment of her grades. She didn’t care. The writing bug HAD her. And it had her GOOD.
Young woman Tilly with long brown curly hair and bangs, in a white t-shirt and olive green skirt
College sophomore alt-Tilly met Susan, and fell for her harder than she’d ever fallen for anyone. Only now did she learn what actual love was, and those past crushes felt silly. She changed her major to screenwriting. She had no idea what this life was, but it excited her.
A young woman Tilly with long brown curly hair and bangs, in a white dress shirt and high-waisted light yellow pants (an admittedly odd choice, Tills)
College junior alt-Tilly, well… she looks back on this time with embarrassment, because she fell into the trap of thinking she needed to be harder and tougher than she was, and thought she needed to dress the part. She discovered it was… very much not her thing.
Young woman Tilly with long brown wavy hair and NO bangs, in a leather tank top and leather vest with leather pants. Oh girl, no, this ain’t you.
College senior Tilly discovered that what she didn’t want… helped her find what she did. She didn’t grow the bangs out tho, wanted to be taken seriously in Hollywood after she graduated. She married Susan. It was small but beautiful. They left for LA full of unstoppable energy.
Young woman Tilly with long curly brown hair and NO bangs, in a black tank top.
But she shortly realized that she missed her bangs, and they were part of the truest expression of herself. And so she grew them back out, and who did she become? The writer lady you all know and love (yes, you do so love me, because this is my essay and I said so).
One of my selfies, me with long brown curly hair and curly bangs, with white iridescent cat eye glasses, dark eyeliner, sparkly pink lipstick, and a blue off-the-shoulder top
So there’s my experience with these AI-generated yearbook photos. These aren’t taking jobs from anyone and aren’t stealing art, but does that mean they’re ethical? Is this one of the rare okay uses for AI? Maybe? I don’t know.
I don’t have childhood photos of myself that could be somehow gender-swapped. Without this app I wouldn’t have them. I couldn’t have gotten them any other way. And I find they’re… incredibly meaningful to me.
I’ve never even been able to look at photos of myself through the years before, watch myself grow and evolve. Do you know what it’s like to not have that? I can watch myself age and change and become who I am and it’s remarkable. I can see the lifetime that I lost.
A collage of ten of the previous AI-generated yearbook photos of me, which somehow show me aging through the years
They fucked me up, I’m not gonna lie. There is… definite pain at what could have been, what might have been. But then I realize that in some ways, somehow, it’s also what was.
Because a lot of trans people like to go back and re-imagine their memories (what few they may have if they struggled with dissociation) with the real them. Some even try to remember them ONLY that way. There’s something healing in that, believe it or not.
Because that version of us WAS there. They were with us our whole lives. Maybe we didn’t know it, or knew but couldn’t do anything about it. Either way, transphobic society STOLE that from us. It stole our childhoods and our lives.
A quick note before we continue… after the first draft of this essay, I was emotionally distraught and really messed up, but also felt somehow good at the same time. It’s so hard to explain. But the night after writing this… I had a dream.
As part of my HRT I’m on Progesterone, which is known to cause wild dreams and I definitely get that. I’ve posted several of them, calling them Progesterone Dream Theater. Look them up if you want to read some of the most bonkers stuff ever.
No P dreams have been bad or nightmares, but they’re all VERY INTENSE. Every feeling in them is amplified by a thousand. And my dream that night was about me, as I am now. And I was standing in front of two kids, a boy and a girl. And I was filled with an overwhelming sadness.
And I wrapped them both up in my arms and I hugged them so tight, and I was sobbing, and so were they. And they were me. Both of them. The me I was forced to be, and the me I really was. They were both there, and are both still part of me.
And it’s not lost on me that this was my own SUPERtext (if you’ve missed any of my trans allegory essays, it’s the opposite of subtext). Likely because I avoided dealing with this grief for so long my Morpheus sat up and slapped me in the face with it. PAY. ATTENTION. LADY.
I woke up crying, which is a first. And I can still feel the depth of that sadness, but it’s also… I guess the best thing to call it is catharsis. Release. All this grief and anger and pain and what was stolen got OUT of me.
And to think that’s not related to confronting my own trans grief that I put off addressing for so long would be folly. Confronting my grief, working through it… these yearbook photos helped me get there. I don’t know how I could have approached dealing with this without them.
The day after I had the dream, I wrote this to some friends, and I came back to add it in to this essay because I think it’s really important.
~After the heavy emotional toil of those trans Tuesdays that will be the last for this year, I was… emotionally numb. raw. and last night I had a super intense dream where I felt depths of sadness I’d never known, and woke up crying which has never ever happened before.~
~but it was this… cathartic release. I am changed. I haven’t felt this different between one day and the next since the day before I accepted my transness and the day after, or the day before I told my wife and the day after, or the day I came out publicly and the day after…~
~or the day I started HRT and the day after. I didn’t think I had any more of these. a mountain of weight I didn’t want to acknowledge was dealt with and gone. I am fifty pounds lighter. I can fly.~
This finally allowed me to deal with my grief, and fill a black pit of despair that was still there.
I am changed.
I’m not telling you to go use this app. I’m not saying if you did it would help you as much as me, or help you at all. It might be too painful. And again, the ethics of this are murky. I don’t think anyone’s being hurt by this, but the bottom line is we don’t know.
But for me? Yeah it hurt, it hurt SO BAD, but these photos HEALED ME. In ways I’m finding it difficult to describe. Because it lets me see how the real me would have handled the things I went through.
How it might have gone, who I might have been. When you see these AI-generated yearbook photos, or FaceApp photos, please try not to hold judgment against the trans people who use them. We’re just searching for a way to ease the pain of a life taken from us.
For me, this has brought a sense of peace. A sense of reclaiming what was mine, IT WAS MINE, and it was ripped away without my consent. This was, and is, MY life to live. And yet it wasn’t. But now, well… if only.
If only the world wasn’t transphobic, if only who we really are was allowed to show, to grow, to BE. When I look at these, I feel somewhere in the multiverse… it happened. I smile. And I’m fulfilled.
And I weep for “if only.”
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com
UPDATE: 1/18/24
I’ve been social media friends with Charlie Hutchinson for a while, and she recently sent me the following DM (shared with permission). I wanted to include it here as I’d never heard of narrative therapy before, and I find it remarkably fascinating. Please read the interview with Dr. Nylund if you’d like to learn more about it.
And I’m also incredibly touched that Dr. Nyulnd thinks what I went through in this process may be able to help other trans folks who are struggling with some of the same things. I hope it does.
We are all in this together. 💜
Charlie Hutchinson
Tilly I’ve been following you for a while, and we’ve exchanged a few comments. I’m working on my MSW and am an intern therapist at the Sacramento region Gender Health Center. My supervisor is Dr. David Nylund, the clinical director and co-founder of the GHC. Dr. Nylund is a leading Narrative Therapist and has been working to help bring awareness and access to transgender individuals for 20 years now, both at the Gender Health Center and through his private practice.
https://www.psychotherapy.net/interview/nylund-interview
Today, during my supervision, we were talking about how trans individuals often have dissociated their childhood and have trouble recalling events of their youth. I brought up your Trans Tuesday with the Al-generated yearbook photos. He found them amazing and was really captivated by how you used it to create a narrative of your life that was stolen. He has several ideas on how to use them to help conduct narrative therapy with trans community members. Your work has been seen and inspired others. Thank you for all that you do.
-Charlie