Trans 101

HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE TRANS?

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Today we’re talking about a question a lot of people ask, though usually not directed specifically at me (but sometimes it has been!). It’s that age old question: HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE TRANS?

I want to caution you, even more than normal, that *I* can’t tell you if you’re trans. Nobody can do that except for you. I can also only talk about my own experience, but maybe you’ll find something in there that you identify with.

I also want to caution that if you identify with any one (or even half a dozen) of these things, it still might not mean you’re transgender. It’s all part of a greater whole, and any one thing is probably not a signifier on its own.

I debated doing this thread for a while, because again there’s no easy way I can answer someone asking me “am I trans?” But I’ll tell you what tipped the scales in favor of giving this a shot.

I’ve been told by a lot of cisgender folks that my threads (this is number 57!) have helped them better understand what it’s like to be trans in this world, and I truly think that’s wonderful. Hopefully it helps you better relate to the trans people in your life.

Even better is I’ve been told by a number of trans folks, both men and women, that many of my posts have resonated with them and spoke in some way to their experience as well, and that means so much to me.

But the best (THE. BEST.) part is that I’ve been told by a few people that my posts have helped them understand their own gender, or their questions about gender, or even helped crack their egg.

SIDEBAR: “Eggs” are trans folks who don’t know they’re trans yet, and the egg “cracking” is when they realize they are, in fact, transgender. I don’t know who came up with that or when, but the metaphor works on a number of levels.

In any case, the fact that these threads have helped those folks better understand themselves or their feelings or what they’re going through is truly the most amazing thing. It can be so tumultuous and confusing, and if I can help someone through that in any way, well 🥰

When I started hearing that my posts had affected people in that way, I figured talking more about all the signs I saw in myself might be of further benefit to people out there who are questioning. So let’s take a look!

As a kid, I always wanted to hang with the girls. I wasn’t really allowed to, but I always felt like… that made more sense. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t also draw hearts and tie a bow in someone’s hair or like flowers.

Now again, thinking those things are only for girls is patently absurd, as discussed in my post on THE FALSE DICHOTOMY.

I’m going to stop saying “of course liking X doesn’t mean you’re a girl” now, because otherwise I’ll be repeating it with every example I give you. Just know it applies to basically everything I’m going to mention.

I’ve spoken several times about the barrette I found in the street when walking home from school, and how I saved it and would put it in my hair anytime I was home alone.

I never, ever liked boy clothes. I felt uncomfortable in them ALL THE TIME, even if they were otherwise comfortable. See the trans tuesday on CLOTHES and how very gendered they are.

I would watch girls in school (or later, women out in the world) and wonder what it would be like to BE her. How different life would be, what would change, how much better everything would be.

Any time I could get away with anything remotely feminine, I would glom onto it like a lifeline. I think I told the story before how I would take bows from Christmas packages and put them in my hair to “make people laugh.” Ha ha, so funny!

I got very confused when I started dating, which I mentioned in the trans tuesday on SEXUALITY IS NOT GENDER.

It was so strange to be attracted to a woman, and want to, y’know kiss ‘em and stuff, but also want to just be around them because that was as close as I could get to femininity in any socially “acceptable” way.

I remember once in school hearing some kid talk about photos of an intersex person they saw, and I was fascinated. It was the first I’d heard of anyone like that existing. I thought… maybe that’s what I am! (I’m not. Not remotely.)

But it was SOMETHING outside the societal cisgender norm and I was so desperately looking for answers.

In the shower as a teen, I would sometimes tuck my junk back between my legs (not in any kind of “official” tuck, because I had no idea what that was), and I’d bend backward as far as I could, then look down at my body.

For more on TUCKING AND BINDING, see its trans tuesday.

Anyway, in so doing, all I could see was the top of my chest. I had no pectorals to speak of, and yet it kiiiiiiiind of looked like maybe I had breasts, and couldn’t see any part of my body below them “just like if I were a woman!,” and it made me happy.

Despite all that, I was TERRIFIED of trying on women’s clothes, or makeup, or growing my hair out. Because subconsciously I knew I’d like it, and if I CONSCIOUSLY knew I liked it, I would have to deal with SHIT I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH.

Here’s where I talked a bit about makeup and hair dye in THE FEAR OF EMBRACING YOUR TRUE SELF (and Halloween).

I hated seeing PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS of myself, always, because they never ever looked like ME. Though I don’t think I could have told you that was why I hated them at the time. I just knew they made me feel uncomfortable.

I remember as a kid reading about a lady having gender confirmation surgery, and my mind exploded, because I didn’t know that was a thing you could do. She lived in San Francisco, that awful liberal hotbed that would allow anything because it was populated with bad people!

Conservative parents in the midwest do a number on you, folks. I thought to myself, well, I could NEVER do that because of how my parents and friends and everyone I knew would react.

…so I’d have to just run away to Frisco where that was accepted, get the surgery, change my name, and leave my entire old life behind. Yep, that’s how I’d do it.

Later on, when I learned more, I’d think that transitioning was something I could never actually do. I would never have the guts to tell people, or to face my friends and family, or the world. Besides, everyone would just see me as a “man in a dress.”

BUT- but if there was a pill I could take, that would just turn me into a cis woman, I mean yeah sure I’d take it. Wouldn’t it be cool to see what that was like?!

Uhhhh then I’d just take a pill to turn back into my old self, yeah, of course! Ha ha. 👀

When Susan and I got married, I was so mad (SO BIG MAD) I had to wear a tux, but she got to wear a dress. Not that I would wear a dress! Oh no, uh, no. I’ll just… get married in jeans and a t-shirt? No? Yeah okay I’ll put on the tux that makes me want to cry, it’s fine.

As a kid I LOVED role-playing games (still do). I would play a girl/woman ANY CHANCE I GOT. Often my gaming group was entirely boys. “Well, we need ‘the girl’ member of the team, every team needs one and only one (movies and tv tell us so), so I’ll take one for the team.”

Same with video games, WELL into adulthood. If you can play as a woman, that is literally the only option for me. I would never ever ever ever ever ever willingly play a man.

Through all of this, through ALL of it, every one of these thoughts would be followed up with “I’m still cis though.” If not in those exact words, before I knew was “cis” was, then in spirit.

“Still cis though” is so common it’s actually a meme that perpetuates through online trans spaces for a reason, it’s something… a LOT of us did when we were eggs. Have a few examples.

One key signifier for a lot of people is recognizing GENDER DYSPHORIA in themselves.

But you don’t need to have gender dysphoria to be trans, despite how common it is among trans folks. I think the best signifier is actually the very thing I talked about in the essay on GENDER EUPHORIA.

If you’re a cis man, and you put on a dress and you feel an intense wave of happiness washing over you… well I dunno what to tell you, cis folks don’t feel that way. Again, that alone doesn’t mean you’re a trans woman. Maybe you’re non-binary and love dresses!

The point is you’ve probably got to try these things if you want to find out for sure, and that requires two things.

GIVING YOURSELF PERMISSION TO EXPLORE GENDER.

And TRANS COURAGE.

Be brave. Be bold. Stare fear in the eye and refuse to blink. Experiment. Listen to what your head and your heart tell you when you do. And if you ever have questions, or just need an ear, my DMs are always open. You can do it! I believe in you!

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY

Welcome to #TransTuesday! There’s a topic I know a lot of folks are curious about, which I was holding off on talking about until I had more experience with it. Today we’re talking about HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY, but for this post at least, it’s also about PATIENCE.

I’ll do updates on HRT in the future, to give you more insight into the process. But for now I can give you something of a baseline to work from. There are commonalities I have with other trans women and trans people in general, but I can only speak to my own experiences.

That’s extra important to remember with HRT, because everyone’s body responds differently. There are things hormones can do, and might do, and won’t do, but not everyone’s experience is the same.

So please please keep that in mind. I don’t want you going to another trans person who says they were affected differently, or coming to me saying “but Jane said X”. Hormones are just wonky like that, because human bodies are… fun?

Also, as I am not an endocrinologist or doctor of any kind, I’m not able to give you the kind of information they can. For example I suspect there are trans people who for medical reasons can’t be on HRT, but I don’t know what those reasons may be.

And remember not everyone has to be on HRT to be trans! There’s no rule that says you have to do thing Z or you’re not trans. No. Not how it works. HRT is just often one of the big things (and relatively easy compared to other things) trans people *can* do to affirm their gender.

I know that’s a lot of caveats, but I want you to understand how unique this is to every trans person. We all have our own experiences with it and we’re all on our own journeys. Okay? Okay.

HRT consists of two main portions… one medication to block the testosterone or estrogen that your body produces, and one medication to introduce the other one into your system. Not everyone is on both, for medical or personal or other reasons.

A testosterone blocker introduced into an adult trans woman suppresses said hormone in the body. This can lead to slower/thinner/less body hair growth, and can even halt or slow male pattern baldness. It can also lead to the shrinking of testicles and infertility.

A host of emotional changes can also accompany it, because hormones are fun. There are side effects (of both the drug and simply having less testosterone in your body), one of which can be breast growth. Another side effect is a decrease in muscle mass. More on this in a bit.

The problem with testosterone, for we trans ladies who transition as adults, is once you go through testosterone-induced puberty… you can’t undo most of those changes. The voice deepens, the shoulders broaden, the jaw becomes more defined, facial hair starts, you get taller.

There are some things we can do to try to change/mitigate these things, but not all of them. There’s no way to make your shoulders less broad. You can’t NOT be as tall as you are (mostly… again, more on this later).

I’m in voice therapy to try to make and sound less like a cis man, but the hormones don’t affect it at all. It’s just a ton of hard work I have to put in on trying to change the way I talk (voice therapy will be another thread of its own).

And if you are a cis woman, imagine how you’d feel if your body did/was still doing those things, and how much it would feel like your body betrayed you and made the world see you as someone you’re not. And then imagine all the problems and dangers that brings for us.

So maybe now you’re understanding why it’s SO important that trans kids are given puberty blockers before their bodies go through these changes. For more on that, you can see the trans tuesday on TRANS KIDS AND THE INTAKE EXAM.

Okay, so we’ve covered blockers. What happens for trans ladies when estrogen is introduced into our bodies? It can also slow/thin body and facial hair growth, and it definitely promotes breast growth (but how much varies wildly). It also shifts the way your body carries fat.

Did you know cis men and women carry fat in different places in their bodies? SCIENCE, BITCHES. So when a trans lady goes on estrogen, it will shift the fat under the skin and can lead to a softer, rounder appearance.

Guess what? More emotional changes, because say it with me: hormones are fun. The emotional/mood changes also definitely vary from person to person. If someone is getting an injection once a week, the day they take it their body is getting a flood of hormones.

For me, I have pills, which means the exact same amount every day, so it’s a bit more balanced. Even still, I’ve had days where everything made me sad for no reason, where the world seemed awful and like everything would always suck.

And okay, yes, 2020 and our pandemic coup certainly didn’t help, but still. It was noticeable, because I wasn’t feeling bad or upset about anything in particular. It was just waves of emotion brought about by the littlest thing, or sometimes nothing at all.

Thankfully those days have been pretty few, for me. But again, that’s not true for everyone. If this seems to you like our bodies are just going through another puberty, well it should because that’s exactly what’s happening.

Some trans ladies have noticed that after being on HRT for a long time, their feet are a little smaller, maybe they’re not quite as tall. Again, it shifts everything in your body. But not the same way for everyone!

I actually kind of dig being 6’2” and hope I don’t lose an inch or two, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Smaller feet wouldn’t hurt though, then I’d fit into more hot shoes. 😌

I’ve not even been on HRT for a year yet, and here’s what I’ve already seen: number one, definite breast growth, you can’t miss it. However, did you know… growing boobs HURTS LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER?

I know lots of cis ladies complain about bras, but frankly they’ve been vital for me because they act like a shield to protect my boobs from being touched. BY ANYTHING. Getting dressed and my hand brushes one? AGONY.

Rolling over in bed is a nightmare, because I’m a side sleeper so as soon as the side of a boob hits the mattress I nearly scream in pain. I tell myself this is good, because it means they’re growing! And when I see them I am elated.

But gooooooooooood lord the pain. And again not every trans woman gets the same results (just like cis ladies when they go through puberty). Also there’s no timeframe for when it all happens!

I’ve seen decent breast growth in a matter of months (if not a ton), but some ladies take years. One trans lady had B cups for TEN YEARS and then suddenly they became D cups. Why must bodies be this way? Seems inefficient!

Loss of muscle mass has definitely happened. I’m still kinda buff (in my own estimation) and I love my biceps, but I have to work harder now than I did before to keep them looking the same. An equal amount of push-ups are now a lot harder to complete than six months ago.

Jars I never once struggled to open before now give me fits. I just can’t do some of the physical things I could even six months ago, even with my pretty biceps (they are indeed pretty, I assure you).

As to my body changing the way it stores fat, I’ve definitely noticed that too. There’s a spot in my lower abdomen, below my stomach, that has been flat as a wall my entire life. But on ladies it’s softer and rounded there? Do you know what I mean?

Anyway! I’ve got that. I’ve also noticed my jawline is slightly less angular, softer and a little more rounded. I don’t know if anyone else can actually tell, but I can. Because the biggest cause of dysphoria for me has always been my face.

Here’s the GENDER DYSPHORIA essay if you missed it.

HRT has slightly, only ever so slightly, thinned/slowed my body hair growth. I wish it would do a lot more there, but I’m coping. It hasn’t at all slowed my facial hair growth, and I’d like to get out and push so it does a LOT more in that area.

Again, my face being the biggest cause of my dysphoria, it’s where I want the most changes. But now, once in a while, after shaving and when I catch myself in the mirror… I see ME. And that gives me what we call GENDER EUPHORIA.

And I don’t know if that’s something cis people can (or do) ever experience. Do you ever look in the mirror and think “Oh my god I’m a woman YESSSSSSSSS”? I dunno. But now sometimes I do, and it’s the. Most. Amazing. Feeling. Ever.

I want more. I want SO MUCH MORE. Yes, good, keep going body, let’s get there! But there’s literally nothing I can do to speed it along. And that’s where patience comes in, because HRT isn’t a switch you flip.

It’s a process, and it’s slow as hell, and it’s just going to do what it’s going to do and at its own pace and you have no idea what you’re going to get, or when you’ll get it. You have to live with getting incrementally closer to your goal.

You can see it starting. You can see it getting closer. Almost agonizingly close, after spending so long being so far away. All you want to do is sprint to the finish line. But you can’t, even if you wanted to! You’re stuck crawling like a snail.

There are other things you can do to transition besides HRT, of course. One of the things I want (SO VERY BADLY) is to get electrolysis on my face so I don’t have to shave anymore.

Shaving’s gotten better for me with some changes to the routine, but I still hate it because it’s a reminder I’m not yet ME. And it’s extra frustrating because even IMMEDIATELY after, I’ve got a shadow you can see until I cover it with makeup.

But I can’t go get electrolysis, because it’s a pandemic and I live with someone who’s immune compromised. And there’s no way I’m going to put her at risk so I can zap the hair off my face for good, painful as it is to see it there. So I wait.

And I see the pandemic response bungled and lockdowns lifted prematurely and the vaccine rollout botched and I continue to wait. And while I wait, I’ll keep waiting, and possibly put some waiting inside my wait so I can wait some more.

But that’s the gig, even outside of the hellfire we’re all struggling through. Even electrolysis isn’t something I could go in for and bam, it’s done. It too is a process, and it takes time. It all takes time.

There’s no magic shortcut. We’re trapped in bodies that aren’t ours, and changing them into one that IS can be a painfully slow process. But we do it because we must, because it’s better than the alternative.

Every out trans person you meet decided climbing this almost insurmountable hurdle was better than the pain we were living through before. It’s a slog, it’s tough going, but the rewards are worth it. If we’re lucky, gender euphoria waits on the other side!

And for the trans people that aren’t out yet, or can’t be… I know how tough it is, but you can do it. I did, and you can too. Don’t give up. Hold on. Whenever you’re ready, we’ll be here to help you along.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

THIS IS NOT FOR YOU (Trans Day of Visibility aka gatekeeping aka you are trans enough)

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week is a special for TRANS DAY OF VISIBILITY. And this one is for EVERY TRANS OR NONBINARY PERSON WHO’S NOT OUT YET. And I’m here to tell you YES, YOU ARE TRANS ENOUGH.

This topic is also known as THIS IS NOT FOR YOU aka AM I TRANS ENOUGH aka GATEKEEPING. And not just the gatekeeping that that others do that’s directed at us, but also the kind that we do to ourselves.

Trans Day of Visibility is also a little bit of a double-edged sword though, which I’ll talk about shortly. But let’s deal with the gatekeeping first.

I’ve mentioned before how I was fairly sure I was trans for a long time, but I knew I couldn’t transition until a certain date, so I took my time exploring things and figuring myself out. I just talked about that recently in the thread on BODY HACKING.

Despite the fact that I don’t consider my transition to have started until 2015, and despite the fact that it didn’t start socially or medically transitioning until 2020, I was no less trans before then. I’ve been trans my whole life, that’s how it works.

If you’re trans you’ve always been trans and nothing can change that (just like you cisgender folks can probably realize there’s nothing in the world that would make you suddenly not cis). It’s just who you are.

And so for a long time, things like Trans Day of Visibility were really painful for me. Because here is a thing that was SPECIFICALLY FOR ME, and yet it was NOT FOR ME because as far as the world knew I was just a cisgender man.

That was so, so difficult to deal with. I’d see opportunities for trans writers… people who wanted to read us, help us get staffed or get our projects in front of the people who could make them happen, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I had to watch those opportunities dissolve because they were NOT FOR ME, even though they WERE FOR ME! And I really never needed that extra pain on top of all the pain that GENDER DYSPHORIA already brought me.

It’s a special kind of hell seeing a thing meant to help you that you cannot get to. I couldn’t even celebrate pride month, because again as far as the world knew I was just a straight guy. I mean I could have said I was bi, but that felt like lying. It’s ladies for me, thanks.

You can see the Trans Tuesday on SEXUALITY IS NOT GENDER for more on that.

Anyway it got to the point where, in the months before I came out, Susan and I were saying we were a “LGBTQ+ writing team.” Which is true, if suuuuuuuuuuper vague, but it was the best I was comfortable with at the time.

After coming out that got easier, obviously, but a new problem presented itself. And it’s one I’ve heard echoed by a lot of trans people I’ve talked to: AM I TRANS ENOUGH?

I had this… this GUILT, I guess, at calling myself transgender. Even though I CLEARLY AM. Because Trans Person A did X thing, and I didn’t. Trans Person B did Y thing and I don’t want to ever do that.

So am I even “trans enough” to call myself transgender? Am I disrespecting and denigrating the people whose dysphoria is worse than mine? I mean hell, mine never came with the severe depression that so many experience, despite how awful it was for me.

And what’s even worse is that I’ve seen this kind of attitude from some trans people. There are those who say you’re not “really” trans if you don’t get bottom surgery, or if you’re not on hormones, or if you don’t do X, Y, or Z.

I don’t know how much that contributes to the feelings of not being trans enough, for me. I never bought into that bullshit but who knows about all the little ways these things can affect us that we might not even realize.

I’m sure it impacts some others, though. Imagine a trans person just beginning to explore what being trans means to them and wanting to transition, and seeing those things and feeling they wouldn’t be accepted if they didn’t conform to some arbitrary standard.

It’s kinda horrible. I’m a member of a lot of different trans communities and a lot of them are wonderful and affirming and supportive. But in some I see cliques forming, and it saddens me.

And it’s such a complicated thing, because trans people have spent our entire lives feeling excluded, and left out, and like we’re not part of things. So once we get to be included, there’s this feeling of wanting to keep it closed, to keep it safe.

Which is of course SUPER important with the amount of harassment we often face. But think about how those who are excluded feel… you’re accepted into this community, but only so far. You don’t get to be part of ALL of it because someone else hasn’t decided you can be, yet.

And that really sucks, doubly so after never feeling like you belonged or had anyone to talk to about all these weird feelings you were going through, in trying to figure out your gender and whether you wanted to transition or not.

And that can definitely play into (or exacerbate) the feeling of not being trans enough, even if unintentional. And that breaks my heart. I don’t want anyone to ever have to feel that way. We’ve been through enough.

But there’s another aspect of Trans Day of Visibility you may not have realized, the aforementioned double-edged sword. We NEED to be seen as who we really are, and have our rights and autonomy respected. But being more visible puts us more at risk.

Coming out wasn’t an issue of safety for me, at least as far as my immediate home life. And California respects me for who I am. But for so many others it’s dangerous. Even if not in their immediate household, all the states trying to legislate us out of existence is terrifying.

A reminder (though damn, I hope you don’t need to be reminded) that there has been more anti-trans legislation introduced in THREE MONTHS in 2023 than there was in all of last year, which held the previous record. It’s unprecedented and horrific.

The Human Rights campaign is already tracked THREE HUNDRED AND FORTY anti-trans bills introduced across the United States so far this year. IT’S ONLY **MARCH**!

Can you imagine trying to come out under these conditions? Why it almost seems like Republicans want to make it impossible to do so. But news flash: that won’t stop people from being trans. You can’t force people who make you uncomfortable to change their gender, pops.

I’ve been told by multiple people who are questioning/exploring that my Trans Tuesdays have helped them as they explore their own gender, and that makes me so so happy. That’s one of the things I hoped from the start.

So this moment here is for all the people who are questioning, idly or actively. It’s for the ones who aren’t sure if they’re trans enough, or if they can or should come out, or if things meant for trans people are also for them.

Of if they “qualify” because they’re nonbinary or genderfluid or agender. And please listen and believe me when I say:

YOU’RE TRANS IF YOU SAY YOU ARE.

NOBODY KNOWS YOU BETTER THAN YOU.

There is no “enough” to being trans. Whether you want every surgery you can get, or only some, or none. Or all the hormone replacement therapy, or only some, or none.

If you can’t come out for any reason, you’re still trans. Whether you only want to transition socially, or can’t (or don’t want to!) transition at all: YOU ARE STILL TRANS IF YOU SAY YOU ARE.

If you want to come out, I believe in you and you CAN do it, when the time is right. If you can’t, that’s okay too. If you’re just questioning and unsure, that is also okay! You’re wonderful and valid and can and should be exactly who you want to be. Who you ARE.

Trans Day of Visibility is for you, too. It’s for ALL of us, out or not, trans man or trans woman or nonbinary or genderfluid or agender or anything else.

I see you. And you are enough.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

PART 2 is here!

GIVING YOURSELF PERMISSION TO EXPLORE GENDER

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we’re talking about a specific thing (literally, a thing) that helped me figure out I was trans: MY WATCH. Though more broadly what we’re really talking about is GIVING YOURSELF PERMISSION TO EXPLORE GENDER.

Righto, so… how the heck does a watch help you figure out you’re trans? Excellent question, and one I’ve asked myself multiple times. To start, we have to go back to how I feel about watches in general.

As a kid, I only wore watches if I was out with friends or roaming the neighborhood and had to be back home by a certain time.

I’d be out doing all kinds of things that, looking back, were horribly dangerous even if I didn’t know that at the time. One of those things I talked about in the Trans Tuesday on TRANS COURAGE.

I was terrified of breaking rules and getting in trouble, but that meant I was always finding loopholes and ways to push the line as far as I could. That doesn’t relate to watches any, I just want you to understand it’s not like I was a little miscreant.

But as a kid watches are kind of cool, right? You can get a Superman one or whatever. For a while I had one with a Yoda hologram on the face! Fun fact: I got that watch by betting my step-dad the Bulls would win their third straight championship. He thought it’d never happen.

Guess I showed him! I can’t actually find it now, and have no idea what happened to it. I have almost nothing in terms of physical items from my childhood though, so I guess that shouldn’t be a surprise. Thankfully the internet knows all. 

A black watch with a hologram of Yoda on the face

But eventually you grow up and the world says you can’t have things like that anymore. Which, of course, is bullshit. But I talked about how long it took me to even realize I could say screw you, I can I can like sci-fi AND sports, in the Trans Tuesday on THE FALSE DICHOTOMY.

I never liked “normal” men’s watches. Not even the cool ones. Well, let me rephrase. I thought some of them were actually remarkably cool, but I never ever wanted to wear one. It’s only now, looking back, I realize that’s because it was a thing for MEN.

Comparable women’s watches I would have loved to get, but wouldn’t have felt comfortable doing so because in our stupid society even WATCHES are GENDERED and how awful is that?

The answer you’re looking for is “very.”

I did have one men’s watch. On our honeymoon to Disney World (uh, we are nerds, you probably noticed) Susan and I got a matching set. I was able to tolerate this internally because Susan had a (smaller, women’s) matching one, and they had Mickey on them.

So in my head, all of that mitigated its “manliness” somewhat, even though it had a really big face and a metal link band and was incredibly heavy, all of which bothered me a lot. Also men can like and wear watches with cartoon characters on them, normalize that already.

So even though I had some wonderful memories associated with it, I still never loved it. Once we got our first smartphones, that was enough to push it off my arm forever.

I can’t find that one to show you a photo now either (way to prepare for this post, excellent job, Tills), and unfortunately googling for “Mickey Mouse watch” isn’t exactly helpful. But the smartphone was the end of my wearing it, and I never looked back.

I believed this was because I always had the time on my phone, right in my pocket, what did I need a watch for? Of course reducing it down to its most utilitarian function isn’t the only reason to get a watch, but it’s what I told myself.

Because all the watches I would have liked to have actually worn were women’s watches, and that made me uncomfortable for reasons I talked about in the Trans Tuesday on THE FEAR OF EMBRACING YOUR TRUE SELF (Halloween).

But also it wouldn’t have been socially acceptable for me to wear a women’s watch, living in the midwest and appearing to be a cisgender man… and again, screw that noise, but it definitely affected me at the time.

I spent a very long time with just a smartphone, never even thinking about watches at all, other than my self-satisfied, smug “WHO needs a watch anymore?” Ha. Girl, you were so dense.

So a few years back, in the process of catching up on movies we’d missed, we gave Terminator: Genisys a shot. (This post is not about the merits or faults of said movie, so take those somewhere else)

And we’re innocently watching this movie, when suddenly I’m hit like a ton of bricks by Sarah Connor. Why? On the poster and in the movie itself… she has a black leather cuff watch.

A Terminator: Genisys poster showing Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor. On her left wrist is a black leather cuff watch.

If you can’t quite spot it there, here’s a better look at it. She wears it through most of the movie. 

A closeup of the black leather cuff watch from Terminator: Genisys laid flat.

I actually tried to find that exact watch at first, because I loved it so much. And I did… but it was that EXACT watch. From the movie! In a prop auction. I think it went for over a grand, so now you know why I do not have that watch.

Now MY black leather cuff watch isn’t in any way meant as an homage to Sarah Connor, though I do love the character. But that’s not what struck me about it at all. Here was a woman, wearing a watch that didn’t necessarily LOOK like the “typical” gendered women’s watch.

And nobody commented on it, nobody said anything about it at all. In the movie or otherwise. It was just accepted, because it’s a tiny costuming detail and most people probably didn’t even notice. But I sure did.

You also have to understand at this time I was already knee-deep in thinking I was trans and trying to figure it out, so all the confusion and emotions were constantly swirling in my head.

And it occurred to me that I could get a watch like that, and it wouldn’t TECHNICALLY be a women’s watch… but it also wasn’t TECHNICALLY a men’s watch. It was a gender-neutral BADASS WATCH.

I had to have it. I HAD TO. It meant… a ton, and though I didn’t know why at the time, I do now. Because it was giving myself permission to start exploring that side of myself, VISIBLY. PUBLICLY. Even if nobody else knew what it meant.

Which is how the topic comes back around to PERMISSION, because this was one of the first ways I let myself really start to explore who I really was inside. It was a safe way for me to say… maybe I AM transgender, and maybe that’s okay. Let’s find out.

It was Susan who found the good folks at Rockstar Leatherworks when I was having difficulty finding a watch that I liked. She’s super, super great at internet research. Get yourself a Susan, I highly recommend it! (but get your OWN Susan, this one’s mine )

It’s a small company, might be just one guy doing it all himself. They’ve got great customer service and I couldn’t be happier with it, honestly. I love it, I love seeing it on my arm, I even love snapping it on and off. I’m weird.

It doesn’t fit as well as it used to. Leather loosens a bit over time. And I got it before I really committed to all of my running, which I talked about in the Trans Tuesday on BODY HACKING.

Incidentally, getting and wearing and being comfortable with and loving the watch is what led directly to getting the women’s running hoodie I mentioned in that Body Hacking post. Incremental baby steps got me through.

Anyway, as I fully committed to my regular runs, I dropped about fifty pounds, getting me away from that dad bod that bugged me so much. But that also contributed to how loose the watch is on my arm now.

I don’t think I’d pick the same design for my watch if I were to design another one now, to get one that fits better, but I can’t really afford to replace it anyway so it’s not something I’ve really explored.

But that’s okay. I’m so, so happy with it and grateful to have it. I love it with all my heart, because it’s a piece of the key that helped me unlock my true self. And that makes it priceless.

Give yourself permission to explore your own self expression, even if you have to do it in incremental baby steps. Find that truer you.

There’s nothing better than becoming that person with the entirety of your heart.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

GENDER EUPHORIA

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Today we’re going to talk about something I’ve mentioned in passing a few times, but it’s getting a thread of its own. It’s one of the best things about being trans for me, and it’s also something cis people can maybe experience: GENDER EUPHORIA.

I probably link to the below post more than any other, but if you haven’t seen it yet, be sure you’re familiar with the other side of the coin, GENDER DYSPHORIA.

Again, not all trans people experience gender dysphoria (though the vast majority do, I think), and you need not have gender dysphoria to be trans. But it’s certainly a major signifier.

Gender euphoria is quite literally the exact opposite, it’s a feeling not just of contentment, but absolute, unbridled, utter joy brought about by, of all things, your gender. Which might seem strange, so let’s talk about that a little.

I spent my entire life being told I was a boy/man, and was expected to behave/dress/live accordingly. And that gave me a massive amount of dysphoria, even beyond the physical issues of feeling like I was in the wrong body.

So when I began trying to figure out why I felt that way, and coming to terms with my transness, I started experimenting with doing things that weren’t necessarily even feminine, but were anti-masculine, if that makes any kind of sense.

This involved a lot of things I’ve talked about, like growing out my hair, experimenting with makeup, and changing my clothes. If you missed those, here’s the first trans tuesday on HAIR.

And HAIR 2, when I got my first ever haircut.

And the trans tuesday on HEAVILY GENDERED CLOTHES AND TRANS PEOPLE.

If you read through those, I think you can spot the parts where they caused gender euphoria (I may have even mentioned it by name, but I haven’t re-read them recently so I don’t remember, give a gal a break.)

And okay, I hear you say, but those ARE “feminine” or “girly” things, at least to some degree. And so I will now direct you to the essay on BODY HACKING, which includes discussion of the first women’s clothes I ever owned.

Again, yes, they were women’s clothes, but you likely wouldn’t know it if they weren’t sold in the women’s section. A running hoodie is a running hoodie. It’s cut a little different from a men’s hoodie, but honestly I don’t think you can tell if you’re not wearing it.

I don’t need to go back and reread talking about that hoodie there, because I will never, ever forget the way it made me feel. I said it “felt like I was FLYING.” And it did, and it still does! Only now basically all my clothes make me feel that way (to varying degrees).

That was the first time I EVER felt gender euphoria, and friends, the only better feeling than gender euphoria is love. And like, yes, I am aware of sex and pizza and the way it feels to clean an itchy ear with a q-tip.

GENDER EUPHORIA IS BETTER THAN ALL OF THEM.

And it feels like flying because, as I mentioned in the dysphoria thread, and multiple other times throughout all these Trans Tuesdays threads, dysphoria feels like a crushing weight that’s just destroying you.

When you remove that weight, you feel weightless. And that applies to almost everything in life. If you’re overloaded with work, clearing it off your plate can sometimes make you feel better than if you’d never had it stressing you in the first place.

If you carry something heavy, set it down and pick up something not as heavy, it feels even lighter than it should. It’s a thing.

It’s part of the reason baseball players put those weighted donuts on their bat while warming up. It makes it feel lighter when you’re actually batting! I played a ton of baseball as a kid, that might be the first time I ever experienced anything like that.

Incidentally, I believe this is why Neo flies in The Matrix franchise, which is something you can learn all about in my book, BEGIN TRANSMISSION: THE TRANS ALLEGORIES OF THE MATRIX.

He also has multiple “dress go spinny” moments, which is a phenomena in the trans woman community where, when wearing skirts or dresses, we feel compelled to twirl so we can feel them spin around us. We can see it spinning, we can feel it spinning, it reminds us that it’s there and of all we’ve achieved in getting to be our true selves. It’s total gender euphoria.

What does gender euphoria feel like to trans folks who don’t have dysphoria? I can’t say, I can only speak to my own experiences, and not having dysphoria is certainly not anything I’ve ever been familiar with.

But I suspect it’s much the same. Maybe a bit less intense? But maybe not. When gender euphoria really washes over me, it is POWERFUL. It *really* feels like I’m going to levitate right off the ground.

It’s this amazing confirmation that I AM ME, I am the me I always wanted to be, the me I always was, but now made real and here in the world AS MYSELF and there’s just no feeling like it.

So what gives me gender euphoria? Anyone saying my name gives me a little bit. Literally that’s all it takes! That’s not one of the huge ones that makes me feel like I’m flying, but it does make me tingly.

The knowledge that I’m being seen, after spending my life not, is heady stuff.

When Susan noticed my voice was changing after I’d been in voice therapy for a while, that was a big one.

Several weeks back, in that blessed short time before the delta variant, where it seemed like things were maybe going to turn a corner, we went out to lunch for the first time in like 18 months. We sat outside, and there was distancing.

And when the server brought our food, she set down my plate. Hold on, I need to take a breath, I’m getting light-headed just thinking about it. Hoo.

She set down my food, and said, “For the lady!”

That’s it. THAT IS FUCKING IT. It was the first time a stranger had really done that, just SEEN ME AS ME, and I thought I was gonna explode. Just thinking about it gives me a lot of residual tingles. Kind of astonishing.

I can only speak to this as a person who transitioned as an adult. If you got to transition as a kid in a loving environment that let you explore these things, would you still have it? I think so. Would it still be as intense? No idea.

I think this is something that cis folks out there can (and do) experience, though maybe less intensely. Although I’ve never been cis, so I don’t know! But I’m curious.

I think cis folks probably experience something similar when you… well, I don’t know. It’s more than just having a favorite shirt or something. Do you have a… suit? Dress? Top? Accessory? Something that you KNOW you look FUCKING GREAT in?

Something that makes you feel like FUCK YES THIS IS ME, I AM THIS AMAZING BEAUTIFUL PERSON, AND THE WORLD WILL SEE ME AS SUCH! I look good and I fuckin’ know it, stand back world I’m comin’ through!

That. It’s THAT, *turned up to eleven.* Do you experience that, cis folks? Is it ever so intense that you just have to sit down because you might pass out from the overwhelming feeling that you’re SO VERY YOU, the woman/man you were meant to be?

If not, does that mean… you’re not cis? I don’t know, probably not. But maybe! Try on something different, something from the opposite end of the spectrum (or even something very gender neutral).

See how it makes you feel. Pay attention to everything your head, heart, and body are telling you. Explore, see where it takes you. At the very least, you might find you’re REALLY cis and just love being that way!

Or maybe you’ll HATE the way dressing as a different gender makes you feel, and you’ll get the teeniest tiniest little window into what gender dysphoria is like. Who knows.

Gender euphoria is one of the most amazing and beautiful things about being trans, but even that might not be uniquely ours. I think it’s likely universal. Experiment and find out. Let me know how it goes. 💜

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

GENDER DYSPHORIA

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week’s topic is a big one, and kind of the reason for everything. That’s right, we’re talking about everyone’s least favorite thing, our not-so-friendly constant companion: GENDER DYSPHORIA.

Dypshoria’s remarkably difficult to talk about. Finding the right words to express it is beyond difficult, and I’m a damned writer. I’ve been trying to describe it in words for years, and it’s still a challenge.

VERY broadly, it means your gender does not match the one you were assigned at birth. There is SO much more to it than that, but I want you to have a base to start from. Somebody looked at your genitals and in two seconds laid out a lifetime of expectations for you.

There’s no easy way to explain to a cis person what it’s like, because it affects everyone in entirely different ways. I’ll try to explain what it’s like for me personally, because that’s the best I can give you.

What made my dysphoria spike more than anything was my face, and how much it didn’t look like me. At all. My face, and to a still strong but lesser extent, lack of breasts and feminine body shape were huge, huge issues for me.

Facial hair (and to a moderately lesser extent, body hair), are also problems. See the trans tuesday on BODY HAIR for more on that particular problem.

Facial hair especially drives me MAD. I want to sand it off my face forever. And there are medical procedures that can address this – laser hair removal and electrolysis. But despite what capitalism wants you to believe, covid-19 is actually still around.

My wife is immunocompromised, so me being maskless indoors with strangers in a place with a lot of people just isn’t possible. For more on the difficulties trans people face with regard to covid, see the trans tuesday on PANDEMIC TRANSITION.

I can’t wear a mask while someone zaps every hair on my face. It takes multiple sessions to permanently get that hair to stop growing. One trans woman told me she had multiple laser sessions followed by SEVENTY HOURS of electrolysis. And she’s still not done.

Guess what else spiked my dysphoria? SHAVING MY FACE, because in my head it’s another intrinsically male thing to do. So: having facial hair spikes my dysphoria, shaving it off spiked my dysphoria. Interestingly, as my transition progressed, this changed a little.

By changing the shaving cream I use, by changing the motions of my hand and the WAY I shave, I was able to divorce it from what I did pre-transition. So the act of shaving no longer causes dysphoria.

In fact, it actually gives me EUPHORIA because it’s getting rid of the facial hair that doesn’t belong on my body. Every morning I’m removing parts of me that shouldn’t be there so I can see the real me that’s always been there.

Early on in transition, my face was really sensitive, and I couldn’t shave that often. It took me months just to work up to being able to shave every other day. And do you realize what that meant? I got maybe an eight hour span, three days a week, where I could feel like me.

And the rest of the time, I just… didn’t. And replacing my wardrobe took a long time, and a lot of money, which I talked about in the trans tuesday on PRIVILEGE: TIME AND MONEY.

That was further exacerbated on how it just takes a lot of time and experimentation to find out what you actually want to wear and feel good in. See the trans tuesday on FINDING OUR TRANS STYLE for more on that.

But even as I got more women’s clothes, I couldn’t wear them every day, even if I had enough of them to do so. Why? WELL. Even if I was just in women’s jeans and a lady-styled t-shirt… if I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror like that, with stubble? Dysphoria spike.

If I FEEL the stubble on my face? Dysphoria spike. And what if I had to take out the trash, or get the mail, or step out of our apartment for any reason?

The world was literally going to see a bearded lady, and I had to decide if I had the energy in me to fend off any potential harassment that might come my way. And there’s NOTHING WRONG with bearded ladies! Women can be as hairy or hairless as they like.

But society says they should be ONE WAY ONLY, and doing anything outside of that opens you up to harassment. And, like, screw those bigots, I don’t care what they think.

But I still had to have the mental and emotional capacity to deal with it if I risked going outside with stubble. So the end result is I spent the days I couldn’t shave in old boy-cut t-shirts and jeans/shorts, the gender neutral way I dressed for all my life until recently.

And to be clear, gender-neutral clothes are RIGHT for some people which is TOTALLY fine. But it’s not right for me specifically, yet I felt somewhat forced to do it most of the time. Which caused, you guessed it, dysphoria spike.

That’s called BOYMODING (or GIRLMODING), and you bet there’s a trans tuesday on that too. And how much more painful it became to do as transition progressed.

So that’s just a small glimpse of some of the things I was dealing with early in my transition, and for all my life pre-transition. That’s NOT all there is to it, but it’s the easiest example I could show you of how it crops up everywhere and causes all kinds of problems.

Hopefully you cis folks reading can see how pervasive it is, because we get that from wearing the wrong clothing and being called by our deadnames and people using the wrong pronouns and societal expectations and a million other things. But what’s gender dysphoria LIKE?

Here’s where language kind fails us. I’m going to use several clunky and inadequate metaphors. Try to combine them all in your head, and maybe it will give you some idea that’s in the right ballpark. Ready? Buckle up. Here we go.

It’s like not being able to breathe. Like there’s a 400lb weight on your chest slowly crushing the life out of you. No matter how you struggle, you can’t get out from under it. No one will lift it off you. No one else can even see it. You have to live your life under it.

It’s like being underwater, being able to see everyone else around you swimming, while you’re eternally drowning. And no one helps. Because no one knows. Worse, some of the people you love so much ARE THE ONES HOLDING YOU UNDERWATER.

Imagine you’re at dinner with your friends, and you see them. Not with your eyes, but you SEE them. As people. You love them. They think they see you. But they don’t. They can’t. You’re buried behind a six foot thick concrete wall that separates you from the world.

EVERYWHERE you go. EVERY second of your life. Crushing weight, lack of breath, nobody knows or sees the real you. You see a person in the mirror and in photos that you know is yourself, because people tell you so. But it’s not you.

See the trans tuesday on PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS for more on the ways our very appearance betrays and wounds us.

It’s being buried somewhere deep inside a fleshy meat sack you’re steering around the world, piloting a robot you never asked for and don’t know how to operate. And, in most cases, the appearance and physical aspects of that robot repulse you.

And in my case, it’s not that I hate men. It’s that I hated people thinking I’M a man, because I’m not and never have been. While developing, my physical body went one way and my brain and gender went another. It’s a mismatch.

Even just talking about it I can feel the oppressive weight in my chest. So we do what we can to try to fix it… changing our clothes, our hair, our names. Trying medical options like hormone replacement therapy and gender confirmation surgeries.

Because living like this is PAINFUL. It’s AWFUL. It is literal TORTURE. You do not understand the sheer body horror of watching yourself go through the wrong puberty, and your body shifting and warping into a nightmare that you can’t escape.

Cis folks, there’s a chance you can experience small tastes of what it’s like. In our highly gendered society, women wearing “men’s” clothing is largely seen as great and wonderful, because men are so awesome and should be aspired to.

But cis fellas out there? Have you ever worn a dress? How did that make you FEEL? Did your skin crawl? Could you just not wait to get it off of your body? Was it gross and uncomfortable and weird and awful? You just got a .00001% taste of gender dysphoria.

BTW, if it DIDN’T feel weird and gross and awful, that’s super cool. You may be a cis dude who likes skirts and dresses, which is a totally legit thing to be. But, uh, y’know… you might also not be cis. See the trans tuesday on HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE TRANS.

For ANY cis people reading, a thought exercise: seriously sit and imagine every day you must wear clothes for a gender that’s not yours. You see someone of a different gender in the mirror. You know it’s not you, but EVERYONE will act like it is.

And everyone expects you to play that part. And punishes you when you’re bad at it, all the while you’re dealing with just how terrible it makes you feel. Your pronouns are wrong, your name is wrong, YOUR ENTIRE LIFE IS WRONG.

It’s all day long. It’s EVERY DAY OF YOUR LIFE. FOR YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS. It never ever stops. Until you finally realize what’s causing it. Imagine the relief you’d feel to know you’re not the only one who experiences it.

Imagine the relief you’d feel to know there are things you can do to correct it, to fix it, to not feel that misery anymore.

Now imagine so many people NOT like you want to punish you for seeking the things that would fix it. Want to, and in some cases do, make getting that care ILLEGAL.

Does that make you anxious? Does it make you panic? Does it make you feel like the walls are caving in and there’s no way out, nothing you can do, and no one who will help you?

You are, maybe, starting to get it.

I’m far enough into my transition, and have been lucky enough with the way my body has responded to hormone replacement therapy, and in a few other ways, to basically not have any dysphoria anymore. Though seeing my stubble each morning still causes it.

TO BE CLEAR: you do NOT have to have dysphoria to be transgender. But the vast majority of us do. But also! Gender dysphoria has largely been described and decided on by a field of entirely cisgender doctors. Which, yeah, is as messed up as you think.

I’m personally of the opinion that the definition of gender dysphoria should be opened up wide. Because we all experience it in different ways, caused by different things, and at different intensities.

So like, if you ask me, someone who was assigned male at birth simply saying “I’d be happier as a girl”… that’s gender dysphoria, to me. Even if it doesn’t come with all the anguish. Because cis people don’t feel that way.

In any case, I want to leave you with one final description of gender dysphoria that I surprised myself with. If you follow me on any of my social media accounts, you know I post daily pre-coffee thoughts as I sit around waiting for the caffeine to kick in.

Many are goofy or ludicrous, some are poignant, some are sad, some are just bad puns. I don’t plan them, I just go wherever my non-stop brain takes me that morning.

And a little while back I was just thinking about dysphoria one morning. I wasn’t lost in it, I wasn’t even feeling it. Again, I’m incredibly lucky in that my life is almost entirely dysphoria-free now. But I had dysphoria for my entire life. It was really, really bad.

And I’ll never ever ever be able to forget how it felt, no matter how I try. And so this poem about it just… came out. And afterward, I realized it may be the most accurate description of gender dysphoria I’ve ever managed to put to words. Here it is:

cries
from stygian depths
clawing
scraping
form without shaping
reverberating off bone
amplified by beating sinew
pleading for you
to see a light brighter
than a galaxy of suns
screaming
set me free

Cis folks, please understand what so many of us go through. Transitioning isn’t a whim, isn’t elective, it isn’t even really a choice… for so many of us it comes down to: try to be free, or spend life trapped in waking death.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

THE FEAR OF EMBRACING YOUR TRUE SELF (Halloween)

Welcome to #TransTuesday! It’s that time of year again, of spooky spoops and costumes and candy. We’re gonna talk about TRANS HALLOWEEN, but what it’s really about is THE FEAR OF EMBRACING YOUR TRUE SELF WHEN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE IS A COSTUME.

Halloween was always a weird time for me. I love the holiday and the autumn (such as it is in Los Angeles) and the spooky stuff, and I love costumes. But there’s a caveat with that last one.

Because I also didn’t love them, and I never knew why. As a kid you (probably) love Halloween because people give you candy and you get to dress up as a monster or something scary or, as it’s now mostly morphed to, a character you love from popular media.

And there was certainly always media I loved. I don’t remember most of my costumes from childhood, sadly. And I have almost no photos of my life before I moved out to live on my own, so it’s not like I can go back and look.

I know I was Spider-Man one year. Another I was a ghost, the awful kind that’s just a sheet with eye holes cut in it. I always saw that in cartoons or comics and thought it must be fun since it appeared all the time. SPOILERS: it is not. It is in fact very bad (but easy to draw!).

The best costumes I ever had were Calvin (I even had a little stuffed Hobbes, though not as cool as the one Susan made for me last year), and Wakko Warner. I won a $75 prize from my local comic shop for that last one. It ruled. You’ll have to trust me (again, I have no photos).

I don’t know how familiar you are with Animaniacs, but the characters have black bodies and white faces, in that old-timey cartoon style. The black I handled with a simple black sweatsuit, and I had cartoony gloves from Disney World that worked great.

And I made the hat and the ears and tail and even feet. But I didn’t do anything to my face, which probably made it look incomplete (but I still won a prize for it, so who knows), and you’re probably wondering why I’d go to all that trouble and not complete it.

It’s because I was TERRIFIED to put makeup on. This is also partly what kept me as part of the tech crew in my high school drama club, rather than branching out and trying acting.

Feeling like I didn’t fit in my own body definitely made me hate being seen by people, so going on stage wasn’t a choice I made willingly. Then they’d all be LOOKING at me but not SEEING me, just seeing the shell of a boy costume I was wearing. And that was UNGOOD.

But in all honestly I was just as scared of having to put makeup on, which of course even high school actors need under all the lights in a stage play. I was just as terrified of any kind of hair dye, even including the temporary stuff that washes out.

Even the baby powder they’d put in a kid’s hair to make it look gray if they were playing an older character made me nope right out. I never, ever examined why this was, I just thought it wasn’t something I was interested in. Ha ha ha, it is to laugh.

As an adult I would try not to let Susan kiss me when she had lipstick (or even lip balm!) on, because some would invariably get on me, and it provided the EXACT feeling of fear I’ve been talking about. I couldn’t handle it! I had to get it off! NOW! AUGH! It made me panic.

Brief aside, I felt that panic and fear for so long that just remembering it and writing about it above makes me feel it all over again… even now after self-accepting and transitioning and liking and wearing lipstick all the time. I’m wearing it RIGHT NOW. It’s bonkers.

Anyway the lipstick fear was exactly the same with Halloween and costumes, where I never put any kind of makeup or hair dye on for ANYTHING. It was just NOT AN OPTION, no matter how much better it would have made my costume.

Looking back at all of it now, I can clearly identify it as fear. And it was INTENSE fear, the kind that if I felt I were going to be forced into one of those things I would have uttered a horrid quick excuse and RAN AWAY and never gone back.

Which seems kind of severe, until you realize I wasn’t afraid to do/wear/have those things, I was afraid I would LIKE it. And then what would that say about me? Therein lies the problem.

In high school in my podunk midwestern town, I still didn’t know that “transgender” was a thing people could be, much less what it meant. Boys who dyed their hair and wore makeup? Well we were told those were GAY and to be SHUNNED (even though I thought shunning was bullshit).

But! I wasn’t at all worried that if I liked the hair dye or makeup it would mean I was gay. Because I knew I wasn’t. Ladies ladies ladies, they’re the ones for me.

So if I liked wearing makeup, but I wasn’t gay, what the hell would that mean? In my ignorant, inexperienced, uneducated (in the ways of gender beyond the narrow societal binary) mind… something would have to be wrong with me.

Seriously wrong.

Because those were the only options ever presented to me. You liked makeup? You’re a woman, or a gay man, end of story. That’s it. It’s the horrid FALSE DICHOTOMY of our society rearing its head again. I did a Trans Tuesday all about it:

But just as much as the fear of what it would mean if I liked those things that were Not For Boys, I felt the fear of having to pretend to be someone else. Because you have to understand I was pretending to be someone else EVERY WAKING MOMENT OF MY LIFE.

That’s what being trans and not knowing it (or having to BOYMODE/GIRLMODE) is: acting the part of the cis person you were told you are and had no choice but to pretend to be.

And it’s not just that you don’t know how, or want to, but it REPULSES you on an atomic level. It HURTS. So the thought of dropping that facade, to replace it with another (like a character in a play), seemed… insurmountable. And uncomfortable.

Because I didn’t know how you’d adopt a fake persona on TOP of the fake persona you were already constantly stressed and worried about and had to wear for every damned moment of your entire damned life.

Which meant you’d have to DROP the original fake persona. Ideally a good thing, but it was also all I had. I’d be open. Exposed. More vulnerable and out as myself to the world, in acting the part of a character in a play, than I would be as “myself.” Does that make sense?

But unlike acting in a play, Halloween didn’t come with the “persona problem,” because everyone knew you weren’t who you were dressed up as. Nobody expected you to act like that character. You were just… you, in a costume.

That I could (mostly) do and enjoy. And my favorite part about it were masks.

I mean, how much more obvious could it be, right? Are you laughing? It’s okay. I am too. How trite! If this were a script I’d be working on a rewrite right now.

In a mask I didn’t have to pretend to be the boy people thought I was. I didn’t have to pretend to be anything. Masks were a shield. They protected me, kept me wrapped up safe inside, hid the true me from the world (and myself).

And would you believe this carried over into other parts of my life in ways I didn’t realize? It really does creep in all over when the true you is forcefully hidden from you for your entire life. Tying right in with Halloween and makeup and masks… are the toys I had as a kid.

As a (seeming) boy, the only toys I was really allowed were action figures. I had them for all sorts of cartoons and tv shows and movies I loved. And I still dig action figures even though they’re just small dolls, and yes it’s okay to say that. Get over yourself, dudes.

Screw the stupid gender binary, let kids play with what they want. ANYWAY, my favorites were always any character that came with a removable helmet or mask. I’d put it on them, take it off, put it back on.

I’d pretend while they had it on none of the other characters knew who they were. They’d later take it off and reveal their true identity and everyone would be surprised. LOOK I SAID IT WAS REALLY OBVIOUS ONCE I NOTICED IT, OKAY?

It was only in the years I spent examining myself and my life and trying to figure this out that I realized my affinity for masks and helmets tied into the feeling of safety they gave me.

And taking a mask or helmet off an action figure to reveal their true selves was pure subconscious wish fulfillment. I wanted to be able to do that to the people I cared about, but I also wanted to be able to do that to MYSELF.

But I couldn’t. Not in the environment I was in, and not for a long time after until I undid all the damage and anti-trans brainwashing society had done to me.

There’s also a sadness that comes with thinking of past Halloweens, especially in high school… because it was somewhat regular for some of the jocks to come to school in terrible wigs and their mom’s dresses.

That was, of course, played for laughs. Oh ho ho, you see they’re MEN but they’re dressed like WOMEN and it’s that SILLY because it’s so BAD AND WRONG.

Homophobia and transphobia are of course baked right into that. It’s terrible. AND YET.

I felt pangs in my chest. I didn’t want to look like THAT, I didn’t want to make fun of people, but at the same time… they got to wear dresses all day long, and nobody made fun of them for it.

And my god, what must that be like?

Younger me was… well, this is going to sound very self-aggrandizing, but I’m going to go ahead and aggrandize myself (it’s my thread and you can’t stop me). That kid was ALWAYS incredibly self-reflective, often to her own detriment.

Except in this area, because I had been so blinded to even the hint of the possibility of transgender people not only existing, but that it’s totally fine and normal and acceptable for us to exist.

So I never examined WHY I felt that way about burly football players stuffed into too-small dresses, lumbering down the school halls. I just figured it’s because I was… weird. I’ve always been weird. I’ll always be weird.

Guess that’s just part of it! Huh. Yep, makes sense. No need to examine that any further, you weirdo! Glad we settled that. AND SHE HOPED TO NEVER THINK ABOUT IT AGAIN.

I wish I’d grown up in a supportive environment where I’d have been encouraged to explore that side of myself, through Halloween, through the drama club, through all the untold stories and adventures I put my action figures through.

I’m sure the latter is a big part of what made me a writer. I was always creating stories for my toys to play out. If only I’d been able to imagine a story half as good for myself sooner than I did.

But we all go at our own pace, which is all we can do. Just… don’t run from what scares you.

One of the first things I did after being sure I was transgender but not knowing if I would transition was… book an appointment with a Hollywood makeup artist who specializes in makeovers for trans women.

I’d not talked to a doctor yet, not begun transitioning in any way. Nobody knew but Susan. And it took me MONTHS to work up the courage to do it, because that fear still remained. And now that I knew WHY I was scared, it made me even more scared.

But I had to know. I had to go and have her put makeup on me and see how it looked. And I did. And if you were ever wondering what this post was about…

A tweet I made at 1:09 pm on March 10, 2020: Today I did something I’d be terrified to do for most of my life (I can’t tell you what it is, but it’s not dangerous so do not worry). And all I can tell you is that we only live once and if you’re wondering if you should do that thing that scares you? Fuck yes. Go do it. [purple heart emoji]

I let her do whatever she wanted, because I had no idea what I liked or what I’d want. I was there for about three hours. The first time I looked in the mirror when she was done was… amazing and heartbreaking all at once. It was so great. And it HURT SO MUCH.

Because I knew. Even though the colors/style she used aren’t something I’d choose for myself now, I knew. I knew I knew I knew. That was ME. It was the first time I ever saw even a hint of ME (as close as was possible at the time). I almost cried.

Which of course was exhilarating! But it also meant… my entire life was going to change, because I HAD to transition. And it meant so much of my life, trapped in the wrong body with gender dysphoria, could have been so different.

I don’t know what it would be like to dress up for Halloween now. I’ve never had a WOMEN’S costume for it before. I’ve never had just ONE costume I WANTED to wear. I think it might be SUPER DAMN GREAT?? But I never get invited to Halloween parties so I have no reason to get one.

Dressing up in a costume and then sitting at home doing nothing would be too sad to deal with. But maybe someday! If someone invites me to one. Is this a hint YES OF COURSE THIS IS A HINT. But back to the point:

Don’t run from fear. Find the courage, no matter how long it takes. You can do it.

Embrace it. Run toward it. Experience that fear and see what you learn about yourself when you come out the other side. It might just be a revelation.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com