Trans Life

ASK TILLY ANYTHING, part 5

Welcome to Trans Tuesday! This week we wrap up our 100th episode celebration in episode 102, because I’m mad with power and do what I want! So here comes ASK TILLY ANYTHING! …part 5!

Do see ASK TILLY ANYTHING part 1 and part 2 from years ago, and then the new part 3 and part 4 first, if you know what’s good for you. You do know what’s good for you, don’t you?

On with your questions!

Oh I am SO glad you asked. Okay, so, first:

You can’t tell if someone is trans just by looking at them. You can’t tell if someone is trans just by looking at them. You can’t tell if someone is trans just by looking at them. 

That’s the stuff all those bullshit “transvestigators” do and they universally seem to be trying to prove that any cis woman who doesn’t conform to the “gender ideal”, either in presentation or physically, is trans. It’s an awful way of policing gender conformity.

I don’t think that’s what the person asking this question was doing, but I wanted to make that bit clear to everyone else out there first. Just do not make assumptions about people’s gender and the world will be a kinder, better place for us all.

And definitely, absolutely, unequivocally do not ask someone if they’re trans. That could put us in incredible danger, and it’s also asking us to out ourselves to you (or anyone else who may be listening). It is, frankly, none of anyone else’s business if someone is trans or cis.

BUT, if you think this new coworker might be trans and you want to show solidarity and support… wear a trans pride pin. Not only when you talk to them, just… wear it. Always. When something comes up in meetings or whatever that might affect trans people, stand up for us. It is, of course, the right thing to do and SO much safer for cis people to do. You also then spare the person who may be the only trans person present from having to do it and out themselves if they’re not ready to and risk reprisals from transphobes.

In short, just be an accomplice. Stand close enough so that the bricks thrown at us hit you too, and use your privilege as a cis person to stand up for her and all of us. Which is, ideally, what you’re doing even when you think all of your coworkers are cis, right?

Check if your health insurance plan covers trans healthcare. If it doesn’t, fight to ensure that it changes and does.

These are the things we need. We don’t need people to ask if we’re trans and then tell us you support us, we need you to support us with all of the things I just mentioned.

Just keep doing those things. That is the support and solidarity we need.

My friend, my person, my fellow human, I kind of love you for asking this. Because if you’re worried you might be a chaser, that is the first step to not being an actual chaser.

Chasers, for those unaware, are (almost universally) cis men who fetishize trans women and literally chase us around trying to have sex with us. For more on them and how awful that all is, see CHASERS AND THE FETISHIZATION OF TRANS WOMEN. (Warning: it includes screenshots of chasers in my DMs and some of the content is incredibly awful)

See the thing about chasers is that they never think about the feelings of the women they fetishize. That’s literally what fetishizing us is, right? Thinking of us only as objects you can use to get your rocks off.

Chasers don’t support trans rights, they turn on you the second you don’t fawn over their attention, they’re very often bigots who think we’re “naughty” or some “safe” way to explore their own feelings about their sexuality.

It is okay to be attracted to trans women! We’re great! Trans women are hot (just ask me). What’s not okay is to treat us as if we’re not human beings with feelings, wants, and needs of our own.

If you think you’d like to approach her about being more than friends… just do that the way you would with a cis woman. It’s literally no different. We’re just women!

As long as you respect us and don’t hound our DMs, as long as you’re not preying on the newly-out looking for someone to finally see them as the women they are, as long as you’re treating us like human beings, you’re not a chaser.

Just don’t be a creep! Not being a chaser is the easiest thing in the world to do (which makes it remarkable that so very many cis men entirely fail at it).

Yeah this one is really complicated, because cross-dressing isn’t the same as being trans. But some cross dressers are absolutely trans! But some also aren’t.

I think the important thing to remember here is that it’s not cross dressing that makes someone trans, because a whole lot of cis people do it. If you’re trans or nonbinary and a cross dresser, that’s cool, you’re trans. Cross dressing doesn’t negate your transness.

But cis people who are cross dressers do not get to call themselves trans, because by the very definition they’re cis. Or… presumably.

Because invariably some of those cis cross dressers discover they’re actually trans through cross dressing.

So I think we need to be inclusive of the cross dressing community, but I think the cross dressers who know they’re cis need to not take advantage of that. And I think that’s where the hesitance comes in, because there are so few places for trans people that don’t get invaded and taken over by cis people.

I mean I can’t speak for the trans people you mentioned who aren’t accepting of cross dressers, but my gut says that’s where it comes from. Fear over another potential cis invasion of space and privacy.

I think it’s on cis cross dressers to know that things for trans people, that are inclusive for cross dressers, are inclusive of trans cross dressers and are not intended for cis folks.

I mean drag queens technically fall under the cross dressing umbrella, but they’re almost all cis men. And conflating drag queens with trans women is a big problem, because it perpetuates seeing trans women as “men in dresses,” which we are not. 

I love drag queens! But outside of the few that are trans, the vast majority are not trans people. They’re cis men dressing up as (often heightened versions of) a different gender.

Do you cross dress for sexual gratification? Not trans. Do you cross dress for fun? Or work? Not trans. Do you want to be/feel or believe you are a different gender than the one assigned at birth? Trans.

It’s not the clothes you wear that make you trans, it’s about who you are.

I haven’t fully examined my thoughts on the topic before, so I’m not sure how well I’m explaining it and these might not be my final thoughts on it. Maybe it needs an essay of its own one day, I dunno. But that’s where I’m at right now.

Cis cross dressers gotta know what is and is not for them, and trans cross dressers are trans.

Well this is a, sadly, very short answer. I can only read and speak English, and that’s it. I had two years of French in high school, and my first teacher was great but the second absolutely killed my desire to continue learning it. So I never went any further beyond that, and I don’t remember much of it, and I haven’t had the time to try and pick up another one.

At its most basic, to just be able to make a living writing and telling stories. For my wife and I to get staffed on a tv show, move up, and become showrunners that get to run shows we created someday. And to work on as much Star Trek as possible.

And if you wanna get really wild, if we somehow ever got incredibly successful financially, I’d love to start a studio specifically to produce movies and tv shows written and created by trans people.

Oh shit. This is going to require some explanation.

So of the aforementioned podcast production company my wife and I run, our first show (that I created) was Umket Industries Presents: The Dixie Stenberg and Brassy Battalion Adventure Theater.

It’s an homage/spoof of old time radio audio drama, about a group of pilots with sci-fi planes and rayguns fighting nazis in WWII. It’s very silly, a nazi gets punched for comedic value in nearly every episode, and there’s a robot that goes through a “Servo reassignment surgery” ah ha ha ha there were no signs.

Anyway, as part of the show there were entirely fake commercials in the middle, all for products from the show’s fictional sponsor, that were also spoof of old radio commercials from the 30s and 40s (they. Were. a. TRIP.). And I played the commercial announcer in all fifty episodes of the show, in what can only be described as an ill-suited, warbling voice of discombobulated bewilderment. I honestly don’t think I could even do it anymore, after speech therapy!

And so to answer your question: I would describe that guy as perpetually confused but happy to read whatever is in front of him and support the employer who signed his paychecks.

So first, no, I don’t take any supplements or anything. I just eat a lot of protein and a lot of fiber (and let’s be honest, a lot of carbs). I do keep protein bars on hand for when I get snackish though, because you need a lot of protein to build muscle. My faves are TruBar, because they actually almost taste like candy bars. Best tasting ones I’ve had. I’m particularly fond of their Daydreaming About Donuts, Whipped for Key Lime, and Saltylicious Almond Love varieties. They’re also really high in fiber, which helps because when you eat a lot of protein, uh, you need that extra fiber. I am not paid to say any of this! I just legit love them.

But what supplements you take or don’t take, and what you eat or don’t eat, is going to vary for everyone because every body is different. I eat a PB&J for lunch every day with (rotating flavors of) a sugar-free and high fiber jelly and high-fiber bread, along with a pound of grapes and like three to four bananas. And every other day for dinner I have a salad so big we had to buy an extra big bowl for it, and it’s got an entire head of romaine lettuce and a ton of tomatoes and almost a pound of deli meat in it.

And whatever meals are left I eat “normally”, except for my Friday cheat lunches (see FREEING UP MY BRAIN (lunch with Tilly).

And, like… that is not gonna work for most people. But it works great for me! I talked about that in PARENTS WHO WILL NEVER KNOW THE REAL YOU, I have an unreal alien metabolism, one of the things my dad gifted me with.

Also working out didn’t affect my transition mindset, it was actually the other way around! All the exercise I do was the first thing I ever did to start my transition, years before I could medically or socially transition. I talked all about that in BODY HACKING.

Also also, if you wanna see the latest of where all my exercise is at, check out my FOUR YEAR RETROSPECTIVE as it includes the most recent photo of where I’m at physically with my workouts.

Dr. Pulaski is no more cranky or racist than Bones, and in fact learns and grows beyond her bigotry in her one and only season of The Next Generation. Yet she’s universally derided for it, while Bones is celebrated for it (he’s really unrepentantly racist toward Spock through all of The Original Series, and it’s always played for laughs). That’s some sexism at work.

Chris Pine is a far better Kirk than William Shatner was. Pine’s Kirk is overconfident and compassionate and charismatic. Shatner’s Kirk is smarmy and compassionate and charismatic. And the flip from smarmy to overconfident makes all the difference for me. I can love an overconfident character, but I find myself extra repulsed by smarmy cis white men these days. To be clear I don’t hate Shatner’s Kirk, he’s still compassionate. But sometimes the smarm is too much and it icks me out, and I don’t get that from Pine at all, so I’ll take Pine first every time. (I feel like I haven’t seen enough of Paul Wesley’s Kirk on Strange New Worlds yet to make a determination about where he falls in the Kirk hierarchy.)

Also there is no bad Star Trek. There are some highly problematic episodes, and movies and series that succeeded at what they were trying to do more than others, but… there is no bad Star Trek.

The best thing is how it’s founded on the ideals of inclusion and equality, of hope and wonder.

The worst thing is that it’s made by fallible humans and is always a product of its time. So it’s had sexist episodes, and racist episodes, and homophobic episodes, and transphobic episodes. It, and the people who work on it, are not exempt from the implicit biases of our society.

But it posits a world that is exempt from those, because we’ve recognized and addressed them, and over time it grows more and more into being as inclusive as its ideals have always been. And there’s no other mass media franchise you can really say that about, and that is a huge reason why I love it as much as I do.

It says we can be better if we choose to be better, and look at the wonders we can accomplish together when that happens.

And that’s fucking beautiful.

Oof, there’s no easy answer to that. Internalized and implicit biases are nightmares to root out and get rid of.

For INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIA, the most important thing is, again, community. We can often see it in others when we can’t see it in ourselves. So we need other trans people to be like, hey babe…. That thing you just said about yourself? That’s internalized transphobia. We have to recognize it before we can fight it. And fighting it is about realizing that it’s transphobic society that wants us to feel that way, and they do NOT get to tell us how to feel about ourselves (especially when society wants us to feel embarrassed, or ashamed, or like we’re not enough, or like we’re freaks, or like there’s something wrong with us, or-). Nobody gets to tell us how to feel about ourselves.

For cis folks with implicit transphobia (see IMPLICIT QUEERPHOBIA for more), it’s the same as it is with other implicit biases. You have to recognize that they’re there and that society put those biases in you, and you have to actively work to change your way of thinking about it. And that can best happen by listening to and believing and learning from the people you want to change your biases about.

Because biases and phobias can crumble when the unknown is replaced with knowledge, because then you’ve no longer got anything to be scared of.

This is why representation in media is so fucking important, by the way. It’s the way most of the people in our country first learn about people who are different from them. And so if marginalized communities like trans people aren’t getting that rep (see 2024 TRANS REP IN MEDIA), or worse, have all the propaganda about us confirmed for them (see BAD REPRESENTATION: EMILIA PEREZ), that has real world consequences for us and the way we’re treated, thought about, and think about ourselves.

First I’d say you absolutely need to check out CIS SPOUSAL AND PARTNER SUPPORT for how very, very badly we need you to support us when we come out, and what can happen when you don’t.

Second, I’d say that you may have complicated feelings about it (even if you’re fully supportive!) and that’s okay, because you’re human. But what you cannot do is make your complicated feelings your trans spouse or partner’s problem. Our coming out isn’t about YOU, it’s about us, and it’s already such a complicated and complex and often difficult thing to do. 

The last thing we need is you trying to work through your weird feelings about “losing a version of us” or what have you, because that’s not what’s actually happening. This doesn’t mean you don’t have real feelings to work through! It just means your own internalized confusion over it, and possible internalized transphobia and/or homophobia) cannot be our problem, not then. See CIS GRIEF (over trans people when we come out) for more.

So my advice to you is, whatever it is you’re feeling, know that your spouse wasn’t lying to you about who they were. It doesn’t mean your marriage is a lie, it doesn’t mean staying married to them after transition is somehow breaking your vow because you vowed you were “marrying a man” and not a trans woman, or whatever other nonsense.

Your spouse was trying to be the person that society and all of their friends and family and possibly even you told them they were and had to be. And that hurt them, and it wounded them, and they want to be free of trying to be someone they’re not.

You care about them, you love them, you should want them to be happy and to be whoever they truly are. So when they’re on the path to doing that, and they trust you enough to tell you, you have got to support them all the way through it. You’re their spouse, that’s the job. It’s what you signed up for. That’s love, baby.

If you don’t know what they need, ask. If they don’t yet know, that’s okay. Tell them whenever they do, you’re there to help. It’s a scary as fuck time to come out, so just make it unequivocally clear you love them and support them and will be with them every step of the way.

Learn what you need to support them (there are lots of resources… like Tilly’s Trans Tuesdays, oh what?!). Learn as they learn. Follow where they lead. Just as you would with literally anything else in their life, because they’re your spouse, right?

You’re partners. So just… be a partner. Be a spouse. And love them.

Y’know, I’ve never really gotten to have my Progesterone Dream Theater as part of Tilly’s Trans Tuesdays, so it’s about time to change that! Let’s get some immortalized in digital ink.

I should add, for those not in the know, progesterone is a hormone some trans women on HRT take, and it’s got some wild side effects, like increased sex drive, making you sleep really well (I’ve never slept better)… AND WILD-ASS DREAMS. 

I never had dreams like these before being on progesterone. And the benefit of posting them to social media for hilarity, is that I now have them all gathered together here. For you.

And now I present to you…. 

Tilly’s Progesterone Dream Theater! 

PROGESTERONE DREAM 1

so Guns N Roses was putting on a concert inside a deli
and Slash told me he couldn’t play for reasons, and so I had to play with the band instead
but… I don’t know how!
he doesn’t care, it has to be me
so he takes me to a case with his guitar, and I open it
and inside
is a tiny guitar half the size of normal
made out of rubber
and I pick it up and it bends all over, it’s very noodley 
and I say “but the strings are so tiny!”
and they are, even tinier than the rest of this mini bendy rubber guitar 
cut to the end of Welcome to the Jungle and I’m somehow playing it and things are going okay, but I’m struggling with the tiny strings and it keeps wobbling and bending and is hard to hold
and I can’t believe I am somehow holding it and plucking the right strings and somehow playing the song when I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT MUSIC (this is a true fact)
and then it cuts right into the intro to Sweet Child O’ Mine 
and I don’t just manage it, I NAIL it
and I look to the crowd, and Slash is there in his hat, and he smiles and gives me a thumbs up

PROGESTERONE DREAM 2

things were REALLY weird and i KNEW they were weird but not that i was dreaming
so i kept asking every person in my dream why things were so weird and they all got mad at me for not knowing i was dreaming 

PROGESTERONE DREAM 3

I was in an infinite white void
running through it was a hallway with no ceiling
the walls were covered in Lego plates, so you could build on them
there was a bearded burly lumberjack guy in a harness dangling from a rope between the walls, swinging back and forth between them rapidly, sticking legos on to build stuff
and there was a flying drone with a bucket attached that had to zoom around and catch any legos he dropped
because if any hit the floor
WE WOULD ALL DIE

PROGESTERONE DREAM 4

a woman was talking to me, pointed a finger at me and said: “Well I can tell you one weird thing, you’re going to wake up right now.”
AND OUR ALARM IMMEDIATELY WENT OFF 

PROGESTERONE DREAM 5

I’m on the Walking Dead set and discover over 12 seasons only 240 hours passed for the characters (I was SO mad about it), and then Tom Petty had squirrel teeth and couldn’t sing and demanded I fix them for him

PROGESTERONE DREAM 6

I was being chased by a bundle of dry spaghetti, running through a grid in which, at every intersection, there was a singe dried spaghetti noodle that rose up to the infinite sky. I escaped my pursuer by… climbing a mountain made of one pound bags of baby carrots.

PROGESTERONE DREAM 7

We got a brand new apartment for the first time, and it was big and wonderful, but it was also a huge building up on stilts and the only way down was to ride an invisible cloth hammock conveyor UP 20 STORIES to a tower a couple miles across town and take its elevator down.

Also we had a tiny multicolored translucent gelatin cat with a moose head (complete with antlers) that followed us everywhere and liked to play inside sink drains

PROGESTERONE DREAM 8

real me and a cartoon version of Timothy Olyphant are private detectives
tracking down a real rabbit who worked at an ice cream shop,
and the rabbit wore a shirt that said “are you a creamer?” 
(creamers were anyone who likes ice cream)

PROGESTERONE DREAM 9

Woke up with the phrase “uh oh, dinosaurs!” in my head

PROGESTERONE DREAM 10

Dreamed I had a heart attack and instead of calling the hospital, people called the Soulful Wellness Center. A van from there arrived five minutes later, and a woman got out and said I was now booked for a six night stay in June. But I’m having a heart attack NOW, I told her.
She shrugged and then misgendered me, so I forced the heart attack away, picked her up and threw her all the way across the street.

PROGESTERONE DREAM 11

I was helping Hayley Atwell learn ballroom dancing (to Total Eclipse of the Heart)
and she wasn’t sure if she should keep doing MCU movies
I said yes “because they’re running out of bankable stars” 
she was tooootally into me but respected that I was married and we would just be friends
then she asked me to put the eggs (that were on the floor in the corner of the room) away…
but only the brown ones

And now, for the installment of Progesterone Dream Theater that I think exemplifies them all:

PROGESTERONE DREAM 12

I know I had three dreams one night, and while I didn’t remember the first two dreams, I did remember everything faded to white between
and I was like what is this am I in a void?
no
there was a TITLE CARD between each of my dreams, and it looked just like this

Thank you all for coming along with me on this ride of, now, two hundred nineteen Trans Tuesdays and one hundred and two podcast episodes.

I do these for you, and I hope I hope I hope they’ve been of some help to you.

Okay, I’m gonna vamoose. My cryotube needs maintenance, but my brain’s too scrambled to do it.

Somebody help a chick out?

Love you, babes.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

ASK TILLY ANYTHING, part 4

Welcome to Trans Tuesday! To continue celebrating 100 episodes of this podcast, you asked me stuff and I answered stuff! So here’s the stuff: ASK TILLY ANYTHING! …part 4!

You may want to check out ASK TILLY ANYTHING part 1, part 2, and part 3 first! Or not. I’m not the boss of you. (What if I were, tho? What if I were.)

Okay, you asked so many questions it’s taking me three essays to answer, to let’s just get right to it.

“Silly Bridges?” Mm, I see how it is.

Listen, I’m an incredibly silly person by nature (my social media “pre-coffee thoughts with Tilly” every morning should’ve clued you in), so… breathing, I guess? I’m almost never not silly.

One particular goofy thing I do all the time is sing little nonsense songs to Susan, though. Like:

Susan yeah, you’re so good, you’re the hottest chick in the neighborhood

Or

Doin’ the dishes is what I do, even though I don’t want tooooooooooooooooo

Go ahead and imagine hearing that shit all the time for your entire life and you’ll understand what a saint my wife is.

Milly? I- okay, uh, well I don’t actually… know… what the different molds look like or are called. Do they have specific names? They probably do.

But I do not know them.

Ohh this is a whole bit, huh? Aren’t you clever! (no, you are, I am legit amused)

I’m not actually super up on horror movies. Us creeped me out in a delightful way, and The Substance wasn’t really “scary” to me, as much as just… The Most. And if at any point you think it is being less The Most, it will immediately become The Moster.

But you know what? I SAW THE TV GLOW, even with its hopeful ending, still scares the shit out me for very trans reasons.

I grew up in Chicago with horrid winters and black ice and having to wear a heavy winter coat over my damned halloween costume every year, and then nobody could even see it!

And now I live in Los Angeles and I’m madly in love with it.

And while weather is only part of that story (another part of it is in TRANS TRAUMA 2: SOCIETAL GASLIGHTING, and there are still more components to it beyond that), I feel like that answers the question pretty well.

Also I was always cold pre-transition, and now that I’m on estrogen (see HRT), I’m even colder all the time-r.

SOMEONE TURN UP THE TEMP IN MY CRYOTUBE DAMN IT.

Daffodils aka buttercups. They were everywhere when Susan and I were first together, so they always remind me of those heady early days of love, and of spring, and of joy, and of life. (why do they gotta smell like condoms when they start wilting tho?!)

Roses are also great because they’re the badasses of flowers. They grow great in blood.

Okay I must give you a standing ovation for this one, truly the pinnacle of the form.

As I talked about in FINDING OUR OWN REPRESENTATION (P!nk), All I Know so Far is my entire heart given musical form, and it’s what Susan and I danced to at our re-wedding (see A TRANS RE-WEDDING for more).

And as I mentioned in the re-wedding discussion, Never Gonna Not Dance Again is very much a “death before detransition” song, and my dream of a giant dance party to it with all of my friends will happen god damn it.

Outside of that, What About Us? is my favorite because it speaks so much to the times we find ourselves in… as good, wonderful people, so lost at how much of the world could be so evil, and how we deserve better than that.

Outside of that, look… it’s like asking me to pick a favorite kid (or so I hear people say, we only have the one kid ourselves so). So many of them mean so much to me, but…

I think I’d have to go with Raise Your Glass. 

Because:

• It’s a total banger
• It’s about “misfits” sticking together and loving each other
• It doesn’t take itself too seriously
• It’s fun as heck
• IT’S A TOTAL BANGER
• It’s about how not being a conformo is good actually
• It makes me feel alive
• It’s about how she loves all the weirdos who dare to be different, just like me
• Did I mention it’s a total banger?

So funny story, I’ve been writing fiction for basically my whole life, and Susan was actually a journalist that I convinced to give fiction a try. The reasons she did are her story and not mine to tell, but suffice to say she did and then we started writing together, found we complimented each other really well, and never looked back.

And I think all of that worked because… I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this here before or not, but… we met each other writing Star Trek fanfic.

IT

IS

TRUE

And I think when you meet doing something so specific in a little niche, maybe a lot of your interests are bound to line up. Ours do. We tend to like and dislike the same things (in stories, tv, movies, etc). We have different hobbies and stuff, but we agree on everything important and she’s my best friend in the entire world. 

Being around her all day and writing with her is a literal joy, and I wish for something so amazing for all of you out there. Marry your best friend who’s also super smart and funny and creative and totally hot and just looking at them makes you wanna make out with them. 

Highly recommended.

I don’t think I could have done anything else. It’s in my blood, as cliche as that sounds. It’s my heart, it’s my life, it’s just who I am.

The only other thing I would have wanted to be is a singer. But that was never in the cards for me.

When I was little I had chicken pox and I missed weeks of school because of it, and that was the time that like… basic music theory or whatever was being taught? Like basic, basic stuff. And when I came back they just expected me to know it? And I didn’t? And I didn’t understand, and nobody bothered to teach me.

On top of that, my mother helpfully told me for my entire life that I was tone deaf. So with her constant discouragement and my mountains of frustration with not understanding notes and pitch and whatever else, I kind of gave up on it.

I leaned into purposefully bad singing (with all my goofy little songs).

But guuuuuessssss what? After the gender-affirming speech therapy I had, I CAN NOW SOMEHOW CARRY A TUNE. I mean, I think. I don’t really know what that means. And I’m still off a lot. But now sometimes I’m not? 

I ain’t never gonna be a pro (lolz no), but now I can actually kind of sing the things I try to sing, and that means a whole lot to me.

So maybe don’t discourage people from their interests and make sure kids don’t fall behind after an illness! 

Uh, yeah, didn’t mean to get into a rant there. But writing is it for me. 

I have no other marketable skills! (other than being remarkably good-looking)

I don’t have an easy answer for this one! I didn’t have the “oh shit” moment most of us do.

I always felt drawn to girls and “girly things” and “wished I was a girl” and “prayed that I’d wake up a girl” (there were no signs… yes there were, see THE SIGNS WERE ALWAYS THERE), but I was never ever told that was a thing I could be. I was, in fact, actively discouraged and punished anytime I displayed any interest in those things.

So if you’d told me as a kid “oh that just means you are a girl, you’re trans and that’s okay” I’d have screamed in joy and gotten girly clothes and never ever looked back. But I didn’t have that option open to me, or even the knowledge that such an option existed. Which led to a lifetime of pain and GENDER DYSPHORIA, yaaaaaaaaaaay.

It was something that’d always been in the back of my mind, but I thought there was something wrong with me or, somehow also simultaneously, that’s just how all boys felt. Of course we’d all rather be girls, I mean… duh.

Somewhere around 2013 – 2015ish (I mentioned in ASK TILLY ANYTHING PART 3 that my full acceptance was possibly earlier than I thought from new evidence I found), I accepted that I was trans. It’s all hazy because it was so slow for me, and because, again, I knew that even if I was trans (spoiler: I sure am!) I couldn’t transition until mid-2020, I took my time exploring it and figuring things out. See the BODY HACKING essay for more on some of the earliest transition-related stuff I did.

It was horrifically hard to wait all those years, but wait I did. It’s a reason I don’t talk about publicly, though I’ve told a few friends who’ve asked (and please understand how much I trust you if you’re one of the people I’ve told).

So where, in all of that, do you define my egg crack? I honestly don’t know. I kind of feel like my entire life up until that 2013 – 2015ish hazy area was my egg slowly but continually cracking, until enough light finally got through and I had a name to put to this thing I’d always felt and known.

Which is a long-winded way to say “I don’t really know!”, I guess. Sorry I don’t have a clearer answer there!

Ha! Heck no. I’m still learning, but then I think most of us probably are. There’s always more to learn about how to get better at what you do.

You can learn about three-act (or my personal face, five-act) structure, character arcs, writing natural, organic dialogue… but you’re also just as likely to pick up a lot of that by just writing. A lot.

As a wee babe, before I even knew what three-act structure was, I was writing in three-act structure! You pick it up from reading novels and watching movies and tv, comics, and so much more. You absorb an understanding of how story and character work, sometimes without even knowing you have.

There are already so many books on the topic, some good, many terrible. The thing is, again like I talked about a little back in PART 3… everyone is different, and writes in a different way.

Writer/producer John Rogers (who I’ve quoted in Trans Tuesdays before, specifically TRANS POLITICS 2: YOU MUST VOTE TO PROTECT US) has a lovely saying about this.

That’s just how artistic pursuits are!

I have no desire to write a book on screenwriting, but I’m always happy to answer specific questions if you have them! Hit me up.

Just please don’t ask me to read your script (unless we’re actual friends, in which case I am always happy to read and give notes as needed).

Yeah this one is tough, because I’m not new to writing Trans Tuesdays, nor am I new to making podcasts (my wife and I have been doing it longer than most via our production company, Pendant Productions, which produces and releases the Tilly’s Trans Tuesdays podcast).

I’m not sure I’ve learned anything about myself in the course of continuing to do these two things I was already doing for years when the podcast started. Other than I really love writing and talking about gender and transness, and especially its intersection with art and media, and I think I’m really, really good at it.

Maybe I have also just learned I’m not as humble as I could be, but ehhhhhh I’m confident in the things I should be confident in, I think.

Fascinating question. For me… no. That’d be an incredibly serious surgery, and while it’d absolutely be worth it for the trans women who want that… I just don’t. I feel perfectly like a mom already, even though I wasn’t the one who carried our son before his birth.

I mean, we’re also very happy having only one kid and don’t want any more, but even leaving that aside, that’s just never something I’ve wanted or desired. I know trans women who’d do almost anything for that chance, but that’s never been me.

I don’t know that I associate it all that closely with motherhood, really. Which may sound weird but some trans men and nonbinary people can get pregnant, and that doesn’t make them mothers, you know? They may prefer other terms. And adoptive mothers, and chosen mothers, and step-mothers… all are absolutely real varieties of “mother.” 

It also probably doesn’t help that I have an incredibly complex and difficult relationship with my own mother. She was technically and legally my mother, but I don’t feel like she was really much of a mom. Or rather, she was, but not what I’d call a kind, welcoming, parental kind of mom. I suspect that undoubtedly plays into my own feelings on the topic, because if she could carry me and give birth to me and not really be much of a good mom, that probably primed me to accept “just because you carried and birthed a baby doesn’t make you a mom,” if that makes sense. See TRANS PARENTS (Mother’s Day) for more.

I’m one of our son’s biological moms, but I’m not the one who carried him or gave birth to him.

And that’s okay with me.

Here’s an audio question I received from my fabulous friend Zoe:

TRANSCRIPTION: Hi Tilly, this is Zoe with my question for the 100th podcast episode, and it is as follows: do you have any tattoos related to The Matrix? And if you don’t and you were hypothetically going to get one, what would it be? Love you, bye!

So, at present, I do not! The only tattoo I have is the one on my right arm… does it count as more than one? It’s kind of a sleeve, but only on the outside of my arm and a little bit of the inside of my arm? You can see it in the Trans Tuesday on BODILY AUTONOMY (and my tattoo).

I’ve seen trans folks who’ve gotten the base-of-the-skull port that humans use to jack into the matrix tattooed on the back of their necks, and given that those ports all over the bodies of humans freed from the matrix represent the body changes from the wrong puberty trans people are forced to go through by a society that denies our existence (see my book BEGIN TRANSMISSION: THE TRANS ALLEGORIES OF THE MATRIX for more!), I find that such an incredibly powerful thing. To take ownership of that. To choose to put on your body this representation of what society does to us, to claim it, to say we have power over it… that’s… damn. It’s something I’ve thought about.

Buuuuut that’s also the spot that The Pink Opaque tattoo shows up in I Saw the TV Glow, where it’s a positive sign and signifier of the truth in our souls (see the Trans Tuesdays on THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW). And so I’ve thought about that, too. But they can’t both go in the same spot! Argh.

I also don’t know if I want a tattoo on the back of my neck, so these are things I’ve not thought a whole lot about. Hmm, I could maybe get the arm-ports on their bodies in The Matrix down my left arm… that’d be cool. But do I really want those there? I don’t know!

I’ve been too busy to really put enough thought into it, especially making it part of my body forever. Maybe that’ll change in the future! Right now I’m too busy to even think about what to have for lunch, so…

Well, I love this.

And while I am very enticed about the idea of punting duck-sized transphobes into trash cans, I think I’d have to go with one transphobe-sized duck. Why? Aha, it’s a trick question.

It’s because ducks are great and we wouldn’t fight, we’d be besties and now I have a human-sized duck I can ride around on.

Checkmate Tilly!

Come back next week before my cryotube thaws, as we wrap up all your questions, both sensical and non!

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

PS – Part 5 is here!

ASK TILLY ANYTHING, part 3

Welcome to Trans Tuesday! To celebrate the podcast version of these reaching its 100th episode, you sent me tons of questions, and I have tons of answers! Here’s ASK TILLY ANYTHING! …part 3?!

Okay so before I get into it, I wanna say yes, this is actually the third AMA essay I’ve done (and there will be another one next week and the week after, because you asked me too many questions to answer in one episode!).

The first two were to celebrate Trans Tuesdays reaching one hundred essays, and that happened before the podcast ever existed. So if you’ve only recently discovered Trans Tuesdays, or only listened to the podcast version, those are new to you! So check out ASK TILLY ANYTHING part 1 and ASK TILLY ANYTHING part 2.

Initially I thought I’d do another AMA to celebrate Trans Tuesdays reaching two hundred essays, but that happened in the middle of THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW deep dive, and I wasn’t gonna stop that to do an AMA and then pick it back up again.

Trans Tuesday 200 was actually THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW, part 3, and this essay (and the second one next week, and the third the week after) are actually Trans Tuesday 217, 218, and 219, for all of you Tilly’s Trans Tuesday Trivia Types out there.

But enough of that, we’ve got SO many questions to answer, so let’s get to it! I’m going to answer all of these in entirely random order… some are serious, some are thoughtful, some are goofy. It’s gonna be a good time! Let’s go! 

Here’s one that was emailed to me:

I’ve heard you say that “every trans selfie is an act of resistance.” Thank you for teaching me this. It’s meant a lot to me to know that just by existing, I am fighting our patriarchal systems in our society.

I want to ask if you are the originator of that saying, so that I may give you full credit when I share it with others.

You’ll find me saying that across multiple Trans Tuesdays, especially in PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS, PHOTOS 2: THE SELFIE APOCALYPSE, and PHOTOS 3: TILLY’S GUIDE TO SELFIES.

As to if I’m the originator of it… actually, I don’t know. I’ve been saying it for years and years, and every so often I feel compelled to say it again with one of the selfies I post. Because it’s absolutely true, especially now with the surge of transphobia in our government and media.

Simply showing that we cannot and will not let you take our joy at being who we are is an act of resistance in a society that wants to legislate us out of existence and pretend we aren’t real. See TRANS TRAUMA 2: SOCIETAL GASLIGHTING.

I think I came up with it? But honestly it’s also likely I may have seen someone else post or say something similar before I ever did it, and it seeped into my consciousness that way. I honestly can’t remember for sure!

This is what happens when you write two hundred and seventeen Trans Tuesdays, I guess!

Also, if you have time, would you detail some of the best tips you know on how to be actively as well as passively fighting for our rights?

As I said in THE 2024 ELECTION RESULTS: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE, the most important thing for every trans person to do now, in the coming years, and for always, is survive.

Simply existing and refusing to let them stop us is fighting for our rights. It’s fighting for all of us.

Always, always, always vote for the people who will protect our rights See TRANS POLITICS 2: YOU MUST VOTE TO PROTECT US. Even when it’s frustrating. Even when it hurts. Even if all you can do is vote for someone who’s the least bad, or only half as progressive as you’d like. Every step away from full-right fascism and bigotry is a step in the right direction.

Contacting your government representatives is also really important. Even if you’re in a deep red area, call them on their bullshit every time. Even if you’re in a deep blue area, thank them when they do the right thing and stand up for us.

Beyond that, if you have the time and energy and only if it is safe for you to do so, going to marches and demonstrations, trying to be sure everyone in your life knows how important trans rights are. Call out friends and family members on their bigotry and stop letting it slide. Again, I cannot stress this enough, ONLY DO THAT IF IT IS SAFE FOR YOU TO DO SO. 

This is why we need cis people to do even more of what I just outlined, because it IS safe for you to do so, and other cis people will listen to YOU when they won’t listen to US. See TRANS POLITICS 1: STOP TOLERATING TRANSPHOBIA.

But mostly, for trans folks for the foreseeable future… stay safe, stay you, and stay on this side of the ground. And be as visible as the sun (if it is safe for you to do so).

If we’re talking about the general population, honestly I think I’d say the Matrix sequels (especially Reloaded and Revolutions). I think people who’ve read my book likely already appreciate them as much as they deserve to be, but the general consensus outside of trans circles is almost actively derisive.

And, like… look, The Matrix was legitimately revolutionary in so many ways. It changed filmmaking. That’s not something that is going to happen with every sequel, too. It’s incredibly rare that that ever happens. I think you can make a case that it changed the medium just as much as the original Star Wars did.

But The Matrix has a more universally identifiable story than its sequels do. It’s very much about realizing you’re trans, choosing to accept that and then transition, but more broadly it’s about not feeling like you’re who society says you are or have to be. Everyone knows what it’s like to have expectations set upon you that you never asked for, and wanting to break out of those to be who you really are. So cis people can connect with it much more easily.

Reloaded and Revolutions (and then much later, Resurrections) are about much more specific parts of trans existence. So if you don’t know what they’re saying about trans people in the allegory… I think they’re somewhat inscrutable to a large portion of cis folks.

And that makes me kinda mad, because when cis folks declare that those movies are empirically bad, it feels like what they’re saying is “I don’t understand trans existence and therefore stories about said existence are not worth telling.” But then I remind myself that most of the folks saying that probably don’t even realize how specifically and intentionally trans the movies are. Yet it still feels like the core of it is that they think trans stories aren’t worth telling.

I swear I didn’t mean for this to turn into an advertisement for my book, but I wrote the damn thing because I’m passionate about storytelling, writing, and trans issues, and I think our stories are more important than ever.

So anyway, if you want to understand what the whole Matrix franchise is saying about trans people, and maybe understand the sequels in a way you never did before, BEGIN TRANSMISSION: THE TRANS ALLEGORIES OF THE MATRIX is the book for you! (I link to the ‘zon only so you can see the reviews, please do buy it elsewhere… but leave a review for it there if you could, it is sadly still vital to a book’s success).

I think the answer to this one is because we should not HAVE to be brave just to be ourselves. We absolutely do have to be in this world, and that’s really fucked up.

So it feels hollow and patronizing because they’re acknowledging how difficult cis people have made it for us to come out… while seemingly doing and saying nothing about how they’re going to fight to make a world where we don’t have to be brave to exist.

Again, that is on YOU, cis folks. There aren’t enough trans people to change society on our own, and it’s not our job to fix cis transphobes’ hearts. IT’S YOURS.

Maybe stop telling us we’re brave, and instead tell us how you’re going to protect us and fight for us so we don’t have to be brave just to exist.

Well gosh. Thank you, truly. I don’t know that I’ve enabled others to help each other, though. I mean, I hope I have, but that’s not for me to say. But it means a lot to me that you said that, so thank you again.

I just want to help. 

I’m guessing by “different” you mean “trans” or “not cis” or “not a boy,” so that’s how I’m going to answer it (though I think I’m different from most people in a lot of ways).

I honestly don’t know how old I was, but I was pretty little… every time we would go to visit my grandma and great aunt, they would let me dress up in their dresses and costume jewelry and high heels, and I’d walk around saying I was a pretty girl.

THERE WERE NO SIGNS.

(yes, of course there were signs, see THE SIGNS WERE ALWAYS THERE)

Anyway, they (and my mom) all thought this was hilarious and that I was doing it for laughs, because of that ol’ “boys and men doing anything feminine is worthy of mockery and derision” chestnut that pops up time and time again. See any of my TRANS REP IN MEDIA reports for just how often this implicitly transphobic idea pops up.

I was… probably 3 or 4? Somewhere in there. But there came a point where suddenly it wasn’t funny anymore and I was told I was “too old” to do that now, because that’s not what boys do.

I was heartbroken.

So much so that despite most of my memories being lost from dissociation due to GENDER DYSPHORIA, that one has stuck through everything. The hurt of being denied the happiest thing I got to do.

Do not ever say there’s no such thing as trans kids. I will fling you into the sun.

Goodness, I have too many. Charlize Theron, Lupita Nyong’o, Aubrey Plaza, Hari Nef, Hayley Atwell, Katy O’Brian, Laverne Cox, Sunita Mani, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Gina Torres… 

Listen, I must stop because I don’t have all day.

Michelangelo all the way. I will love the goofball every time.

All I can tell you is what works for me, but writing is kind of like transition… no two paths are exactly the same and we all have to find what works for us.

I love writing. I love writing. But even still sometimes it’s hard to face that blank page. Once I get going… I’m fine, all the way through the draft, revisions, you name it. It’s that blank page that always gets me, and I’m sure (despite all evidence to the contrary) that this time will be the time I’ve entirely forgotten how to do it.

So I force myself to set up the document, look at that blank page… and just write. JUST DO IT. Doesn’t even matter what it is, if I delete it all later, whatever. Once I start the writer-brain kicks in and off I go.

The most important thing I learned long ago, and that I think many “newer” writers struggle with, is letting go of perfection. In fact, you have to let it suck. It’s hard to just let something be bad! But it’s okay, and in fact necessary. LET IT BE BAD. You can make it great in revisions, that’s what they’re for. But you can’t fix what’s not there.

It’s why first drafts are always the hardest for me. Just let go. Let it all go and put some words down. It all starts there. And then just keep putting more words down, without worrying about if they’re good or what you want them to be. Just get ‘em out.

This is the first of several Star Trek questions that were asked, and let me just say I was delighted to see every one of them.

I have a few. Jean-Luc Picard, because I love everything about him and also because he’s my space dad. I learned a whole lot about how to be the person I am from him.

Jadzia Dax, because to a trans girl who didn’t know she was trans, I saw so much of myself in her for reasons I didn’t understand. I learned a whole lot about the person I was and wanted to be from her.

In the modern Trek era, I glommed on to Michael Burnham immediately, and over the course of Discovery she absolutely entered the upper echelon of my Trek faves.

I also gravitate a lot toward D’Vana Tendi, because I see so much of myself in her.

I can’t imagine how I’ll feel once a trans woman character finally shows up in Trek (there’ve been multiple nonbinary characters and a trans man, but still no trans women).

Or maybe I can imagine…

Wow, okay, popular question. Little known fact, but one of the earliest Trans Tuesdays was on NAMES AND PRONOUNS. You can read it for the full story on how I came to “Tilly.”

I’ve struggled with revising that one and bringing it back (and to the podcast for the first time), because it includes mention and discussion of my deadname. As this was very early on in Trans Tuesdays (it was number six!), almost everyone who was reading at the time were people who knew me pre-transition.

Even though almost nobody was reading them at the time, that was the main audience at the start. I didn’t know if other trans folks, or anyone who didn’t know me pre-transition, would ever find or read them.

So I approached it from the angle of “this is who you knew me as, but this is who I really am.” And that’s demonstrably not true for the audience for Trans Tuesdays today, as they’ve grown so much bigger than I had ever anticipated.

BUT the name “Tilly” is inextricably tied to my deadname, in that it’s hard to fully explain it without mentioning and discussing my deadname, and I just do not have any desire to do that. So go read that original essay!

The gist of it is that I liked some things about my deadname, even though I hated the name itself. I liked part of how it looked, I liked it ending with an “ee” sound, and that led me to where I ended up.

I briefly considered Victoria, but it just didn’t feel like me at all, Vicky even less so. But then I thought of Tori, as a diminutive for it, and I kind of dug that. But it wasn’t quite right. 

So it went from Tori being mashed up with a few things I liked from my deadname, and Tilly was the result. Once I hit on it I knew that was it. I tested it out in my head for a while and every time it felt right.

I had it picked, and knew it was my real name, years before coming out publicly and beginning my medical and social transition (I’ve said many times I knew as far back as 2015 that I was trans but couldn’t do anything about it until a set time in 2020. Though I recently discovered evidence I’d forgotten that now makes me think it was even earlier, maybe 2014 or 2013.)

Anyway! Go read that essay if you want more, but caution: contains deadname! I don’t care if people know what my deadname was, I came out in such a public way because I was already fairly well known in the podcasting community and my deadname and deadvoice are in the credits of hundreds of podcast episodes, there’s no way I could change them all so it’s not like I could hide it even if I wanted to.

I just don’t like thinking about the time I was associated with that name.

There’s a great power in choosing your own name, though. If you don’t feel yours fits, pick one that does! First, middle, last, whatever! This goes for cis people, too.

You get one life and it’s yours, and nothing is more you than your name. It should be what best speaks to YOU.

I sadly never really got into webcomics, for a whole list of boring reasons about my available time and how much more of it I wanted to spend at my computer when the webcomic boom happened (and you couldn’t yet read them on smartphones, as there were no smartphones).

I very much enjoy Poorly Drawn Lines, though.

I covered all my specific tips in TRANS VOICES 1: GENDERING, TRANS VOICES 2: HEARING THE TRUE YOU, and TRANS VOICES 3: INTERVIEW WITH MY SLP JEIN YI (she also has some tips!).

One of the hardest parts for me, for a long time, was “the cringe” of having to hear my old voice over and over again. Not just when speaking it, but even worse… when recorded and played back. Recording yourself practicing and listening to it played back is the best way to hear what techniques you need more practice with, and which ones you’re doing well.

And that’s so hard to do when your voice gives you dysphoria, like mine did.

What I had to do was remind myself, every time, that I was doing this for me. Spoiler: that’s also what kept me practicing consistently every single day for three years!

It feels like a chore, it’s painful to listen to and makes you feel awful, but we’re doing it to make ourselves feel better. I cannot tell you the joy and GENDER EUPHORIA that I get from hearing myself now, because it sounds like me.

And I could never have gotten to that point if I didn’t put in all the work, and push through how bad hearing my old voice made me feel.

So just remind yourself that you’re doing it so that you won’t sound so cringe to your own ears in the future. We’re dealing with it more now so that we can hopefully reach a point where we never have to deal with it again.

Damn. I wish I had an easy answer for you. Though… maybe I do.

Because what I was going to say was that you’re not alone. I feel that way and ask myself that, too. I think all of us do.

And that’s where the “easy” answer is. You get the will, the wherewithal, the whatever it is you need to get through from community. Absolutely none of us, myself included, are going to get through this alone.

We need each other for support and help. I find, so often, that in helping others with their struggles I help myself in the process, and I think that’s almost universally true.

Which I think also reiterates what I said in THE 2024 ELECTION RESULTS: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?, because together is the only way any of us are going to get through this (and I don’t just mean trans folks, I mean people from every marginalized community, TRANS INTERSECTIONALITY is vital babes).

And if you don’t have any community, come on over to my Discord, because there’s a whole thriving community there who’d be so glad to have you.

Here’s an audio question I received from my lovely friend Jenn Wallace:

TRANSCRIPTION: Hello Tilly, hello Susan, Jenn Wallace here. Congratulations on your first hundred episodes. You know, when you had me on you asked me four questions, but I’ll just go ahead and ask one. So, what’s been the absolute best thing about your first hundred episodes. All right, love you, bye!

For me, I think there’s a couple things. I love all the folks we’ve been able to bring on and introduce to all our listeners, and show the world how incredibly diverse and different and amazing and human we all are. I love love love being able to do that, and that’s something the podcast gets to do that the text version of my essays don’t. So I’m very grateful for that.

But if one hundred podcast episodes and two hundred seventeen essays have shown me anything, it’s that I love doing this, and it means so much to me that it’s meant so much to all of you. Your responses have always been the best part, and that’s not changed. Knowing something helped you, or helped someone you know… it’s just everything.

And I’ll keep doing it for as long as I have something to say and am able to.

And with the way trans people written by cis writers in media is going, I will not be allowed to die and will be doing my 2874 TRANS REP IN MEDIA report from my cryo-tube at the end of the universe where I think my thoughts into a computer and they’re beamed right into your brains one cryo-tube over. 

Like oh my god, can you believe how cold it is in here? Unacceptable!

Come back next week as I beam more AMA answers direct into your thinkmeats!

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

PS – Part 4 is here!