Trans Life

THE PAST 2: THE NEW PAST

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Today’s thread is something that completely caught me off guard. This is THE PAST 2: THE NEW PAST.

This is about finding our own representation, this is about life and loss and love, this is about #PaperGirls, this is about KJ… and this is about me.

I can already feel myself getting emotional. Keep it together keep it together keep it together! No, it’s absolutely not the hormones, shut up I know what I’m talking about.

Mild spoilers ahead!

Some reading to start you off with the basics. Not required but semi-related threads you might find interesting… my thread on what BAD REPRESENTATION OF TRANS PEOPLE looks like and does to a person.

And my thread on what GOOD REPRESENTATION OF TRANS PEOPLE looks like and does to a person…

And my thread on P!NK, which sort of ties into FINDING OUR OWN REPRESENTATION (P!nk) and how important it can be.

The two threads you REALLY need to read to fully grasp today’s thread includes the one on PHYSICAL REPRESENTATION (which is also about FINDING OUR OWN REPRESENTATION). Bonus: there’s talk of She-Hulk, well before the show happened!

And especially my thread on THE PAST and how incredibly difficult it can be for trans people who transition as adults.

Okay, you’re up to speed. So let’s talk about KJ. KJ is a character from Paper Girls, which began life as a comic and then was adapted to a television series that just released its first season on Amazon Prime.

I knew nothing about it going in, other than it was sci-fi and there was maybe time travel and it starred four girls, and all of that was right in our wheelhouse. I hadn’t previously read the comics, though I hear great things. But I went in with no expectations.

I’m not going to spoil the show for you, unless some character details are enough to do that. See it for yourself though, it’s a great watch and we need a lot more media like it. Okay so… this is KJ on the right.

If you’re wondering what the connection is, let me direct you to what I said as we were in the middle of watching the show.
https://www.facebook.com/tillysbridges/posts/pfbid033J8K8GWtWRQgwBrC82LJ26m8HinVD684gMJgLgnxAAk5UGh2GQWmQBDoPPnNDQB7l

I was stunned. I was speechless. Just… I don’t know, left breathless I guess? It’s so hard to describe even now, because it was so unexpected and so impossible to believe. And it didn’t hit me right away, it was maybe halfway through the season when I realized what was happening.

To be clear, KJ is cisgender. She’s not trans. There are sadly no trans people to be found in Paper Girls, which is the case with most shows. Hey put more trans people in things, maybe? We exist.

I’ve talked multiple times about how much my hair has come to mean to me, figuring out the real me as it grew and I learned more about myself. You don’t need to read these, but if you want further context, here’s the first trans tuesday on HAIR.
https://www.facebook.com/tillysbridges/posts/10158583214960733

And then HAIR 2 (first haircut), when it finally started matching the person I am and how overwhelming that was.

Even now, so much further into my transition, it remains my favorite physical feature. I cannot tell you how much I love it if it’s not already apparent to you. And I’d never seen anyone else in anything we’ve watched with curly hair AND CURLY BANGS.

That alone was just wild. She looked like me! No, wait (here’s where the breath was knocked out of me): SHE LOOKED LIKE I MIGHT HAVE HAD I BEEN ALLOWED TO BE THE REAL ME IN MY OWN CHILDHOOD.

I have no way to see old photos of myself with the real me in them. It’s a horrible, hurtful fact of my existence that will never ever change. There are no childhood photos of TILLY because she wasn’t allowed to exist when she was a child.

Thanks to a highly transphobic society and home life, my true self was KEPT from me without my consent. My truth was forced down, made to stay hidden. I didn’t get to be a little girl, or a pre-teen girl, or a teen girl, or a young adult woman. It was STOLEN from me.

And so here with KJ was someone who looked like I might have, and that was so cool.

But I had no idea how much deeper it was gonna go.

Because, y’see, KJ is athletic and sporty. Just like me, even as a kid! She’s also really smart and cares about her friends a lot, just like me. She wants to help them, she wants to protect them, she feels her emotions deeply and has kindness in her core.

And then she learns a fact about her future identity (who she is as an adult) that she had no previous inkling of (as a kid)… that she’s gay and is attracted to ladies. Wait. *I* am attracted to ladies…

The way she struggled to accept this facet of herself, running through denial and curiosity and acceptance, mirrors so much about what I went through. There’s a moment she gets to talk to her future girlfriend and asks her how she knew she was gay…

And KJ’s so eager to learn the answers, but is also scared about what it might mean and what people would think… and listen, LISTEN. I know that’s something a whole lot of gay people go through. BUT IT’S ALSO WHAT A WHOLE LOT OF TRANS PEOPLE GO THROUGH.

Fina Strazza’s performance all the way through the series, but particularly in that moment, was so nuanced and beautiful and just touched my heart so many times.

KJ struggles with not wanting to be the person her parents want her to be. Ummm yes that’s me. She struggles with what they’ll think of her when they find out the truth, and has to hide it from them. Ummm yes also me. Are you ready for the kicker?

SHE WANTS TO MAKE MOVIES WHEN SHE GROWS UP. She’s in awe of the art form and wants to create and be part of it and put new things into the world, in the hopes they’ll mean to others what those things meant to her. My wife and I are screenwriters, c’mon!

Again, KJ is not trans, and I am. And she is Jewish, and I am not. But both are marginalized communities that face discrimination and violence, and while I am NOT saying the two are the same, there are some commonalities (that people of all marginalized communities share).

So what I’m getting at is that without any idea this was waiting for me going in, and without the creators of the comic and show having any indication this would be a possibility… they’ve given me a gift I can never repay.

Because in a sense, I feel like I really got to live vicariously through KJ. For those brief but glorious eight hours, I got to live a lifetime of missed experiences and memories through her. I got to see myself in her, in ways I’ve never been able to see myself in a character before.

It almost felt like a second childhood, in a way. Sure I never got to go on dangerous time travel adventures, but I also never got to hang out with cool friends who were girls, who accepted me and fought with me and loved me and argued with me in the way teens do.

I told you this was a story about life and loss and love, and that’s what it is. My own childhood was there, but it wasn’t really mine. It’s a loss I thought I’d never recover from. But through KJ, I’ve found a small window into the life I could’ve had.

And though it’s bittersweet because it’s fiction, it’s her story and not mine, it still gave me something I was missing, partially filled a longing that has always been with me and always will be. But I can always think of her and what could’ve been and see myself in that story.

One day I hope there’s enough true trans representation in our media that I’ll be able to see a curly haired trans girl with curly bangs going on adventures and then, well my heart just might explode. For now, we find it where we can get it. And KJ? She found ME.

And for that I will love KJ with all my heart for the rest of my life. She’s important to me in ways few other characters are, and all entirely by chance. To Brian K. Vaughan and @cliffchiang, thank you for creating her.

To @StephanyFolsom and @FinaStrazza, thank you THANK YOU for healing part of my heart in a way I never thought possible, and in ways you likely never could have imagined. Thank you for giving me a piece of my life that was missing, if only for those sweet eight hours.

I keep saying it because it’s forever true: create, put your art & your heart out into the world. You never know whose life you’re going to touch.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

PS – I can’t find this shirt anywhere, let alone in adult sizes. Someone help a lady out, I NEED it.

ADDENDUM:

Adding this to the bottom of the thread for posterity

Trans 101 Trans Life

PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we’re covering something that plagues so many trans people for so long, and can be so incredibly painful. And even when we transition, we don’t know for sure if it’ll get any better: PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS.

For many trans folks, photos and reflections don’t show us representations of ourselves. We can intellectually recognize that the person we see is us, because we’re taught that’s what we look like and therefore that is us. But we don’t see ourselves as our true selves.

So what do we see? It’s difficult to put into words, especially since it’s going to vary for every trans person. For some of us we may see a distorted version of ourselves, or ourselves buried under a horrible mask and pain. For some of us we may see a complete stranger that we have no connection to, or that actively repulses us (this was the case for me). If you need more on that, see the Trans Tuesday on GENDER DYSPHORIA.

It feels like we need an entirely new branch of language to better convey some of these complicated trans topics, because we can only kind of get close with clunky metaphors.

Clunky Metaphor 1: For fellow gamers out there, imagine a character that you hate from a videogame you love. In this metaphor, your life is the game, but you can only ever control the one character you hate.

You’re technically in control, you’re moving and interacting with the world, but it’s as a person who is not you, doesn’t feel like you or look like you, and may even be the antithesis of you. And the world reacts and responds to you as that person, not as the you sitting on the couch covered in chip crumbs (listen I don’t know how you play videogames, I’m just giving you the genuine Tilly Experience here).

You can take a screenshot of something you enjoyed in the game, and when you look at it later, you see… that character you hate who isn’t you. You know it was you controlling your avatar in that moment, but it’s not YOU in the photo. Does that make sense?

Clunky Metaphor 2: Imagine a person you’ve come across on social media that you despise. I… suspect this is not a huge leap for most of us, because PHEW there are some questionable folks out there.

But now imagine that all your interactions on social media, through email, through Zoom calls, through EVERYTHING… you were forced to post under that horrible person’s username and avatar.

Even if you behave entirely differently than the person you’re thinking of, people still respond to you as if you were that other person, and punish you for not being who they want or expect you to be. Even if you don’t see yourself as the handle you’re posting under, every single other person in the world does.

Which is not to say you’re a bad person, or see yourself as a bad person (again, the metaphors are clunky). It’s just that the world is interacting with you as if you are someone you most definitely are NOT.

Clunky Metaphor 3: have you ever seen baby photos of yourself? Do you remember being a baby?

No.

People tell you that baby was you and you have to believe them, even though it does not seem to be you, as you know yourself. Now imagine all of your photos give you that feeling. And not just photos, but every time you look in the mirror! Pass a shiny window. Look in the surface of a swimming pool.

It’s your life.

It’s every second of every day.

My whole life pre-transition, I thought I just hated photos of myself because I wasn’t photogenic. Buuuuut my present photos disprove THAT, don’t they? HEYOOO. I love the way I look now, and I can be happy about it! Trans people go our whole lives never seeing ourselves and hating the way we look.

If and when that changes, that is to be celebrated. Taking and posting so many selfies, as so many trans people do, isn’t vanity. It’s making up for a LIFETIME of never seeing ourselves at all. It’s trans joy incarnate.

But anyway, imagine you’re at important events, family gatherings, hanging with friends you love, going places you want to remember forever… and you know that if you appear in any of those photos, every time you look at them will bring a whole mess of sadness. Because that wasn’t you.

The defense I subconsciously invented for this was pulling a weirdo face in almost all photos I was in, pre-transition. How on earth does that help? Well, it distorts my face, which in its own weird way lessened my dysphoria at seeing photos of myself.

To be clear, I had no idea why I almost always did that, but looking back now I can clearly see that that’s the reason behind it.

I always thought it was just because I’m a fairly goofy person (if you’ve read Trans Tuesdays for any length of time or follow me on social media, you have likely figured that out long ago).

I sing nonsense songs to my wife Susan all the time. I love the absurd. It’s part of who I am. And so those weird faces allowed me to see a window into the actual me buried inside.

Does that make sense? Before I transitioned, my lovely Stepmom, who I reconnected with a long ways back and talked a bit about in the Trans Tuesday on PARENTS WHO WILL NEVER KNOW THE REAL YOU (my dad), loved seeing photos of me and Susan on social media.

But she once asked why I was always making a weird face in them. I honestly didn’t know at the time.

It wasn’t until I started untangling the knot of discovering I’m trans that I really understood the why of it.

I’m not going to post any of my old photos with weirdo faces in them. They used to give me dysphoria, but don’t anymore, which is something we’ll talk about next week in PHOTOS 2.

But I kept a photo from my wedding on my dresser, and let me tell you about it.

My wife and I are at our table at the reception shortly after the ceremony. Susan’s in her wedding dress, a smile of pure actual happiness on her face. She’s radiant and glowing.

Next to her is what appears to be a man who looks spectacularly uncomfortable in a tux, putting on a very bad fake smile because smiling for photos is what you’re supposed to do, especially when you’re happy (and I was! But I was also miserable, thanks dysphoria).

You can see that photo of me in the Trans Tuesday on A TRANS RE-WEDDING, when my wife and I redid our wedding with the real me, and it was the best day of my life.

I don’t know what other people see when they look at that photo, but here’s what jumps out at me. Even the best day of my life to that point was marred by dysphoria and photos I hate, where I see a human who is not me but I was forced to pretend to be. And it hurt me so much to have to do that.

And there’s nothing I can do about it. Getting to replace that photo with one from our re-wedding is legit one of (many) big reasons I wanted to redo our wedding in the first place. I shouldn’t have to see a celebration of our love and feel like it also rips my heart in two.

I should also mention that The Matrix film franchise, especially the first and fourth movies, deal extensively with reflections and the way they impact trans people, and are used in the trans allegory that’s the entire point of those movies to say some really important things.

For more on that, check out my book BEGIN TRANSMISSION: THE TRANS ALLEGORIES OF THE MATRIX.

You can also see the Trans Tuesday series on THE TRANS ALLEGORY OF BARBIE and THE TRANS ALLEGORY OF SILO S1, and THE TRANS ALLEGORY OF THE TWILIGHT ZONE’S “NERVOUS MAN IN A FOUR DOLLAR ROOM” for even more on the complexities of trans people and our reflections.

I wanna leave you with one more related example about photos and reflections, that actually isn’t about a photo or a reflection… except it is. Lemme explain!

You may have seen over the years that Susan and I have had art of ourselves done by different comic artists we’ve worked with, to use on our writing website, our newsletter, business cards, etc. Our present one is by Ezekiel Strange (the comic we’re working on together is so amazing and fun, you’re gonna love it). And I love this art a whole lot. Doesn’t hurt that we’re in our re-wedding dresses in it, either!

Art of me and my wife next to each other, smiling in our re-wedding dresses, by Ezekiel Strange.

Now here’s the one we used for years before my transition, done by the also amazing Penelope Gaylord. She’s a fabulous artist and this is in no way any fault of hers, but… look at the “me” in this image. Do you see what I see?

Art of me and my wife Susan, where we look like old-timey writers at a typewriter. The false guy version of me is wearing a fedora, tie and suspenders, and is scratching his head and has a sad/very worried expression on his face. Susan looks super cute and has a slight smile, by Penelope Gaylord.

In art created for us and of us, looking like old-timey writers, I intentionally asked her to make me look distraught and worried. Why the fuck would I do that?

Because even though I was a generally happy person (as much as I could be outside of my dysphoria, anyway), that’s how I felt about myself. About IMAGES of myself, be they photos or mirrors or even cute adorable art made by a friend. It’s so sad that that’s what felt “right” at the time.

Dysphoria was always there, it’s always been with me, manifesting in millions of little ways. Until I figured it out and said oh hell no, I gotta fix this. And so I transitioned, and lo, it actually fixed itself!

I hope this little window into my soul has helped you better understand what some of the effects of dysphoria can be. If you can imagine how this would make you feel if you had to spend even ten minutes that way, much less your entire life, maybe you now have a better picture.

Speaking of better pictures, let’s end this on a high note. Because my selfies are fire.

Me in a blue dress with pink heart-shaped glasses, dark eyeliner, and dark pink lipstick. I have long brown curly hair and curly bangs. And I look HAPPY. Because I am.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Cis Allyship Trans 101 Trans Life

TERFs

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Today’s topic is the last thing I want to be talking about today, especially given last week’s thread about how a show I loved made me feel dehumanized. But given the news this is the only thing on my mind, so buckle up for: TERFs.

I didn’t plan to talk about this now, and haven’t prepared anything for it yet. In fact, I’ve spent the last day defending my right to exist as a transgender woman in the face of bigots, which is probably why I can’t think about anything else right now.

All of which is to say this is going to be messy. It was going to be messy under the best of conditions with lots of prep, so be prepared. I know I’m going to forget stuff, and possibly not be as articulate as I could be. I ask that you bear with me.

Also there will be several links in this thread. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take the time to read them. If you truly want to learn and understand, they will be invaluable to you.

Before I get into it, I do want to point out this is two weeks in a row I’ve felt compelled to speak on a topic I hadn’t planned on at the time, due to events in the world. So maybe take note of how it’s like we trans folks are almost constantly under assault.

Let’s start with the definition of TERF, which TERFs will tell you is a slur rather than an empirical descriptor. Them being upset about it is akin to racists being upset they get called racist rather than their actual racist actions and beliefs.

TERF stands for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. They’re people who believe trans people are not who we say we are. This is chiefly expressed as discrimination/oppression of trans women, but it affects trans men and non-binary people too.

They’d like to rebrand themselves as “gender critical”, but I don’t like giving bigots the benefit of rebranding to something softer than what they are.

We let anti-choice people rebrand to “pro-life,” despite their lack of support for contraception or adoption, or any kind of effort to abolish the death penalty… all of which you’d stridently support if you were actually “pro-life.”

Letting them control the narrative there has done a lot of real harm, I think, and I don’t intend to let TERFs do that.

If you don’t probe any deeper than the surface, it seems as if TERFs have a legitimate concern. They purport to be about preserving all the hard-won gains women have fought for over the years (well-deserved, very hard fought for gains).

And they feel by letting trans women into those gains, to enjoy those same rights, they’re losing something they worked so hard for. Because we’re not women and didn’t earn it.

The problem is the entire thing crumbles under the very briefest examination. I’m going to do some of that here, but again, I didn’t plan to do this now so this is going to be totally off the cuff.

But even so, you’ll see how the entire thing falls apart.

In order for their entire argument to make sense, you have to believe that gender and biological sex are inseparable. They’re not, and even biological sex isn’t binary, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

Gender is a social construct. We made it up. Animals don’t have gender. They can be male or female, or many variations of intersexed, meaning they are born with/without different reproductive organs (SPOILER this happens in humans too).

That doesn’t mean gender isn’t real. Money is also a societal construct. It’s real, but only has value because we all agree that it does. If we stopped and society broke down, it would just be… paper and metal.

So in TERF ideology, if you’re born with a penis you’re a man, and if you’re born with a vagina/uterus you’re a woman. End of story. It’s this outlook that causes them to see (and perpetuate) the trope of trans women just being “men in dresses invading women’s spaces”.

And they thus see trans men as “confused lesbians” (which doesn’t even address trans men who are attracted to… men! Or are asexual!), and generally think non-binary people are just confused about everything, rather than trusting they know themselves better than anyone else.

And this is where that line of thinking breaks down entirely: what about a woman who has a hysterectomy? Is she no longer a woman? What about a man who loses his penis in a car accident? Is he no longer a man?

What about people born without secondary sex characteristics? It happens. Are they no longer men and women? (they of course are whoever they say they are)

To reduce women and men to nothing more than their reproductive organs is the EXACT thing our misogynistic society does that feminism is about fighting against. They’re betraying their own purported ideals in the name of bigotry (does that sound familiar? Read on.)

Science is not on their side. If biology is all that determines gender, wouldn’t that negate the existence of gay people? Yet they exist, and most of them cisgender. And the TERFs have no problem with them. (there are even gay animals! look it up.)

Even outside of reducing human beings to nothing more than their biology, it’s not like biology is binary! This is a short thread by a biology professor explaining that in an easy to understand way:
https://twitter.com/RebeccaRHelm/status/1207834357639139328

For a more thorough examination, I highly recommend this one from a biologist/endocrinologist that gets further into the actual science. It’s long but well worth your time. SCIENCE!
https://twitter.com/ScienceVet2/status/1035246030500061184

I’m not going to repeat all of those threads here, but I’m going to say that science doesn’t care if you believe in it or not, it’s the empirical truth no matter what… until we learn more and revise our understanding to fit the actual data!

That’s how we learned there’s more than just “male” and “female” in the range of human life in the first place. And that’s JUST biological sex, we’re not even talking about gender here. This is just in refute of their “but science says men and women only!” asinine argument.

Here’s another great (single tweet!) post debunking a key tenet of TERF belief, that trans women can’t know what it’s like to be women. That argument, again, falls apart under the barest scrutiny.
https://twitter.com/mckinleaf/status/1269407126109040641

And if having actual science not on their side isn’t enough to stop them, if betraying their ideals and supporting misogyny via pre-defined gender roles based on biology isn’t enough to stop them, what’s motivating them?

GLAD YOU ASKED.

It’s fear, anger, and all the other things rolled up inside a little bigotry burrito (empirically the grossest burrito, except maybe any with cilantro!). And that can be hard to believe, especially for TERFs themselves (some of whom I’m sure have never considered some of this).

All you have to do to really understand them is… watch them. There’s that “when people show you who they are, believe them” quote that is like a mantra of mine. So look at what they do…

They’ve partnered with right-wing conservative groups (some of the very same ones who campaign against women’s reproductive rights!) to enact anti-trans legislation. They’ve done things to actively harm the LGBTQ+ community.

NOTHING they do is about lifting up and protecting women, it’s all done with intent to harm and oppress trans people. Have some receipts. This is a long but, so far as I can tell, very good article allllll about it:
https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/9/5/20840101/terfs-radical-feminists-gender-critical

Their argument breaks down further when you stop to ask… how do you plan to police trans people to keep them out of certain places?

There are cisgender women who are six feet tall, with broad shoulders and strong jawlines. There are cisgender men who are short and lithe with soft, rounded faces. How can you tell? WHO gets to decide? And why is it chiefly white cis women wanting to make that call? Hmm.

Where does it end? Are all tall women not allowed in women’s spaces because TERFs fear they’re “men in dresses”? What about women going through menopause who can no longer reproduce? Or women with hair on their legs?

Not only is it wrong, it doesn’t even make any sense and wouldn’t even be possible. It’s all about upholding a very cis white male view of what a woman should be.

Does every bathroom get a guard outside who gets to decide who people are based on their APPEARANCE? That’s as reductive (maybe even moreso!) than saying people amount to nothing more than their genitalia.

So when a certain billionaire author who’s repeatedly demonstrated (and then doubled-down on) her transphobia announces a new book in which a cisgender man dresses as a woman in order to assault women…

She’s using her mega-platform to push a propagandic talking point meant to scare cisgender people into thinking of trans women as predators and not women. Even worse is that we’re most often the VICTIMS of violence, especially trans women of color.

Has a cis man ever dressed as a woman in order to assault someone? Maybe. Has anyone ever committed voter fraud? Sure. Is the latter an actual problem in this country? In every investigation done, the SCIENCE reported, says no.

It happens so infrequently so as to not be an actual issue. And when it does happen, it’s almost always perpetrated… by the very people railing against it.

So do a google search for cis men dressing as women to sexually assault a woman (despite all evidence showing that women are most often assaulted by people they already know) and not strangers in a public bathroom. Did you find some? Did you find ANY?

Now do a google search for trans women who’ve been assaulted or killed (almost exclusively by cisgender men), and get back to me in five years when you’ve read all the results.

Here’s a good article about how “men in dresses sexually assaulting women” basically never happens:
https://time.com/4314896/transgender-bathroom-bill-male-predators-argument/

One of these things is an actual problem, one of them is propaganda used to stoke fears in support of upholding the misogynistic status quo and oppression of women and “the other”.

It’s all wrapped up in sexism and racism and every other ill society foists upon us, because we ARE a society and you can’t examine any one of these things without touching on all the others.

Trans men are men. Cis men are men. Trans women are women. Cis women are women. Non-binary people or gender-fluid or demiboys or intersex people or androgynous folks or anyone else IS WHO THEY SAY THEY ARE.

To be a TERF is to promote bigotry, plain and simple. Cis people just want to live their lives as themselves in peace. GUESS WHAT EVERY NON-CISGENDER PERSON ALSO WANTS?

Unfortunately we have to ask the cis folks to give that to us, because they’re the ones causing the problem. So fucking have some compassion and do. Please.

And if you’re cis and this angers you, stand up to this bigotry and let us know you’ve got our backs. We need you.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Trans Life

PRIVILEGE (time and money)

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we’re talking about one aspect of a very, very large topic: PRIVILEGE. Specifically, we’re talking about a privilege that a lot of trans people don’t have, which makes things so much harder for us: TIME AND MONEY

Privilege manifests in so many ways in our society, and the biggest one that I have is that I’m white. So, so white. Painfully white. You can read about that, and so many other vectors of marginalization, in the trans tuesday on TRANS INTERSECTIONALITY.

I have further privilege, however, even among trans women. It manifests as time, money, and acceptance. Acceptance got its own trans tuesday as well, so check up on WHAT REAL CIS ACCEPTANCE LOOKS LIKE if you missed it.

One way that time manifested as a privilege for me was in all of the exercising I used to change my body, VERY MUCH AS PART OF MY TRANSITION. See the trans tuesday on BODY HACKING.

Guess what exercise takes? Time time time time time. Depending on what I’m doing that day, my push-ups and bicep curls, ab exercises, a run, stretching, showering, etc. the entire process can eat up 1.5 – 2 hours of my day.

And that’s without doing my hair, which takes another hour and a half on its own! (this is why I can only do my hair twice a week, it takes a lot of TIME and the products cost a lot of MONEY).

You can already see how being so very busy recently in terms of my writing career has lessened the amount I can exercise and how that’s affected me somewhat, in my THREE YEAR RETROSPECTIVE.

You know what else takes a lot of time? Trying to find clothing, of any type, that I like and that will also fit (and look good) on my six foot tall body, which… most women’s clothes aren’t exactly made for.

Way back when I first started my transition and hadn’t yet had changes from HRT and hadn’t been able to (and figured out how to) shave so that I’m stubble-free all day, I always had beard shadow on my face.

Makeup helped with that, but I could still see the shadow through it. So I put Hollywood quality beard cover on first. Extensive beard cover – time. Rest of the makeup – time.

On a day when I exercise, shave, deal with body hair, and put makeup on, you’re probably talking four hours of my day. I generally don’t do all of that on the same day for a reason.

And yeah, hormones take time (and require patience). See the trans tuesday on HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY for more info.

It takes YEARS to see the full effects of that, and there’s no telling exactly what those effects will be. See the above linked trans tuesday on my three year retrospective for a visual representation of how slow the changes are.

For people who need surgical procedures, the wait is often YEARS long, and there can be months of prep for the patient beforehand. And months of recovery.

And guess what? Every single thing I’ve mentioned costs money. (I’m not hitting you up for cash, please do not send me anything.)

I needed clothes to exercise in. I wear out a pair of running shoes in about 8-10 weeks, and those can be $60+ a pair. Makeup costs money, and is used up and needs to be replaced. Do you have any idea how much replacing an ENTIRE WARDROBE costs?

Look through your closet and dressers, you’ve probably got a lot more than you think you do (I know I did). Now imagine every piece of it made you feel awful and you needed to replace every. Single. Item. That’s $$$.

And with clothes, you’re not going to really know what is and isn’t your style until you really get to experiment with it. See next week’s trans tuesday about me trying to figure that out… but it can mean replacing even your NEW clothes as you figure stuff out. $$$$$

HRT costs money, and not all insurances cover it. If surgical procedures are needed, those are $$$$$$$$$$$$ and not all insurances cover them. If I can eventually get laser hair removal or electrolysis? Money. Voice therapy? My insurance covered it, but not all do. More money.

And things like voice therapy? They take SO VERY MUCH time. See my three-part series on TRANS VOICES, which begins here.

Now remember all this while I talk for a minute about acceptance, and I’ll tie them all together after. This really IS all about privilege, stick with me here.

When many trans people come out, they risk… well, everything. Family may (and often do) reject us/cut us out of their lives/become actively hostile and sometimes sadly even violent. Friends can, too. Marriages and relationships can change, and often even end.

We risk losing their jobs, which could mean we risk losing our insurance, or finding out our insurance doesn’t remotely cover the help we need.

21% of trans people lived in poverty in 2021, and 35% lived in poverty in 2020. The pandemic and lockdown are mucking with the numbers there, but you’re talking anywhere from a fifth to a third of all trans people.

To get on HRT you ideally need an endocrinologist, hopefully one who’s experienced with it and trans people. In large parts of this country, there are not a ton of endocrinologists, even fewer with the right experience, and some outright refuse to see trans patients.

If you want to see the messes that can lead to, see the trans tuesday on ANECDOTAL TRANS HEALTHCARE.

If you need surgical procedures, there are a very small number of doctors able, willing, and skilled enough to perform those procedures. You may not be able to find one.

You may have to travel across the country ($$) and some people have even traveled across the world ($$$$) to get the care they need.

Now imagine a trans woman who’s maybe a single parent working two jobs in a highly conservative area of the country. She has no extra time, she has no extra money, and telling literally anyone around her could mean blowing up her life and putting herself in danger.

Now go back to the trans tuesday on Trans Intersectionality that I linked earlier, and add in other vectors of marginalization this trans single mom might face that cause her to have even LESS time and money.

Me? I was fully accepted across the board by every person in my friends and family that I told, with one asshole hold out. Susan not only accepted me, but has HELPED me and been there for me every step of the way. Our son was great about it, too.

We’re financially stable. I can afford to replace running shoes when needed, to slowly replace my wardrobe, to get makeup. Our insurance covers everything I’ve needed so far (with copays and the like, but still).

I’ve been able to make the time to do the things I need to do to feel more at home in my own body, and still write and still have time with family and friends. Though I wish those things took LESS time! Maybe eventually.

But so many trans people don’t have all of that. Some don’t have ANY of that. The fact I have any of it, much less ALL of it, means I have SO much more privilege than so many trans people.

And you can see how I recognized that and decided to use it when I announced the website for trans tuesdays, and the podcast, and talked about WHY I DO TRANS TUESDAYS (spoiler: I wanted to USE my privilege to help!).

A lot of it is luck. We were very, very poor for a very long time. I couldn’t have done ANY of what I’m doing now back then. We had no money, and I had no time. Susan was often working 16 hour days and I was a full time stay at home parent. There was literally nothing I could do.

I hope I’ve been able to convey through some previous posts how awful GENDER DYSPHORIA is, how much it hurts, how it can feel like we’re suffocating or drowning. And how isolating it is.

So imagine someone feeling that way and seeing no way out. Not even the chance for incremental things to at least see SOME progress. I’m sure that’s part of the reason mental health issues like depression and anxiety so often occur in trans people before transitioning.

There are presently over EIGHT THOUSAND GoFundMe pages for trans causes and folks who are trying to raise money for needed procedures, for clothes, for housing, to escape violent home situations.

Please spare a moment to think of all the trans people who don’t have all the remarkable privilege I still do. If you’re able, please find a few of those trans folks/causes that could use your help, and give them your support.

And please be aware of the massive privilege EVERY CIS PERSON HAS in that you don’t have to deal with any of this just to try to finally feel like yourself for the first time in your life.

What a magical thing that must be.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Cis Allyship Trans 101 Trans Life

THE FALSE DICHOTOMY

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we’re talking about something that permeates ALL of our society in all kinds of ways you probably never realized. It’s also part of what took me far too long to untangle in figuring out I was transgender, and that’s: THE FALSE DICHOTOMY.

So what is a false dichotomy? Well a dichotomy is any two things presented as opposites (left and right, up and down). A FALSE dichotomy is a situation where those two options are presented as the ONLY options, or as being mutually exclusive, when that’s not remotely the truth.

It’s like going to your favorite Mexican restaurant and your friend telling you they only have tacos and burritos, maybe because that’s all they like or all they’ve ever tried. But the actual menu has enchiladas and quesadillas and tamales and tostadas and more.

That is, of course, a pretty benign (if culinarily cruel!) example. And this may seem obvious to a lot of you, and it is to me now, but our society LOVES false dichotomies.

Because it’s shorthand, it provides for quick reference, and everything is much easier for you to think about if there’s only two options. But also because our entire society is predicated on the notion of the false cis binary matrix. There is A or Z and nothing in between.

You can see in my thread on TERFs that even biological sex isn’t remotely confined to only two options. Not by a long shot. There’s a lot of great science linked in that thread, so definitely have a look if you missed it.

But today’s post isn’t about sex or gender, at least not on the surface. I’m a woman, so some might see that as part of a binary choice, but I’m a TRANS woman which is certainly not the same as a cis woman. Thus I am outside the cisgender binary matrix of society.

The earliest I can remember society’s preference for false dichotomies happened pretty young, when I was in grade school. And if any place is about trying to put every kid into some neat little box, that’s sadly a lot of our public schools.

So let’s just get it out there: I’m a nerd. I am a giant, shining, sparkling, unrepentant nerd (you may have noticed!). From the first time I understood what science fiction was, I was in IN. LOVE.

I spent my time wrapped in Star Trek and Star Wars and every bit of sci-fi I could find. Fantasy, too. I was DEEP into Dungeons & Dragons and a lot of other tabletop role-playing games (and still am!) and even as a KID, invented my own ttrgps on multiple occasions.

I went to two different high schools, and at the first I was on the competitive chess team and I was pretty damned good. I even have Unbelievable Chess Tournament Stories (I told you I was a nerd). At my second high school, I was on the Academic Team.

THE ACADEMIC TEAM. The very name reeks of nerdiness, damn. If you’re unfamiliar with that, it’s basically schools playing Jeopardy against each other. I was never good enough to make it to the main team rotation, my memory wasn’t good or fast enough, but I loved it anyway.

I love video games and comic books (long before they reached the mainstream cultural saturation they have today) and board games, and if there was anything kids thought of as nerdy, I was probably a big fan.

Now that I’ve painted you a stunning picture of the depth of my geekitude, I’m gonna throw a whole bucket of paint all over it, because: I also loved sports. A LOT. Especially baseball.

Not just in the nerdy aspect, either, which baseball admittedly lends itself to with all of its entirely ludicrous and deep statistical tracking… which is maybe the only part of baseball that hardly interests me. Beyond batting average and ERA, sorry, I just. Don’t. Care.

But the sport itself I LOVED. I played it every summer as a kid in little league and couldn’t wait for it to start up every year. I honestly can’t remember if I was very good or not. I remember a couple amazing plays I made, those stuck with me, but that doesn’t tell you much.

I also played soccer, and this one I know I was pretty good at. I played tennis and volleyball (I LOVED volleyball, maybe the sport I was the best at) and I was on the track and cross country teams.

I was SO DISMAYED to find out my first high school, which was HUGE… did not have a volleyball team. Or rather, they did. FOR GIRLS. But not for boys. That definitely didn’t help my pining to be a girl, by the way! 👀

My second high school had a boy’s volleyball team, I think? I can’t remember now. Because by then I was already giving up on sports, and I’ll tell you why.

I was never, EVER a jock. The jocks never thought I was, and they were all basically jerks so I never wanted to be one anyway. They knew I was into nerdy stuff, because I never hid it, and they made me suffer for it.

So in my first high school, freshman year, I went to baseball tryouts! I was SO EXCITED. I was number 66, we had to have it on our shirts somehow, and I ruined a perfectly good shirt by drawing the number on it in sharpie all fancy-like.

I’d never really been attached to any numbers like a lot of other athletes were, but now maybe I would be! This was MY number! The one that got me into high school baseball and then maybe college baseball and who knows maybe I’d be good enough to go pro someday!

The day of the tryouts came… and it rained. No big deal, they’d just shift it to another day, right? No. Again, the school was HUGE. I don’t know if it was logistical or the baseball program was just run by dickheads, but they went ahead with it… INDOOR.

They moved it into the huge gymnasium. We did stretches and got warmed up, and then… what? What the hell were they going to do? We were in a gym! You can’t play baseball in a high school gym, even a pretty big one.

Well, they lined us up and… hit us some ground balls, and judged us on how well we fielded them.

Now I don’t know about you, but I played baseball on dirt and grass. I was… a kid. I’d never played on an artificial surface before, much less A HARD WOODEN FLOOR THAT NOBODY IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD EVER PLAY BASEBALL ON (yes, I’m still sensitive about it. apparently.)

So the coach hit the ball, and… I missed it. Entirely. Wasn’t even close. Because I had NO IDEA how a baseball would bounce off a polished wooden floor, and it went a way I didn’t expect.

That was it! Failed that test, off you went. Done. That was my ENTIRE tryout for the team. There were probably hundreds of kids there, I know they had to cut the field down somehow, but COME ON.

To say I was heartbroken is an understatement. The jocks all laughed. They somehow did fine! How? What dark magic did they use to get their ground balls to bounce right toward them while mine skewed left at a 75 degree angle?

Maybe I wasn’t actually good enough to make the team, and that’d be fine, but I never even got to find out. Everyone said it was because I was a nerd and just not cut out for sports… despite my love for them and having played baseball all my life.

And the awful sickening thing is I BELIEVED THEM. Because it wasn’t just the jocks telling me that, was it? SOCIETY says you’re a jock or a nerd (or maybe just someone who’s neither), but nobody is BOTH. That’s not how it works.

I was WELL into adulthood before I got fed up and re-embraced my love of sports right alongside my nerdiness. That happened long before I figured out I was trans, yet it feels like it was a big part of it.

Because I had to get to a point where I believed society was wrong and could go screw itself, and I was going to like whatever I liked. Relatedly, there’s no such thing as a “guilty pleasure.” Don’t believe that crap. Like what you like. Who cares what anyone else thinks!

Unless your guilty pleasure is, like… bigotry or murder. In that case, no, maybe don’t embrace those.

But once you notice false dichotomies, you begin seeing them everywhere. Men are muscular, women are soft! Except no, men can be soft and women can be muscular. I’M a muscular woman! I’ve always dug ladies with muscles, but society isn’t often kind to them, is it?

For more on that, see the Trans Tuesday on BODY HACKING and all the ways every human does it, and how for me a big part of that was using exercise to reshape my body.

So I bucked the trend there, too. I do the same with my taste in music! Well wait, you can like “real” rock or you can like “fluffy” pop, not both right? Nah, screw that.

I like Journey, The Rolling Stones, Guns ‘n Roses, Fall Out Boy, All Time Low. I LOVE Muse and The Pretty Reckless and AC/DC. But I also like Taylor Swift, Lizzo, Dua Lipa, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Carly Rae Jepsen. I LOVE Ariana Grande and The Chicks…

In thinking about it, I’ve wondered if this is also why my favorite artists are P!nk and Queen… because both can ROCK THE HELL OUT, and both can go light and poppy, and both often experiment with all kinds of styles in between.

They defy convention. They won’t be put into neat little boxes. That speaks to me a lot. P!nk specifically, as a woman, has had to deal with a music industry that tried to change her, that didn’t understand her.

She had an extended moment in her recent Beautiful Trauma tour, a video package during an extensive costume change, that covered her talking to her young daughter about this and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

The first time I saw that bit, in 2018, it was like a jolt that shook me awake. I think it was that concert, and possibly that exact moment, where I first truly felt everything would be okay if I transitioned. There’s a Trans Tuesday all about that coming up.

P!nk’s and Queen’s songs and voices speak to me most, but I don’t think I can discount how important it is to see part of myself reflected in the ways they value their own creative expression, and the way they will be whoever the hell they want to be.

All of this is to say you can like sports AND sci-fi. You can like rock AND pop. You can like buff ladies and soft bois and every type of human in between. You can like leather AND lace. Hot AND cold. Indoors AND outdoors. The sky AND the sea.

Don’t buy into the false dichotomy, it’s all bullshit. Don’t let society tell you who you are or what you can or cannot like.

Be YOU, whoever that might be. Even if that means casting off every single label society has saddled you with, INCLUDING THE GENDER YOU WERE ASSIGNED AT BIRTH.

Rock on, friends. 🤘

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

me with long curly brown hair and curly bangs, with a pink bow in my hair, in dark eyeliner and light pink lipstick, wearing pink-framed cat-eye glasses and a blue off-the-shoulder top… and I’m throwin’ up the horns!

Trans 101 Trans Life

THE ERASURE OF TRANS MEN

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we’re discussing a big problem that’s cropped up in our society that you might not have noticed, but it’s high time you did. We’re talking THE ERASURE OF TRANS MEN.

So, hey, obviously trans men exist, and this is a thing you’re aware of. But in so much of the discourse around transness, both good and bad, trans men are left out of the conversation. So let’s discuss the ways they’re left out and why that is.

The most recent and likely biggest way they’ve been left out is in the discussions over abortion rights and Roe falling. Everyone who actually cares about rights and bodily autonomy was outraged, but… almost universally it was about WOMEN.

WOMEN WOMEN WOMEN. Now listen, I am a woman! I love women. We’re just super in every way. BUT NOT ALL WOMEN CAN GET PREGNANT (be they cis or trans), but also SOME TRANS MEN CAN GET PREGNANT AND THIS AFFECTS THEM TOO.

I wrote about this right after Roe fell, in the Trans Tuesday on TRANS RAGE, aka Stop Forgetting About Us.

A reminder that the fight for abortion rights AND the fight for trans rights (and disability rights) are the exact same fight. It all boils down to bodily autonomy, and how everyone deserves it and the EXACT same group of people, led by cishet white men, don’t want us to have it.

There’s a trans tuesday all about BODILY AUTONOMY, and how I never felt like I had it before transitioning, and how that’s all tied in with my tattoo.

Trans men are at the intersection of the fight for abortion rights and trans rights, and if you need a reminder of what TRANS INTERSECTIONALITY is all about (and you absolutely DO if you’re leaving trans men out of the fight for abortion rights), here’s the Trans Tuesday on that.

But trans men are often left out of so, so much more than that. Look at trans rep in the media, such as it is. Paltry in the best of terms, and still often harmful. It’s anecdotal, but see the Trans Tuesday on TRANS REP IN MEDIA 2022 for a snapshot of what it’s like.

And you’ll even see right in that, there was a horribly transphobic joke in one show that was one hundred percent based on ignoring the very idea of trans men. They’re forgotten or discarded, often in service of hurting other trans people.

They’re often also completely ignored in a lot of the legislative transphobia making its way through courthouses all across the country. And I don’t mean that those horrid laws don’t affect them, because they ABSOLUTELY do. As much as any trans person.

But their existence is completely forgotten about in the arguments in favor of those bigoted laws… BECAUSE THEY DISPROVE AND DISMANTLE TRANSPHOBIC ARGUMENTS.

These laws are almost wholly focused on trans women and girls, and we’ll get to why in a minute. But let’s look at two of the biggest bigoted issues used to justify legislating and legalizing bigotry against us: trans people in sports, and bathroom bills.

As a basis, you need to know how the entire TRANS SPORTS hullaballoo is COMPLETE AND UTTER NONSENSE on every scientific level. Here’s the Trans Tuesday on it, which will show you how there’s not a lick of science or fact behind it.

But their entire, faulty, bigoted argument is that trans women competing against cis women have an unfair advantage because we may (I stress, MAY) have higher levels of testosterone. I’m not going to re-debunk that here, so DO check out that Trans Tuesday I just linked you to.

But if that WERE the case (it’s not, but even if it were), why do you never hear a PEEP from them about trans men competing against cis men? Especially when many trans men ARE TAKING TESTOSTERONE AS PART OF HRT?

I shouldn’t have to say this, but I will clarify again so nobody misconstrues: I do not want trans men to be discriminated against or for these laws to focus more on them, goodness no.

But if the bigots’ argument is that it’s the TESTOSTERONE that gives trans women an unfair advantage, why don’t they ever complain about the people who are actually adding it to their bodies?

Because trans men HAVE been competing against cis men (just like trans women HAVE been competing against cis women) for decades and guessssss what? THEY DO NOT HAVE ANY UNFAIR ADVANTAGE WHATSOEVER.

And if people who are willfully injecting testosterone to make their bodies align with their gender don’t have an unfair advantage, how the entire hell could people who are SUPPRESSING their testosterone have an unfair advantage? Ignoring trans men here is willful ignorance.

In terms of the bathroom bills, all you ever hear about is the “danger” of we trans women being in women’s bathrooms, because society continues to paint us as nothing more than sexual predators who are “men in dresses” and that we only do it to assault women.

Never mind that cis men assault women all the time, right in public, and don’t need to be dressed as women to do it. Never mind that no cis man who wanted to sexually assault women would go through everything we trans women go through just to perpetrate an assault.

Never mind that most sexual assaults happen with someone the victim already knows. Never mind that even the most cursory search of news stories will show you it’s something that NEVER happens, yet trans women are ROUTINELY the victims of sexual assault ourselves.

Have you ever heard ANY of those bigots talk about trans men in men’s bathrooms? Nope. Why? Why would they just ignore that? Why the hell do you think?

Because what their bigoted laws are suggesting is that if you send trans women into men’s bathrooms (where we’re very likely to be assaulted), then you must also send TRANS MEN into women’s bathrooms.

This is who bigots think should be using women’s bathrooms.

Aydian Dowling, the first trans man on the cover of Men’s Health magazine

Laith Ashley, model and actor

Brian Michael Smith, actor

Elliot Fletcher, actor

Do you see? Do you understand? The only reason bigots ignore trans men is because their very existence disproves the ENTIRE line of attack against trans people that is almost exclusively targeted at trans women.

And why is that? Well if you haven’t figured it out already, it’s misogyny. Specifically transmisogyny, but also it’s just the hatred of women in general. Because trans men rejected womanhood to be their true selves, and society is perfectly okay with that.

Well, in general. There’s still definitely a portion of transphobes who think trans men are “confused lesbians” which is complete and utter nonsense but also ignores all the gay trans men and look, how can you not see how transparent this all is?

But misogyny permeates every corner of our society. It’s why “tomboys” are accepted and even celebrated, but a man who’s even slightly effeminate is ridiculed and mocked and often attacked. Masculinity is celebrated, femininity is ridiculed.

And we trans woman, who society “gifted” with manhood, REJECTED IT. We said NAH and threw it away. And in the false cis binary matrix of society, there is no greater threat to rich, able-bodied, cishet white men’s power than rejecting masculinity.

And that trans men want masculinity, but not THAT masculinity, and DON’T wield it like a weapon of oppression as society dictates, and have by and large completely rejected toxic masculinity… also disproves absolutely EVERYTHING society wants you to believe about men.

Trans men aren’t out there assaulting women, CIS men are. And it’s not the victim blaming refrain of how women dress (UGH) because guess what, trans men see the same women. They don’t have impulse control problems. They don’t use their masculinity to hurt others.

Trans men are a shining beacon that disprove absolutely everything the false binary of society wants you to believe. So the only way bigots can perpetrate their hate is by ignoring their existence altogether. But those of us who aren’t bigots MUST do better.

We NEED to be allies to trans men. They’re an important and vital part of this fight, they show us everything beautiful a man can be, and they are our brothers who deserve respect.

And it’s high time we started showing it.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Cis Allyship Trans 101 Trans Life

THE CONSTANT FIGHT

Welcome to #TransTuesday! Today we’re talking about one very small, very specific part of our society that speaks to the larger way trans people are treated (or more to the point, are often entirely ignored) by society: FLYING. But it’s also about: THE CONSTANT FIGHT.

I think most folks are familiar with the “security theater” we have at airports in the United States, and the way things have gone way off the rails since September 11, 2001. But what you probably don’t know is how much WORSE it got for trans people.

When you’re going through security at an airport now, one of two things happens. You can go through the scanner, or you can get a security pat down. Sometimes you get both. So what’s the issue?

First let me say there are BIG ethical concerns with the scanners, they’re discriminatory in a lot of ways against some ethnicities and cultures, and if you’re not familiar with that please do some research. But today I’m just talking about it in relation to us trans people.

Did you know those TSA scanners have different options the operator must select when scanning someone? Yep. MALE or FEMALE.

So let’s use me as an example. I am a trans woman on HRT who has not had gender confirmation surgery. I present as female. My ID says female. So if I’m going through the scanner, let’s say the operator indicates FEMALE.

It scans me, and registers an anomaly at my crotch. Not only am I now possibly out to all the TSA agents present (which brings its own dangers), they have to resolve the situation. Two options: pat me down, or flip the switch and indicate to scan MALE.

This misgenders me and hurts to even type out, but play out the situation. It scans me, and it registers my bra and breasts as an anomaly. The only option left: pat down.

So now a stranger is going to manhandle my breasts to be sure I’m not smuggling weapons in my bra and be sure that they’re “really” breasts, or a stranger is going to manhandle my crotch to see what’s down there. Or maybe both.

Either way, again, you’re suddenly out as trans to (or registered as trans by) all the TSA employees present, and everyone else in line who are now wondering what the hold up is.

Knowing the awful violence trans women face, you maybe see extra dangers here. You maybe also see the potential for sexual assault. We have to go through all of this because we want to fly somewhere. The nerve of us.

And it’s even worse than that. Here’s a story about a trans girl who was ordered to a STRIP SEARCH when trying to pass through security. She even told them she was trans, but it didn’t make a bit of difference.
https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2021/09/city-rdu-tsa-transgender-strip-search-lawsuit

“detected an anomaly on her groin”

We are not anomalies, we’re human beings.

“They wanted her to take down her pants and underwear for visual inspection.”

NO ONE should have to do that, especially not a kid.

“(she) has continued to experience symptoms of emotional distress including anxiety, shortness of breath, uncontrollable shaking and nausea when reminded of the incident.”

Yeah, it’s fucking traumatic.

“It’s only a binary option. It’s based basically on the operator’s assumption based on a person’s appearance.”

Do you see how this even hurts CIS PEOPLE?

Are you a cis lady with broad shoulders? Or a strong jawline? Maybe they’ll just hit that male button. Are you a cis man with a rounded face? Or are you shorter with narrower shoulders? Maybe they’ll hit that female button.

A stranger just gets to take one glance at you and decide if you’re “male or female enough.” Does that not completely enrage you? The gender binary, THE FALSE DICHOTOMY, hurts cis people too.

“Trans men and trans women and nonbinary people often get flagged because they don’t meet the societally defined definitions of what male and female bodies should look like.”

Neither do a lot of cis people. Why, it’s almost as if those definitions are part of the problem!

“The stereotypical definition of what should or shouldn’t be on a male or female body is problematic, and it doesn’t reflect the reality of real bodies in society.”

Corrrrrrrrrrrrrrrect.

“Nearly one in five transgender travelers have reported being harassed or disrespected by airport security screeners or other airport workers, according to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey.”

Not even just flagged as an “anomaly,” but HARASSED OR DISRESPECTED.

“It just felt very invasive because I was a child, and he was an adult, and I didn’t really feel like I had the choice to advocate for not wanting to be touched inappropriately.” How is it okay to do this to anyone? Especially children?? WHY IS IT OKAY?

Ah, but there’s a way around it, I hear some dense and defensive cis people shout. The TSA Pre-check. Uh huh, sure. But that costs $85.

And uh… do you know how much transitioning costs? And how trans people often lose employment when coming out? see the trans tuesday on PRIVILEGE (time and money).

So one of the smallest minority groups, who often experience money problems due to the way our society is set up… a lot of them aren’t going to be able to afford that. Too bad! Just announce yourself to strangers and let them touch you.

Can I get a Roy Kent “FUCCCCCK” please?

There’s no easy way out of this for trans people, not until the TSA fixes it. But it’s been a problem for like, what, fifteen years or so? More? They still haven’t done anything about it.

Can you imagine how horrible this situation is? I have tons of places I’d love to visit someday… people I’d love to see. Oh but wait, in a lot of places it’s okay to say you panicked at finding out I was trans and it made you kill me. see the trans tuesday on TRANS PANIC.

And if I want to go, I have to pay money I may not have or accept that I’m going to be misgendered, humiliated, have my genitals discussed in public and possibly groped… or worse.

I could go boymode, sure… but the scanner would likely still flag my breasts as an anomaly, and I’d have to emotionally wound myself just to do it. Nobody should have to pretend to be someone else to ride on a fucking airplane! See the trans tuesday on BOYMODE/GIRLMODE.

Now remember what a small, specific part of our society this is… and realize this TSA bullshit is a symptom of the larger issue that society doesn’t treat us like we exist. At all. There are bathroom problems… see the trans tuesday on CIS PRIVILEGE.

The media cis people make normally excludes us, but when it DOES include us we’re usually the butt of the joke or a victim of violence… see the trans tuesday on BED REPRESENTATION.

We have our stories ripped from us and told by people who don’t even understand us. see the trans tuesday on TRANS ROLES AND STORIES.

We’re under assault by people who refuse to accept us as who we are. see the trans tuesday on TERFs.

In many cases we can’t even transition without the explicit permission of cis people. See the trans tuesday on TRANS KIDS AND THE INTAKE EXAM.

We’re excluded from things because of who we are, even though SCIENCE IS ON OUR SIDE. see the trans tuesday on TRANS SPORTS.

We have to keep fighting for the same things all cis people have. see the trans tuesday on TRANS RIGHTS.

Over and over and over again. See the trans tuesday on TRANS RIGHTS 2 aka HELP US aka 35 FUCKS.

We have to be uncomfortable, or in pain, just to fit in with cis society. see the trans tuesday on TUCKING AND BINDING.

The things we DO get to make, by, for, and about us… we’re told we cannot have, and that they’re not ours. See the trans tuesday on THIS IS NOT FOR YOU 2 (let trans people have things).

We can’t even get healthcare right. Be it related to our gender… see the trans tuesday on COMPLETE TRANS HEALTHCARE (or lack thereof).

Or not. see the trans tuesday on NO ESCAPE 2 aka SOME ESCAPE (due to cis allyship).

Do you see? DO YOU SEE?? WE NEED YOU TO HELP. see the trans tuesday on TRANS POLITICS.

Every facet of our society fights us everywhere we turn, it never ends, and we can’t change it on our own.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Cis Allyship Trans 101 Trans Life

TRANS POLITICS 1: STOP TOLERATING TRANSPHOBIA

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This is part 1 of a 2-part series that are some of the most important Trans Tuesdays ever. Cis friends, I need you to read this, share it, talk about it. Here comes TRANS POLITICS 1: STOP TOLERATING TRANSPHOBIA.

Before we begin, I want to say that after next week’s essay, Trans Politics 2, Trans Tuesdays will be off for a week. Because that’ll be Nov. 5, 2024, which is election day. And that’s why Trans Politics 1 and 2 are leading right up to it.

But as trans rights, our very right to exist in the US, is up in the air pending the election results, I’m going to spend the day being a nervous, anxious wreck hiding under a blanket. Trans Tuesdays will return on Nov. 12.

Okay, so let’s start with a seemingly innocuous meme that was posted by a family member we’ll call Buddy. It spurred a long, drawn out discussion. It’s so, SO wrong, and harmful, but the very idea of that was something he could not (or would not) grasp. (I added the superimposed red NOPE)

A meme of white text on a black background that reads, “If you are my friend and you support Trump, you are my friend. If you are my friend and you support Biden, you are my friend. If you feel the need to degrade those who feel differently than you… Maybe we are not friends.” And I’ve superimposed a large red “NOPE” over the top of it.

Buddy says he fully supports me and my right to be who I am, and “has no problem” with me. Buuuut y’know what? That’s bullshit.

Since he doesn’t automatically consider candidates with anti-trans policies not worth voting for… he also thinks it’s fine to be friends with people who actively hate me for existing. Buddy doesn’t see why he can’t be friends with both me and the bigots. In his mind, “we can have a difference of opinion, there’s nothing wrong with that!”

Except this isn’t a difference of opinion, is it?

That meme treats “degrading” someone for their support of Trump as the same as degrading trans people for who we are and our very right to exist. Those two things are not the same! Fighting back against someone who wants me dead is not the same as being the person who wants me dead!

One of those is objectively wrong.

My life is literally in danger if Republicans take power, my right to EXIST is apparently up for debate (NO human’s right to exist should ever be up for debate).

That’s not a difference of opinion.

Favorite pizza toppings or singers or tv shows are a difference of opinion. People who think I should have no rights IS NOT A VALID OPINION.

By continuing to be friends with the bigot, Buddy upholds the system of oppression that harms trans people.

For more on how if you’re not actively helping trans people (which includes not being friends with transphobes) you are, in fact, part of the systems that oppress us, see my book BEGIN TRANSMISSION: THE TRANS ALLEGORIES OF THE MATRIX. Because those movies have a WHOLE LOT to say about the topic.

If there are no consequences for bigots supporting hate and violence, why would they ever stop doing it?

When I point this out, Buddy is very mad at me. He supports me (so he says)! How could I be so intolerant of a bigot’s intolerance of ME? Meanwhile he completely misses the point that bigotry SHOULD NEVER BE TOLERATED FOR ANY REASON.

Tolerating bigotry leads only to violence and fascism. Does that remind you of… our state of existence? This is the paradox of tolerance.

“In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.”

This image distills it down pretty well.

A meme done as a comic page, of Karl Popper’s “Paradox of Tolerance,” source “THe Open Society and Its Enemies,” Karl R. Popper, from pictoline.com.
Panel 1: Should a tolerant society tolerate intolerance? Two people are speaking against nazis, and a nazi skinhead with a torch (ala the Charlottesville march) says, “You want more tolerance? Respect my ideas.” The answer is NO.
It’s a paradox, but unlimited tolerance can lead to the extinction of tolerance.
Panel 2: When we extend tolerance to those who are openly intolerant…
A German man (perhaps Kaiser?) stands next to Hitler and says “let’s give them a chance!” There is a swastika and an image of Hitler saluting at a nazi rally.
…the tolerant ones end up being destroyed. AND TOLERANCE WITH THEM.
Panel 3: A large foot is kicking Hitler.
Any movement that preaches intolerance and persecution MUST BE OUTSIDE THE LAW.
There is an image of philosopher Karl Popper shrugging.
As paradoxical as it may seem, DEFENDING TOLERANCE… …requires to NOT TOLERATE THE INTOLERANT.

For more on this, see the excellent article, Tolerance is Not a Moral Precept.

A few choice quotes:

“Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty. Tolerance is a social norm because it allows different people to live side-by-side without being at each other’s throats. It means that we accept that people may be different from us, in their customs, in their behavior, in their dress, in their sex lives, and that if this doesn’t directly affect our lives, it is none of our business. But the model of a peace treaty differs from the model of a moral precept in one simple way: the protection of a peace treaty only extends to those willing to abide by its terms. It is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact.”

“This is a variation on the old saw that “your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.” We often forget (or ignore) that no right is absolute, because one person’s rights can conflict with another’s. This is why freedom of speech doesn’t protect extortion, and the right to bear arms doesn’t license armed robbery. Nor is this limited to rights involving the state; people can interfere with each other’s rights with no government involved, as when people use harassment to suppress other people’s speech. While both sides of that example say they are “exercising their free speech,” one of them is using their speech to prevent the other’s: these are not equivalent. The balance of rights has the structure of a peace treaty.”

Buddy asks how I could ask him to cut a friend or someone he loves out of their life? I didn’t actually ask him to do that, but his choice to NOT do so sends a message to everyone he CLAIMS to support. He will tolerate transphobia. Hating me for existing is not a deal-breaker for him, which sends a message about exactly what he really thinks of me and my human rights.

And that message is: Buddy’s friendship with bigots is more important to him than my right to exist and have equal rights.

Meanwhile I’m over here wondering why anyone would want to be friends with a bigot. Who wants someone with that kind of hate in their life? Why? Why would you want that person around?

Let me give you another example from another former friend, let’s call him Dominic.

Dominic and I were pretty good friends in high school. I hung out at his house a lot, and I was a couple years older than him and he looked up to me a lot, even though I was a very weird and awkward kid buried in dysphoria.

Dominic and his entire family are Mormon. At the time, as a seemingly cishet white boy who was entirely unaware of the Mormon church’s stance on queer people (who I did not know I was one of), I was unconcerned with his religion.

Not long after my wife and I got married, Dominic sent me a message. And it said that he knew I loved my wife a lot, and the only way I could be assured of being with her forever, after death and in heaven, was if we converted to the LDS church.

Kinda appalling, ain’t it?

That was the last time we talked, I had no interest in being friends with someone who could say something so hurtful and try to convert me (when he knew full well I wasn’t even Christian and had no intentions of ever becoming one).

Earlier this year, Dominic sent me a message, apologizing for what he said and trying to convert me. I was surprised he even remembered, and thanked him for the apology. He wanted to rekindle our friendship (knowing full well that I’m a trans woman), and I asked him if he was still Mormon and supported the LDS church.

Why would I ask? Oh, because the LDS church is not only bigoted toward its queer members, but used its money and influence to try and spread its bigotry by getting marriage equality banned IN CALIFORNIA, when their home state is Utah!

And you’ll note we’re right back to the paradox of tolerance, as quotes from LDS officials in that article whine about being held accountable for spreading their hate, as if that is not only equal to but more damaging than the hate and bigotry they were trying to legislate into law!

Appalling.

But that was 2008, Tilly! Surely the LDS church is more accepting now.

No, I assure you they are fucking not. Especially to their trans members.

“Individuals who have transitioned in any way — whether surgically, medically or socially — cannot work with children, serve as teachers in their congregation or fill any gender-specific assignments, such as president of the women’s Relief Society.”

EXCUSE ME??

“These same church members should use a single-occupancy restroom when available. If unavailable, they can counsel with leaders to find an alternative solution. Examples suggested include people using the restroom that aligns with their assigned sex at birth or one that corresponds to the individual’s “feeling of their inner sense of gender, with a trusted person ensuring that others are not using the restroom at the same time.”

FUCKING WHAT?

“Also unchanged was the instruction that all soul-saving rituals, including baptism and temple rites, must be received according to a person’s assigned sex at birth.

Only those who have not transitioned in any way can be baptized and confirmed, although possible exceptions can be made by the governing First Presidency. Individuals who transition in any way cannot receive the recommend needed to enter the church’s temples, where the faith’s highest ordinances are performed.”

Do I even have to tell you that for some trans Mormons, preventing them from transitioning is a literal death sentence? The LDS church would rather their trans members DIE before they transition.

Laurie Lee Hall said she hadn’t been to church in some time but grew emotional when she thought of the impact these new policies could have on those she knows within the trans community, including young people, who continue to make the church their spiritual home.

“It’s dehumanizing and degrading to have to have a chaperone clear a restroom before you can use it,” she said, explaining that few Latter-day Saint meetinghouses have unisex restrooms — a fact she gleaned during her years designing the buildings.

Hall, author of the forthcoming “Dictates of Conscience: From Mormon High Priest to My New Life as a Woman,” also pointed out that preventing transgender members from working with children and youth puts them in a category with sex offenders.”

So, y’know, maaaaaaaybe you can see why I was concerned that this was an organization he still was a member of, supported, and still gave a 10% tithe on his income to (money that the church has readily demonstrated it will use to spread its bigotry and influence laws, entirely ignoring the supposed separation of church and state).

I’m going to share my response to him, because it’s something more people need to see and understand.

I know we don’t talk much anymore, and we’re both very different people than we were in high school. This is going to get awkward though, because there’s no other way to say this than to say it plainly. If you’re still an LDS member, as presume you are as I know your faith has always been important to you, I don’t see how we can really have any kind of relationship.

Your church holds horrible, harmful views about trans people, filled with factual misinformation, that are tantamount to asking someone to go through a lifetime of torture and pain. The kind of torture and pain that makes trans suicide rates so very high. Some 80% of trans kids contemplate suicide, and over 40% attempt it. And it’s not being trans that causes that, because being trans is no different than being left-handed or having red hair. It’s just a way some people are. It’s the response from highly transphobic society and institutions, including your church, that contribute to how difficult it is just to exist as a trans person in this world.

If you’re still a member, I cannot in good conscience have a friendship with someone who’d be a member of a group that does not believe people like me deserve equal rights or treatment for our condition that is recognized by literally every major medical association in this country. it’s like telling people with cancer to just live with it and not seek chemo. It’s horrific and unconscionable, and it’s killing people like me all over the world. I’d ask you how you’d feel if the church said left-handed people couldn’t be full members, or campaigned to take away rights of left-handed people. Only, you know, this is much worse, because life with gender dysphoria is a misery and pain you cannot imagine.

If you’re somehow no longer a member of that church, I’d be happy to talk with you further. If you are, however, and they have your support… I’m afraid I just can’t have any kind of relationship with someone who doesn’t believe I deserve equal rights. I deserve better than that. So does everyone. And so I’d ask you to not contact me again, because knowing a high school friend I cherished doesn’t consider me an equal human being in all rights is honestly too painful to bear. I wish you and your family nothing but the best, may safety and happiness and love be in abundance. And I hope you never know what it’s like to have half the country see you as less than human. Be well.

He replied and said he’s watched my journey from afar, “admired my courage” (I shouldn’t have to be courageous to exist! See the Trans Tuesday on TRANS COURAGE for more on that), and stated that he still is a member and supports his church, but also “sees me as a fully equal human being deserving of love, compassion, and peace.”

And I’m sorry, but no.

NO.

You don’t get to say I deserve love, compassion, and peace and that you “see” me as equal while you support and give ten percent of your income to an organization that treats trans people as second-class citizens, discriminates against us, and uses the money YOU give them to try and take our rights away.

YOU CANNOT DO BOTH OF THOSE THINGS. THEY ARE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE.

And so I replied.

Hi I’m heartened by your reply, and that it shows you to still be the kind, wonderful person I wanted to be friends with. The part I have trouble reconciling is your continued membership in and support of an organization that’s doing so much harm. We don’t share the same spirituality, and I’m not even Christian, but to me that seems to go against everything you actually believe. Continued membership and tithing condones and supports their actions, even if you personally don’t. It’s tacit endorsement of what they’re doing, and the trans lives they’re destroying. I know so many trans people. Trans kids. I *was* a trans kid and didn’t even know it, because my family and society told me that was impossible and shameful and forced me to bury it and caused severe trauma I may never fully recover from. I’ve seen the same struggle in so many other people forced to repress themselves for their entire lives for the same reason.

I see kids with accepting families who have a chance to avoid a lifetime of pain and the ungodly body horror of going through the wrong puberty, and states (with the support of organizations like your church) telling them no, they must suffer. I don’t see how that can be reconciled. People who donate and support those who want to take my rights away aren’t really my friends, because what friend would do that to another? That’s not friendship. That’s not love. That’s not kindness. and I’m not sure how anyone could expect someone to be friends with someone supporting the guy with his boot on my neck. I don’t remember much of my past due to the dissociation that comes from the horrors of gender dysphoria, but I actually do remember the event you mention. If not in specifics, at least in how it made me feel. And I appreciate the apology. Thank you.

I’d hoped perhaps he was working within the church to try and get them to change their policies, but he wasn’t. I hoped I could help him see the harm he’s doing in supporting the people who oppress trans folks.

I don’t know if I did, he did not respond after that.

Listen, THIS IS A ZERO-SUM GAME.

You cannot support my right to exist and be who I am AND support the bigots who want trans people to not exist.

Friends don’t do things like that. If someone wants to take my rights away, they are obviously not my friend. And if you give money to that person, tolerate that person, vote for that person, you’re supporting that.

Further: if you don’t try to STOP them, YOU ARE AIDING THEM.

If YOU remain friends with them, knowing that they want to take my rights away, you are supporting me losing my rights.

That’s a hard pill to swallow. It means confronting friends and loved ones about the harm they’re doing.

It may mean those relationships are going to change, if you have the INTEGRITY to be an ACTUAL TRANS ALLY. SAYING you support us is wonderful, but without ACTIONS that support us, it’s nothing more than platitudes to make yourself feel better.

See the Trans Tuesday on PERFORMATIVE ALLYSHIP (about a much less serious situation, but it illustrates the point very well), which is allyship in name only.

See the Trans Tuesday on PERFORMATIVE ALLYSHIP 2: FALSE ALLYSHIP, which is when people who consider themselves “allies” are in fact part of the systems that oppress us and refuse to see it.

See the Trans Tuesday (and the MULTITUDE of Trans Tuesdays linked within) about TRANS RAGE, and how cis people keep forgetting about trans people, and how ABSOLUTELY FUCKING VITAL REAL CIS ALLYSHIP IS.

And for an example of how even the smallest gesture can show you really do have our backs, see PROACTIVE ALLYSHIP aka BE AN ACCOMPLICE.

What will you do to stop this? Do you care?

Too often, it seems you do not. See the Trans Tuesday on TRANS RAGE 2: CIS APATHY.

Think about what might happen if your MAGA/Trump supporter friends and family lost their friends and family over their horrible support of hatred. Can you think of a stronger message to send that might wake someone up? THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR ACTIONS.

Please come back next week for TRANS POLITICS 2, and two of the MOST IMPORTANT things you can do to make life better for trans people.

And let me close by asking you to again look at that meme that opened the essay.

Do you see it for what it is?

Do you see that it was designed to help make bigots feel better about their bigotry?

Do you see that it was designed to help make friends of bigots feel like it’s okay to be friends with bigots?

But it’s not.

It can’t be.

Our literal lives are on the line.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

Part 2 is here!

Trans 101 Trans Life

THE SIGNS WERE ALWAYS THERE (that we’re trans)

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we’re going to take a personal look into my past to look at THE SIGNS THAT WERE ALWAYS THERE EVEN WHEN WE REFUSED TO SEE THEM. There’s no other way to say this than… this is gonna be embarrassing. For me.

Actually it’s making me a little uncomfortable, because I feel like this is going to expose me a little more than I’d like. Expose me as what? A trans woman? OH NO. Obviously this is not a surprise to anyone at this point. I talk about it a lot and am proud to be trans.

And it’s not like I don’t get personal in these. I get detailed about my past in many of them, like you can see in my thread on The Past, and Why it Haunts Us.

And also my thread on Parents Who Will Never Know the Real You, aka My Dad.

There are certainly more, I try to be as open and transparent as possible because I know that can help people. But this is something extra personal that was never intended to be seen by anyone but my amazing wife Susan, but that’s only part of it.

I guess what’s most embarrassing about it is that you’re going to see just how very blind to my own transness I was. And I know that’s not unique to me… in fact, it’s so common there are entire memes about it. See How Do You Know if You’re Trans (Still Cis Tho).

For some background, I’m going to suggest you read the thread on Fear of Embracing Your True Self as I explain in there how very terrified I was of things like makeup… and why. To get the full impact of what you’re about to see, truly… read this first.

Okay enough context, which is probably in some small way me stalling because… well, let’s just get on with it. A while back, Susan made me a scrapbook of things from our life together, and it’s beautiful and sweet and delightful.

Some of what she included were letters and notes I’d written her, and one of them included this:

A photo of part of a note I’d written to my wife, in my horrible, uncomfortable, tight, pre-transition handwriting. It reads: I wanted you to have something to have with you… for those times when I’m not there and you can’t call me, but you need some reassurance and love and hugs and… kisses!

Okay, a brief pause for full disclosure… just seeing my old HANDWRITING gives me dysphoria. It’s as cramped and tight and uncomfortable and awful as I felt all the time pre-transition, and I didn’t expect that to spike my dysphoria! How incredibly weird.

I talked about how my handwriting has changed post-transition, and why, along with a whole host of other things I never anticipated in my thread on Unexpected Bonuses of Transition.

And though I link to this one most often, I never know when new folks are coming in to their first one of these, so if you need more info on Gender Dysphoria.

Okay, right, so… Tilly, what the heck? I hear you. You look at that snippet of a note and think… that’s some uggo handwriting, but what of it? You wanted your wife to know you loved her when you couldn’t be with her and couldn’t talk, what’s wrong with that?

Nothing at all! Except that I cropped out the truly incriminating part. How do you think I was sending her kisses to keep while we were apart? HOW?

A larger snippet of the same note as before, only below the writing there is… a red lipstick kiss mark.

Okay listen-

No, it’s fine, get your laughs out now, go ahead. You’re not laughing at me, it’s okay, because I assure you I’m laughing too.

I couldn’t yet consciously give myself permission to explore, to find myself, to play with gender and see what I really was inside. And so… I found a way… to do that anyway… without even consciously realizing it.

I did a whole thread about finding ways to giving yourself Permission to Experiment and find your true self.

Okay, but as you read in my thread on the Fear of Embracing Your True Self, I HATED lipstick and lip balm (because of the terrifying feelings they gave me, even though I didn’t know that was why). And I’m not kidding about that. Look:

More of that horrid handwriting from the note. It reads: OH MY. THAT WAS REALLY WEIRD. SO MUCH SO I’M NOW WRITING IN CAPS?? That was… minty. WTF? How do you wear that stuff? Blech. Um… yeah.

Siiiiiigh. See, this is why I feel exposed and embarrassed. It’s SO CLEAR TO ME, looking at that, exactly what I was going through, and why I had those feelings. And I’d done it to myself by concocting a “reason” I could put lipstick on when I was home by myself.

I’ve said so, so, SO many times how looking back at my life, there were signs everywhere that I was trans. Signs that I willfully ignored, pretended I didn’t see, pretended they didn’t mean EXACTLY what they actually meant. And this is abso 100% one of them.

I’m not saying if you’re a cis man and you do this one thing that you’re trans, BUT y’know if there’s DOZENS of these, HUNDREDS… maybe you’re not as cis as you think.

Anyway it gets worse (better?), because this is how I closed out the letter:

It’s that same old awful handwriting. It reads: PS – I think I ruined your lipstick. Sorry! At least you know I haven’t been wearing it while you’re at work.

Tilly. Girl.

GIRL.

WHY WOULD ANYONE THINK YOU WERE WEARING YOUR WIFE’S MAKEUP WHILE SHE WAS AT WORK? WHAT A SUUUUUPER RANDOM THING TO THINK PEOPLE MIGHT BE WONDERING ABOUT YOU…

As you’ve no doubt seen in plenty of my selfies, I now love wearing makeup and lipstick, because I gave myself that permission to explore, pushed through the fear of embracing my true self, and figured out who I really am.

When I said the signs were always there, I did not remember this note. I had no idea it existed. So when Susan found it and put it in that scrapbook, it was an embarrassing and somewhat hilarious slap to the face.

It said “damn RIGHT the signs were always there, just LOOK, you fool!” Yeah yeah, okay, sure. My Morpheus was always there hammering away, trying to break through my shell and get me to see what was really inside. And if you don’t get the reference:
Twitter, Facebook

Push through the fear. Do it scared. Give yourself permission. The signs have always been there… and it’s okay to recognize and accept them. You may be surprised at the joy you find waiting for you on the other side. (lipstick!!)

Me with curly bangs and two curly pigtails held with light blue hair ties, eyeliner, pink-framed glasses, a dark pinkish-purple lipstick in a v-neck top with light blue, dark green, orange, dark red, and pink horizontal stripes.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

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If you have questions, please reach out. And if you've found any of these essays helpful, please share them with others. The more eyes they reach, the better people will understand.

If you're interested in the fiction I write as a team with my wife, covering screenwriting, television, animation, comics, scripted podcast audio dramas, and table-top role-playing games, check out: birdguest.com

We were also sensitivity consultants on season two of Star Trek Prodigy, and would be happy to consult on trans issues on your project. Get in touch!

You can find me on Bluesky and Mastodon/fedi, or you can email me at: tillysbridges@gmail.com