Why Be Trans (Part 2)

Before and Now (2008 & Present)

Life Updates: Still writing, still not fully employed. 

I'm doing a self preservation project of downloading tagged photos of myself from Facebook. At first I thought it was a vain thing, but then realized it's a chronicle of my physical transition. Hell, I've never done a side by side comparison like the one above as I've seen all trans folx do who physically transition.  After 10+ years, I'd forgotten what I looked like. I'd forgotten how white Salem was. I'd forgotten the dumb shit we'd felt worthy of documenting. I looked pretty happy in that bubble. 

Clicking through artifacts of formative years, I can't help but think once again why am I trans? And not only am I trans, but I've made choices towards physical transition. But why did I feel it necessary to make those choices? There are plenty of closeted trans people in the world. People that fantasize in the dark because the dark is the only place they feel safe. And while no one will ever truly know who these shadow laden people are, they still exist and survive. Why couldn't I have done the same thing? 

These questions and the like pop like heated kernels when I think about Why I am Trans. And while this isn't a complete answer, I think part of it is that being trans provided an avenue to cope with entering into adulthood. After being a Black queer stud in the bubble that was college, the form of masculine identity I'd developed could not find a space in the larger world. Not that I hadn't seen studs living and thriving pre and post college. But for me, when I exitted college, being a stud wasn't far enough on the gender spectrum for me. When the college bubble burst and I was in reality, there was always a part of my identity as a stud that I had to relinquish to the outside world for acceptance. There are a few life examples that come to mind, but the most immediate one is when I worked at Winkler Bakery right after college. 

For perspective, Winkler Bakery is exactly a stone's throw away from Salem College. Imagine column buildings, cobblestone roads, and tourist. You can literally hit the back door of the bakery from the top step of Main Hall. I can admit now there was a small bit of shame taking a job working minimum wage right at the front doors of the institution I'd just graduated from, but it was the first year of the 2008 recession and I was happy to be working and that my parents were still in their home. 

The point where gender came into play was the first day. I was asked if I wanted to don the dress and bonnet of traditional Moravian women, you know, to be in "theme". I could do tours of the bakery if I agreed, which was honestly the best part of the job. Seeing baked goods come out of a stone oven largely unchanged since just after the Revolutionary War does the whole "connecting the present to the past" thing pretty efficiently.   

I declined the offer and took my beige apron, silently chiding myself for missing an opportunity. But I couldn't understand why she would offer me, ME, the dress and bonnet. It's not like I came into the interview with a pencil skirt and blouse. Khakis and a button down have been my interview uniform even before college. And it wasn't like I had developed my identity away from this place. The foundations that made up my masculine identity was just outside this cramped office. Why couldn't the manager see it? Why couldn't I take this identity with me into the world? And why couldn't I wear the obviously more appropriate black trousers and loose white blouses of the men? I felt like a ghost right outside the one place I'd felt the most seen. 

Looking back on this memory and many akin, it felt out of body to have this part of my identity ignored. Like a key component was always missing when in interactions. A certain blindness to my personhood. I began to feel awkward in my body simply trying to be and live in the world. And any one that knows me will tell you, I'm no fighter and I didn't want to fight that intensely to exist. I just don't have it in me. 

I've often been told to not let outside forces affect me. That when I admit to any negative effect of forces outside my control, that I've allowed this to happen. That somehow I wasn't strong enough. 

But reality is more complicated. There will always be outside forces affecting us and some of them will have impacts on us that are life changing, both positive and negative. Through this complication of failed plans, missed opportunities, and heartbreak, we develop into people that try to survive and cope with these contradictions and broken promises. And outside of food and water, survival and coping look different to all humans. 

To survive, I nearly gave up my masculine identity after college. The attribute about myself that I actually wanted and had honed and held dear, I was going to tear it apart to survive in reality. I could be gay and slightly more feminine I told myself, knowing the expiration date for such an endeavor was inevitable. I'd seen where that road lead just prior to starting college. I was attempting to be more feminine to be accepted by new college peers and the larger outside world. It ended in a mental hospital for Spring Break. And I did it all for nothing because Salem ended up being my gay haven. No, I didn't want to repeat this again. It was definition insanity.

So I made the decision to move beyond survival and cope. And coping for me was physically transitioning. Thankfully, I'd learned about what it meant to be transgender in a classroom and not entirely online. And when I connected with other transmen through many conferences, group meetings and chats at bars, I found a kindredness with these men that felt like home. Coping in this life for me looked like physically transitioning. 

This is my own story. The story of trans lives, just like all humans, are varied and not monolithic. Being trans is not a choice, it's who people are. It's who I am. And I would have been trans regardless if I took T or no longer had a period. But physically transitioning, for me, was a choice intertwined in acceptance of self and by others. The manifestation of my own masculinity I found to be essential to my survival. And to cope in a world that couldn't interact with that manifestation, I chose to physically transition.   

And if asked today, I would rock the hell out of a potato sack dress and bonnet all through Old Salem.