Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had been born thirty years later. If instead of my mom freaking out because I liked to wear her shoes and wanted my hair in pigtails she had just let me explore in a safe environment. If instead of just envying my (all girl) besties’ dresses and Mary Jane’s I had felt safe to ask if I could wear them too. If instead of having to go through a confusing puberty and being told “everyone feels awkward during puberty” I had been able to go through the correct puberty and been able to learn how to be a woman along with my friends.
To just be another young woman who didn’t have to go through a lifetime of self-hatred and dissociation and trauma because how she felt inside wasn’t allowed to exist in society. M
And it makes me really angry that so many people in our world want to lock trans kids back into the same awful dystopia I grew up in. 🤬
I hatched a little over two years ago and didn’t in my wildest dreams imagine that I would look like this two years later. I’m so happy I took one awkward step after another so that I could finally be myself. 💖
As my sisters encouraged me in those early days:
If you want to be a girl, you can be a girl!
CW: eye contact
I also pretty much have these moments every single day now.
Sometimes (like today), multiple times.
I hatched a little over two years ago and didn’t in my wildest dreams imagine that I would look like this two years later. I’m so happy I took one awkward step after another so that I could finally be myself. 💖
As my sisters encouraged me in those early days:
If you want to be a girl, you can be a girl!
CW: eye contact
Self-reflection essay, mild religious references
In the early Christian church, during the years surrounding the formal co-optation of the church by the Empire and all of the horrible things that entailed in time, groups of women and men went to the desert for seclusion. To find God. To find themselves. The Desert Mothers and Fathers, along with the various Saints who cared for the poor and mystics who spoke of a love that never failed, are the one tenuous strand I still have to the faith I came upon over thirty years ago. A faith that both served as a means of coping with a dysphoria that I did not know I had and could not have addressed even if I did, and a prison that held me in denial for far longer than I would have stayed otherwise.
But the desert still beckons to me. To leave the familiar and the confining and to find myself in the solitude. In the sublime beauty in the midst of a seemingly lifeless place.
I went to the desert this weekend. Both literally and metaphorically. I drove from LA to Denver, by way of Phoenix, Gallup, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe. Officially to help my oldest kid formally close a chapter of his life in Colorado by bringing his belongings home with us as he prepares for graduate school in Europe. But also as a means of making sure that I can really do it. That I can really be Sophie in all of my fullness.
Because in August, I too, will be going to grad school in Europe.
I needed to know that I was ready.
And in the desert, I found myself. I spent the weekend fully embracing my femininity. I received more than a few compliments from women about my outfits. I didn't have to switch back and forth between my "in between" voice that I generally use when I'm lazy or speaking with family members who I'm trying to bring along slowly. And I spent Saturday at Pride in Denver, with a lovely group of both existing and new friends, just being a girl doing girl things with other girls. Something that I had desperately wanted since I was four, but which was now suddenly happening.
Today I did all the responsible mom things helping my kid. But I did them in my cutest lesbian mom outfit. Completely comfortable in my own skin for the first time ever. The desert has changed me. Or more precisely, I have changed so much that my trip to the desert revealed to me exactly how much.
Tomorrow we start the 18-hour(ish) journey back to LA, over two days. And then I will get back to a month of giving away or putting in storage my old life, before I begin a new one. But unlike before this weekend, I know I'm ready. I'm so much stronger than I have ever been. I'm so much less afraid. I'm suddenly excited about being social and making new friends and doing all of the things it takes to create a life in a completely new country. I'm Sophie, in all of her fullness.
Sometimes nothing can really happen on a given day and yet it feels like the ground has shifted beneath you.
Seeing the very obviously enby (or early transition trans woman being plausibly deniable) sit at the table next to you and conspicuously placing your purse in a really visible place so that if they ever did make eye contact you could try out the secret trans signaling system (unfortunately they were really focused on their computer in front of them so that exchange never happened).
Going to a busy bathroom and casually smiling at the woman who seemed surprised at either the tall woman, or the trans woman, or the tall trans woman as you came out and then just... washing your hands and leaving.
Getting misgendered in a language you understand but can't speak well and just kind of being amused by the whole thing because... have you seen the way I look now?
Going shopping and using your transitioned voice flawlessly and just being another woman going about her business shopping.
Some days I feel like I just want to shrink down and hide before I eventually push myself out into the world. Not today. Today I was happy to be very publicly myself. I had confidence. Confidence that I've NEVER HAD IN MY LIFE before.
I need more days like today. 💖
#TransGEM #TransJoy
Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I had been born thirty years later. If instead of my mom freaking out because I liked to wear her shoes and wanted my hair in pigtails she had just let me explore in a safe environment. If instead of just envying my (all girl) besties’ dresses and Mary Jane’s I had felt safe to ask if I could wear them too. If instead of having to go through a confusing puberty and being told “everyone feels awkward during puberty” I had been able to go through the correct puberty and been able to learn how to be a woman along with my friends.
To just be another young woman who didn’t have to go through a lifetime of self-hatred and dissociation and trauma because how she felt inside wasn’t allowed to exist in society. M
And it makes me really angry that so many people in our world want to lock trans kids back into the same awful dystopia I grew up in. 🤬
I hatched a little over two years ago and didn’t in my wildest dreams imagine that I would look like this two years later. I’m so happy I took one awkward step after another so that I could finally be myself. 💖
As my sisters encouraged me in those early days:
If you want to be a girl, you can be a girl!
CW: eye contact
I also pretty much have these moments every single day now.
Sometimes (like today), multiple times.
I hatched a little over two years ago and didn’t in my wildest dreams imagine that I would look like this two years later. I’m so happy I took one awkward step after another so that I could finally be myself. 💖
As my sisters encouraged me in those early days:
If you want to be a girl, you can be a girl!
CW: eye contact
Moms with babies sit down next to me at the park now because apparently I’m just another woman and not a scary gender demon.
I'm so happy that I just get to be this girl all of the time now! 💖
CW: eye contact
I got gel nails done for the first time today, and it’s pretty clear that I’m going to need to add €27 to the budget every couple weeks from now on. I absolutely love them! 💖
So, a surprising thing is happening to me after moving to Dublin.
I’m becoming a city girl.
Most of my life I’ve lived in the suburbs, and I’ve literally owned a car since I was 17 years old. I mean, LA, right? It’s kind of what you do.
But spending a few days in Dublin taking public transit and walking A LOT has been really enjoyable. And there’s an energy to the city that just doesn’t exist in the suburbs.
I’m not 100% surprised, actually. I really loved my visits to Taipei, DC, and even NYC. But I always went back to the suburbs.
Maybe when I get old I will want to move back to somewhere smaller. But I’m NOT old yet, so for now I’m pretty happy being a city girl. 💖
I found my boba spot in Dublin!
Okay, I finally get to join in on the Trans on Trains fun. 😂
First time riding DART in Dublin. 🇮🇪
Self-reflection essay, mild religious references
In the early Christian church, during the years surrounding the formal co-optation of the church by the Empire and all of the horrible things that entailed in time, groups of women and men went to the desert for seclusion. To find God. To find themselves. The Desert Mothers and Fathers, along with the various Saints who cared for the poor and mystics who spoke of a love that never failed, are the one tenuous strand I still have to the faith I came upon over thirty years ago. A faith that both served as a means of coping with a dysphoria that I did not know I had and could not have addressed even if I did, and a prison that held me in denial for far longer than I would have stayed otherwise.
But the desert still beckons to me. To leave the familiar and the confining and to find myself in the solitude. In the sublime beauty in the midst of a seemingly lifeless place.
I went to the desert this weekend. Both literally and metaphorically. I drove from LA to Denver, by way of Phoenix, Gallup, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe. Officially to help my oldest kid formally close a chapter of his life in Colorado by bringing his belongings home with us as he prepares for graduate school in Europe. But also as a means of making sure that I can really do it. That I can really be Sophie in all of my fullness.
Because in August, I too, will be going to grad school in Europe.
I needed to know that I was ready.
And in the desert, I found myself. I spent the weekend fully embracing my femininity. I received more than a few compliments from women about my outfits. I didn't have to switch back and forth between my "in between" voice that I generally use when I'm lazy or speaking with family members who I'm trying to bring along slowly. And I spent Saturday at Pride in Denver, with a lovely group of both existing and new friends, just being a girl doing girl things with other girls. Something that I had desperately wanted since I was four, but which was now suddenly happening.
Today I did all the responsible mom things helping my kid. But I did them in my cutest lesbian mom outfit. Completely comfortable in my own skin for the first time ever. The desert has changed me. Or more precisely, I have changed so much that my trip to the desert revealed to me exactly how much.
Tomorrow we start the 18-hour(ish) journey back to LA, over two days. And then I will get back to a month of giving away or putting in storage my old life, before I begin a new one. But unlike before this weekend, I know I'm ready. I'm so much stronger than I have ever been. I'm so much less afraid. I'm suddenly excited about being social and making new friends and doing all of the things it takes to create a life in a completely new country. I'm Sophie, in all of her fullness.
Sophie