March 1998, from March 2012

Dear Rebecca,

Can I call you Rebecca? I know you haven’t told many people that name. It’s one of the names mom and dad chose for you before you were born, one you’ve been using in your head since mom mentioned it while working on that genealogy project with you. I know it’s a private name for you right now, but things change. I promise they do.

This letter is coming from the year 2012, fourteen years in the future. You’re thirteen, I’m twenty-seven. You’re exploring your identity on the Internet, trying to figure out what “transgender” means and whether it applies to you. I’m writing about my identity on the Internet, trying to explain to others what “transgender” means and how it applies to me. And, from that perspective, I wanted to write you this letter.

Don’t let anyone tell you who you are. You know who you are. You know what you are. Doctors and therapists and family can help with that journey, but that can’t decide it for you. They also can’t do it for you. I know you’re dying for someone to step in and take the lead, to transition for you, to tell you what to do. And you’ll find doctors and therapists who will help along the way. But no one does it for you.

Put another way: it doesn’t get better. But you will make it better.

You won’t magically transform overnight. You won’t wake up one day and be the girl you want to be, the girl we both know you are. But you’ll get there anyway. You’ll get there by standing firm and standing tall and saying, “I know who I am.”

A few pieces of advice.

First, stand up for yourself. There will be lots of people who question your decisions – either out of love or out of ignorance or a combination of the two – but you know better than them. Don’t let their volume win over your identity.

Second, try not to care what other people think. This isn’t because there aren’t important people whose opinions you should value. Rather, it’s because the things you’re now worrying about — being perceived as a “real girl” and transitioning and all that extremely scary stuff — isn’t as scary as you think it will be. People are too wrapped up in their own shit to fret about you. It’ll all turn out OK.

Lastly, trust your allies to help you. You have some awesome friends and family, and some more awesome friends are around the corner in high school. Take advantage of them. Try stuff out, even if you’re not sure about it. It’s always better to say, “Well, that didn’t turn out the way I hoped” rather than, “Boy, I wish I’d done something tonight instead of sitting at home alone.”

Our positions have flipped over the years. When I was your age — when I was you — I imagined this otherworldly Rebecca, from another plane of existence, who was living this perfect, unimaginable life. Now I am Rebecca, and let me tell you: The Rebecca you construct in your mind has some good advice for you, but she also spouts some bullshit. What she says about transitioning? Listen to that. What she says about killing yourself because you’re not good enough to do it? Tell her to shut the fuck up.

Life isn’t easy, but it’s too much fun to end by killing yourself. Laughter and tears and orgasms and friendships and relationships and so many other things I wish I could be there to show you. So take a deep breath. Cry a few tears when you need to; that’s always OK. And get ready to blossom. Because, let me tell you, you’re gonna be amazing.

Much love,

Rebecca

P.S. The video games in 2012 are so great! Can’t wait to play them with you.

A moment of my visit to my brother’s graduation sticks out in memory, and still occasionally gets me ribbed by family members. We were at a restaurant in town, my family and I, celebrating my brother’s impending  graduation. People were ordering drinks, and someone (probably my dad) made it clear I could have an alcoholic drink, too, should I so desire. So while everyone around me ordered beer or wine, I ordered a rum and coke.

Looking back, the reason I did it (and the reason my family finds it funny) is because I didn’t understand that there was a difference between beer or wine and mixed drinks. So while I probably could have ordered beer or wine without incident, ordering a rum and coke was cause for conversation.

Remembering all this still makes me a little embarrassed, because I hate not knowing how to behave. A big part of my transition has involved figuring out how to behave, how to present, how to interact, how to identify. And a big part of my hesitation around transitioning stemmed from not wanting to feel like I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t know how to do something, not wanting to feel like I didn’t understand.

Part of growing up – and part of transitioning – is learning how to do things you don’t know how to do. And no one likes being embarrassed or feeling foolish; I don’t exactly have a monopoly on that experience. Another time, in high school, the pride youth group I attended had been listening to Melissa Etheridge, and in particular to Scarecrow, a song about Matthew Shepard. I was out to my parents at that point, but not to my brother. On a family shopping trip, I bought Breakdown (the album with Scarecrow) at a Best Buy. On the ride home, I asked if I could play it in my dad’s fancy new in-car CD player. We drove in awkward silence as Etheridge sang out the pain and anguish of being alone and different. And, in the back seat, I felt alone and different than these strangers, my family.

I want to write something in defense of awkwardness. In defense of putting yourself in a situation where there’s the potential for embarrassment or discomfort. I wouldn’t have been able to transition had I never stuck my neck out, been willing to be uncomfortable, been willing to be unsure. No one could ever grow up at all if they stayed perfectly safe and sequestered. And one of my big life lessons over the last few years has been, “People care less than you think they will.” To put it another way, everyone is tied up in their own shit and doesn’t have time for yours.

It feels somewhat silly for me to say that awkwardness still holds such fear for me. I’ve performed in front of large audiences, taught classes with kids and adults, spoken at great length about very personal issues. I’ve been topless on stage in front of both of my parents, and their significant others. It seems like I should be pretty awkward-proof.

And maybe faking awkward-proof-ness is really all it takes. How should confidence be defined? Is real confidence believing that you’re confident, or being perceived as confident? There’s a parallel with gender, there… And I know I can fake confidence, but I don’t like to that I’m  ’faking’ gender, whatever that would mean.

Maybe I need to embrace the awkward. The not-knowing. The willingness to say “I’m not sure how this will work out.”

But it sure is fucking scary.

My conversations would usually start when I was feeling particularly stupid, or sad, or masculine. She’d start, this Rebecca that I imagined myself as in some alternate universe, speaking to me across the barrier which separated our realities: “You’re never going to be happy if you keep on like this.”

“Rebecca” would often continue to berate me and, when I didn’t talk to my parents (or talk to my therapist, find a doctor, find hormones, or whatever standards I/she set for myself) she’d turn the talk to suicide:

“Then why don’t you just kill yourself?” This line was always particularly seductive. Why not kill myself? Clearly, nothing was ever going to change. Friends would be happy, family would be happy, I wouldn’t. Maybe for brief moments, sunlight shining through the clouds, but never for long.

“Go away.”

“Just do it. Kill yourself, and it’ll be over. You’re never going to be me.”

A version of one of these conversations is in the script for Trans Form, and today at rehearsal Kristen (my director) and I worked on it. It was hard to do. Really hard.

In one sense, it’s kind of ridiculous to play my pre-transition self on stage, being reprimanded and driven toward suicide by my fantasy image of myself. Because, obviously, I did eventually begin transitioning; I didn’t kill myself. Likewise, for better or worse, I’ve mostly lost that ‘inner Rebecca’ voice. My drive is now coming from somewhere a bit less corrupted, not quite as dark and easily swayed toward self-injury.

But, while working with Kristen today, all those old memories and insecurities came flooding back: I’ll never be pretty enough to ‘really’ be a woman, never be feminine enough, never be hairless enough, never have a high enough voice, small enough hands. That, if only I’d listened to “Rebecca” earlier – began transitioning, gotten on hormones – I wouldn’t feel like so much of my time and energy is spent undoing the work of puberty, genetics, and years of socializing and presenting myself as male.

Anger also came flooding to the surface, anger I thought I’d moved past. Now that I am able to inhabit that Rebecca I imagined myself as ten years ago, I do want to berate the weak, spineless boy I was. To tell him to suck it up and get off his ass. To punish him for leaving me with a body that’s tall, hairy, big-boned, deep-voiced. It was really easy to slip into a scary place of self-hatred, directed both at the on-stage fifteen-year-old me, and at who I am now, who I let myself become.

Writing all this out, I realize that I’m neither the weak fifteen year old boy I worry I was, nor the ‘Queen Bee’ bitch of a Rebecca I hear myself as on stage. I’m simply me, and try to remember that my strengths outnumber my weaknesses, my beauty is greater than my feelings of insecurity, and my presence on stage proves my evil, fantasy Rebecca wrong: I am strong enough to do this.

Which is why I perform on stage. That’s what theatre is all about: sharing our stories and showing our strength and common experiences. Trans Form is a difficult show for me, as it brings up all my own worries and fears about my identity. But it’s also incredibly gratifying to perform, as it lets me reject those parts of myself which are negative or drag me down, and come out stronger on the other side. I hope you’ll join me.

Trans Form debuts on November 6 in Chicago, and runs through December 5. Tickets and more information are available here.

As a result of all that, though, I’ve been trying to focus on things that have been uplifting: seeing friends, not feeling guilty about eating sweets, looking at ridiculous websites, and just generally giving myself a break from working on my show.

Thinking about overcoming adversity and battling bigotry, my memory goes back to my eighth grade trip to Washington DC, and a trip to the Holocaust Museum.

In eighth grade, I was out to maybe one or two friends, and the idea of transitioning was still far in the future. I didn’t particularly identify as Jewish, and had stopped going to synagogue after my Bar Mitzvah, the year before. At the same time, the Holocaust Museum hit me really hard. Even before coming out or transitioning, I was keenly aware of being an ‘other,’ and the inherent danger that carries. The exhibits and displays on such an institutionalized and expansive example of bigotry hit me really hard; the example railcar that would have taken people to concentration camps, documents and stories from youth victims of the Holocaust, clips from Steven Spielberg’s video archive, and more. I remember a pile of shoes that had been collected at one of the transport stations, taken from victims going off to the camps. A hallway with artistic attempts to display the millions dead. And, most vividly, a final room full of candles.

Doing some Googling, it’s apparently called the Hall of Remembrance:

I sat on one of the benches and, after the power of the museum and the horror of the Holocaust contrasted with the solemnity of the Hall of Remembrance, I began to cry. They were tears for those lost in the Holocaust, yes, but they were also tears for myself. For feeling trapped and pressed upon and unable to break free of the prison of my body.

Someone sat down next to me, an adult. I don’t remember if he took my hand, or put his arm around me, or just sat in silence. And I can’t remember much about his appearance – I don’t remember him being particularly young or old, no distinguishing features that I can pinpoint twelve years later. But, after a moment, he said to me, “You will remember. And your children will remember.” And he put his hand on my shoulder and walked away.

His words have stayed with me, and I’ve pondered their meaning. The idea of remembrance as an act having value in and of itself, outside of any action, is one that’s difficult to grasp. Yet it’s a part of our culture: the phrase “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Indeed, my understanding of the Holocaust itself is so mixed with the phrase “Never Forget” that, even after some extensive Googling, I’m unable to find any hint as to its origin. (Other than the obvious power, particularly when linked with the idea of forgetting something resulting in its repetition. Although it looks like, at least according to Google, “Never Forget” is being co-opted by September 11 memorial sites.)

But remembrance is only important if a context is provided. Saying Nazis killed millions of people is neutral unless its established that the people were innocent and killed for reasons stemming from ignorance, bigotry, and hatred. (And, if you want to get really philosophical, first establishing those things – ignorance, bigotry, and hatred – are bad.) And the real leap is to be able to say “XYZ happened and was bad, so lets make sure similar things can’t happen again.”

I knew, in a way stemming from a Jewish cultural understanding, what that man meant when he said that I would remember, and that my children would, too. I would say most people raised in educated, Western society could understand his message: You remembrance can help prevent this from happening again.

Prevent it, how?

Anne Frank

Stories like The Diary of Anne Frank are important because they help humanize something that seems impossible to understand: the slaughter of 10+ million people. Because, as incomprehensible as it seems, each of those people went through their own personal experience of pain, humiliation, and dehumanization before their demise.

It’s a ridiculously huge leap to compare my minor case of transphobic bigotry to the millions of dead from the Holocaust. At the same time, I do think that having an eye opening and humbling reminder of what bigotry feels like, especially as someone who is in many ways very privileged, helps me better understand why remembrance is so important. Why we shouldn’t forget the crimes and misdeeds of the past, even if we can offer forgiveness or, if that’s not possible, at least attempt to move on with our lives:

Because being dehumanized sucks. It fucking sucks. It, very literally, means someone has judged you as less valuable and less worthy of consideration than someone else. They have questioned your value as an individual, as a human being, and found that value to be wanting. No one should experience that, and I feel lucky that I’ve experienced it so rarely in such a form that was explicitly directed at me.

So I try to take strength in my mantra of Storytelling as Activism. Sharing my own story, that of a trans woman refusing to keep her mouth shut, probably won’t change the world, and may not even change the minds of the people who have made me their victim in this instance.

But Remembering requires not staying silent.

I’ve been told, by trans people in their forties or fifties, that I’m “so lucky” to be able to transition when I am, with the support I have. And that’s absolutely true. But it would have been nice to be able to transition ten years earlier. That’s true, too.

I imagine that, whenever you realize you want to transition, and begin that process – be it at six or sixty – you’re going to say, “If only I’d transitioned earlier!” Because being trans is about realizing something isn’t quite right, and going about fixing it. And even if that something is only wrong for a few months, it’s still wrong.

This isn’t to say I don’t harbor some jealousy against kids who are transitioning at 18, 15, 12, even younger. I have a short-and-sweet list of things I think I could have done better had I transitioned earlier. Experiences I wanted to take advantage of. People I might not have alienated quite so much. But I know that same jealousy is directed toward me by older trans men and women, and they’re just as entitled to their jealousy and regret as I am.

What I’m trying to focus on, then, is the time I have left, not the time that’s gone.

Becca's Life Map

And so, a tour of my life map.

The first twenty years of my life map circle around transitioning. Wearily at times, uncertain and unsteady. At others, I ran toward transitioning only to be brought up short by lack of confidence or lack of will.

I grew up on South Blvd, in a house with a large backyard and, out past the alley, a park in the center of the block. The park had a hill, perfect for sledding and rolling down and rolling down inside metal trash cans. (I look back in wonder at how indestructible children are.)

Panic attacks were a regular part of my life. When I was dropped off at preschool, I’d panic. When my parents left my brother and I with a babysitter, I’d panic. When I went on overnight trips or to sleepovers, I’d panic.

King Lab was my elementary school. Martin Luther King, Jr. Experimental Laboratory School. It was a magnet school, drawing kids from all over the district, and it was where my older brother was, three years ahead of  me. At one time it was the pride and joy of District 65, but by the time I arrive its test scores were slipping and teachers were leaving. I would pretend to be sick, go to the nurse’s office  to escape class, and try to hold the thermometer up to a lamp to fake a temperature. In fifth grade, I started getting picked on by bullies, and often preferred to stay inside at lunch rather than go out to the playground.

In sixth grade, I moved to NCSDS. North Shore Country Day School. From a 80 or 90 fifth graders across multiple classes, at Kind Lab, to one class of 25 or 30 sixth graders at NCSDS. I had to retake DARE, the drug-prevention class, because at King Lab dare was in fifth grade, while at NSCDS it was in sixth. This seemed massively unfair, but my protests fell on deaf ears.

Somewhere in these years we moved from South Blvd to Payne, the house I still find myself in when I’m “home” in my dreams. In retrospect, it was more house than my parents could afford, but it was beautiful, with two fireplaces, two upstairs bathrooms, an even bigger backyard, a garage, a patio. I missed the front porch from the house on South Blvd. But other than that, I came to love the house on Payne.

I went to NSCDS with my best friend from King Lab. Unfortunately, while he drifted toward the ‘cool’ kids, I drifted toward the video game geeks. NSCDS was well-managed (and private) so real bullying never became an issue. I never felt my physical safety threatened as it had been at King Lab. But it was a rich, conformist school full of rich, conformist kids. (I’m embarrassed to say they almost talked me into voting for Bob Dole in the school’s mock 1996 presidential elections. Dole!)

In seventh grade I had my Bar Mitzvah. Only looking back am I aware of how much this enforced, gendered experience has poisoned Judaism for me.

Friends at NSCDS were the first I came out to, though. I remember lying in bed at a sleepover (I was finally able to attend sleepovers, though longer overnight trips still sent me into a panic) saying, “I wish I were a girl. I’ve been thinking about killing myself.” My friends told me it was OK, that I shouldn’t hurt myself. But I don’t know if they even really responded to the whole “want to be a girl” part.

After the seventh grade overnight trip – which I panic attacked myself out of – I decided I would go on the eight grade field trip to DC. The summer before eighth grade, I went into therapy. I’d been in therapy before, for the same panic attacks, but not by choice and always grudgingly. Now, though, I had a mission: Washington, DC.

I worked with my therapist on controlled breathing, bio-feedback techniques, and I ended up making it to DC alright. This was also the first therapist I came out to. He was positive, not judgmental or expressing any desire to “fix” me, but he was also (self-admittedly) clueless about trans issues. He did help me come out to my parents, though, in what I thought would usher in my quick transition and the ability to leave behind boyhood.

Nope.

I set deadline after deadline after deadline, all self-imposed. “By the end of Freshman year, I’ll have started transitioning.” “By the end of Sophomore year, I’ll have started transitioning.” “By the end of high school, I’ll have started transitioning.” “By the end of college, I’ll have started transitioning.”

I actually managed to hit that last deadline, but it was one of dozens that have littered my life, and made me judge myself for not living up to my own idealized idea of how I should be leading my life.

High school was the first place I was able to explore any real independence, beyond hopping on a bike. I had growing input in what classes I took. I got my drivers license. I got a car. (Sparky, my grandmother’s 1984 Tercel hatchback. I loved that car. The speedometer topped out at 80, and it was teeny-tiny, but it was a great first car.) A computer in my room, the Internet in all its glory.

My first inklings of a queer community. Pride Youth, where I was brought by a friend. For weeks I said I was “bi-curious” with these horrible, awkward air quotes. It wasn’t until we had two trans guest speakers that I was able to say yeah, I was trans.

“Pride Youth, surely, would provide me with the community I needed to transition!” Community, yes. But there was no helpful pushes or nudges in that direction, no real guidance saying “this is what you should do.” I remember one night we broke up into a guys group and a girls group. I was invited with the girls group, which felt simultaneously good and awkward, and I sat there in silence the whole evening.

The Gay-Straight Alliance at high school? No, there I was perceived as one more straight (or possibly closeted) ally.

Looking back, I’m sorry that my friends freshman year all went to college after my sophomore year. I think they could have really helped get me in a place of confidence to start pushing for my own transition. Sophomore year was a dark time, and the dip in my previously high grades reflected it.

Junior year I found a new group of friends, largely stemming from the theatre classes I was doing with Piven. I was happiest there out of all my high school activities and groups. I wish I’d come out to my teachers there, and asked for their help or guidance. They were younger than I am now, so I don’t know what they would have done, but they felt really adult and cool at the time.

Going to Northwestern was my next big step. Moving out of the house, into a dorm, managing my classes and schedule. Living in the boys section of the dorm, though, and using the boys bathroom. Having my friends make fun of me for ‘shedding’ all over my room. I looked at some old pictures recently, and had sort of forgotten (or repressed…) how hairy I used to be. Going to the Gay Straight Alliance and feeling totally out of place.

It was at Northwestern that I took my first big active step toward transitioning, by going to a therapist who specialized in gender issues. She told me I probably wasn’t trans.

That experience threw me into the sharp turns and lost-ness of my gender map and, once again, my sophomore year was unpleasant and forgettable.

Junior year, I started dating the girl who became my long-time girlfriend, and she smoothed my life out unspeakable amounts. She continued to nudge me toward having the confidence to transition, and senior year I tried another therapist, was referred to an endocrinologist, and took that final step in my mind into “transitioning.”

If only it were that simple, though.

I have a tendency to move the goal-posts: transitioning is when I go to a therapist. No, it’s when I go to an endocrinologist. No, it’s when I go on hormones. No, it’s when I come out to X, or to Y, or to Z.

So I realize now that didn’t think of myself as “actually” transitioning until I was already well on my way. My life map reflects both my current understanding of transitioning, and how I viewed it when I was younger. Younger, I saw transitioning as an impenetrable fortress. Foreboding. Surrounded by moats and spikes and terrible dangers. My path was blocked on all sides, and I constantly took steps toward transitioning only to retreat.

Now, as much as I realize transitioning was and is a gradual process – made up of many smaller victories rather than one or two single defining moments – I do realize that going to see my therapist set me on the path to hormones, changing my name, coming out to friends and family and coworkers, living my life as Rebecca.

On the life map image at the beginning of this post, that’s where  I literally punched through the paper to continue drawing on another sheet. As a friend put it, that was my ‘through the looking glass” moment, where I fell (or leaped, or tentatively waded) into another world.

This was a world made of small steps interspersed with large accomplishments. Slowly building my female wardrobe wasn’t a monumental occasion, but going through my old clothing and getting rid of 90% of my boy stuff was. Having friends begin to call me Rebecca, one by one, wasn’t monumental. But going to work as Rebecca or seeing my extended family for the first time as Rebecca both were. Slowly, with unnoticeable changes, my confidence grew, my sense of self-worth grew, my comfort in my body grew.

And then I broke up with my girlfriend.

I don’t regret that decision, but I will always regret hurting her. This was one of my big periods of mid-transition self-doubt: Could I do anything differently to make things work? Would we have needed to break up if I’d just transitioned earlier? Why could I be more patient for her? Why couldn’t I take things slower?

Rereading those thoughts, I realize I was (and am) too hard on myself. Life isn’t always simple enough for one person to be at fault, and the other blameless. Sometimes both people didn’t do anything wrong, things just don’t work out. I don’t like the dismissive simplicity of that, but I’m trying to acknowledge its truth.

It has taken me the past year and a half post-breakup (including one brief period of getting back together with my ex) to feel comfortable standing on my own two feet.

And 2010 has been the Year of Change: I finally acknowledged that I’m single, and that that’s OK. I’ve started exploring what it means to date as Rebecca. I quit my job(!!!!!). I’m expanding my art and trying to make it my livelihood.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I stayed silent too long, spoke too softly to be heard, gave in too quickly.

My kindergarten classroom stretched along an endless hallway. There was a finger-painting station, a corner with cardboard building blocks, a book nook, a playhouse with a kitchen. Trim along the ceiling had numbers, one for each day of the school year, and we would hold a little classroom celebration every time we hit a number ending in zero. We sang, and drew, and played tag at recess. Once a week, I would leave the class and go down the hall to talk with the school psychologist. Even then, my parents knew something was wrong.

I’m sorry I didn’t tell her – in her office with reassuring colors and a calm far removed from the kindergarten class – that there had been some mistake, that my bowl-cut should have been reserved for a boy, could I trade in my button-down shirts for pigtails, please?

I’m sorry I chose blue, rather than pink. My bunk bed was blue (a hand-me-down, perhaps that doesn’t count), my walls after we moved were painted blue (light blue, not too manly), my walls after we moved again were blue (still light blue, still not too manly), my jeans were blue (but so were everyone’s, that doesn’t count either). The sky was blue as I looked up from the soccer field, wondering why I was playing on the boys team, watching kites overhead and wishing I could fly away, too. The cold water of Lake Michigan was blue, where I raced in wearing only swimming trunks, my skinny hairless body splashing to the surface and sending ripples toward my mom, who laughed, my dad, who laughed and splashed back.

I’m sorry I couldn’t control my/our/your body better. I tried. I tucked my penis between my legs and stood, looking at you in the mirror. I snuck into my parents’ room and tried on my mom’s one-piece bathing suits, tucking dangly bits out of the way and stuffing the top with tissues or socks. When she confronted me, I denied that I’d ever gone through her things and she let the matter drop. Even after I switched from briefs to boxers, I kept a pair of briefs hidden in a drawer because I liked the way they let me hold everything tight, up, out of the way, smooth.

I rejected the idea that hair could be springing up anywhere but the top of my head, denied that a foreign and unwanted growth was spreading across my skin, was repulsed by the way hairs painlessly slid out of follicles, like foul vegetation bursting from a decaying corpse. I wanted my skin to hurt with each hair’s pinprick, their escape into sunlight, to show how wrong and unnatural they were. I’m sorry my will and desire couldn’t suppress their growth. I’m sorry for the hormones and the hair and the height and all of the other h-words.

I’m sorry for all the photographs, especially the ones where I look happy. Where I forgot that the moment would be recorded in time as a testament to boyhood. Against girlhood. The pictures and home videos that stand as “proof”: here was a boy. The gifts and toys and chotchkies with that name on them; my name, ostensibly. Your name. Baby momentos and picture frames and penny banks and train statues. Yearbooks with inscriptions written to me, to him. “See you next year!” “Keep in touch!” If I could, I would take back the scrawled signatures on countless documents: homework, the inside cover of book after book after book, postcards.

Even my handwriting was passed from me to you, from me to me, from me to us. A handwriting which scrables to take hold on a horizontal line and causes me to wince when I see the same sloppy angles or curves as my father. Here, typing and technology has been a curse: my speed at typing made me impatient with the hand-written word, makes slowing down and taking my time seem an excrutiating waste. I saw my handwriting develope into something blocky and masculine and ugly, and I’m sorry I didn’t alter its course and gift you with something more graceful.

I’m sorry for the vocal chords which still crack on occasion, the singing voice that is pleasant only in a masculine range, the energy it takes to stay light and feminine. I’m sorry that yelling and projection usually involves dropping into a deeper range, one I don’t particularly like hearing from myself. That during vocal warmups or group exercises backstage I try to mask where my voice breaks.

I’m sorry I didn’t spirit away makeup to practice putting on, didn’t enlist girlfriends to help me learn how to look pretty. I’m sorry I left you with hands that shake and a sense of overwhelming confusion and inadequacy.

I’m sorry that you run into parents of childhood friends and enemies, that interactions which should be quick and quickly forgotten become slow and prying and awkward. That mom receives a hug and you receive a handshake. Because, in their eyes, you’re not the woman she is.

I’m sorry my existence has given such power to others, that they can bring you crashing down with a pause or a pronoun.

I’m sorry the only shoes I had to wear to my brother’s funeral were platforms, leaving me towering over family and friends and mourners, because my wardrobe was/is still woefully incomplete. Bending down to give and receive hugs, over and over, pretending I felt confident as the woman I was presenting as. Being ignored by cousins who you didn’t want to talk to anyway but would have liked the courtesy to be acknowledged by them.

I’m sorry I stayed silent too long, spoke too softly to be heard, gave in too quickly.

I’m sorry it’s difficult to correct the mistakes I made.

I’m sorry you’re hurting.

I’m sorry.

• Are there advantages to being a woman as opposed to being a man?

Advantages for who? For me, yes: I’m happier with myself and with my body, enjoy wearing clothing and makeup, enjoy being perceived as a woman.

For someone who identifies as a man? Probably not. I think women – in general – have more clothing and presentation options today than men. That is, a woman can present from relatively butch (even going so far as to wear mens clothing) to super-femme, and still be a ‘woman.’ Men, on the other hand, have fewer options for clothing/makeup/etc without having their ‘man’ status questioned. But those are all subjective; being a woman isn’t “better” than being a man, just different.

But it is better for me.

• Are there advantages to being trans?

Being trans gives you the opportunity – hell, forces you – to think much more in detail and at length about your own identity and gender than being cis. I feel like the choices I’m making about presentation and how I gender myself are a lot more conscious than for many of my friends, and I’m doing so with more intention. They haven’t had to think about their own gender, and so many of them haven’t. (Or, hadn’t until I forced them to by transitioning and talking about it at great length!)

Being trans has given me the opportunity to dive into the trans and queer communities both on- and off-line, this blog being a big example of how I’m doing that.

Is all that worth the pain and difficulty of being trans? I’m not sure yet; I’m still too much in my transition to make that call. But I’d be lying if I said there were no advantages to being trans. At least, I’ve had a few places where I’ve been able to make lemonade out of lemons. I’m just hoping that I’ll ultimately feel that way all the time, not just every once in a while.

• Have you had any regrets after transitioning?

That I didn’t transition earlier. I’ve written a lot about my feelings of regret, and that’s the number one thing I’m trying to work on emotionally right now: Being OK with where I am, and not living in a land of ‘if only”s. I also regret that my transition has been difficult for the people in my life who I love, and who love me. I don’t think there would have been any way to prevent that, but (again) I play a pretty constant game of “If only I’d…” It’s not healthy, and I’m working on stopping, but it’s a process.

But do I regret transitioning? Not for a second.

• How did you react when you first realized you were trans?

I don’t really remember having a lightbulb moment where I realized I was trans, so I’m not sure how to answer this question. I always knew I’d rather be a girl than a boy, but didn’t start to learn what that meant – the language associated with it – until getting online in late middle school. There’s definitely been a sadness around my understanding of being trans, because for many years I thought (incorrectly) that it meant I couldn’t/wouldn’t be happy, couldn’t/wouldn’t live and present myself successfully as a woman, wouldn’t/couldn’t find someone to date or who would be attracted to me, etc.

I’m definitely on a good path, but being trans is hard. No doubt.

That’s a tough one to answer. How did you know you wanted to be a girl, anonymous questioner? (Or wanted to be a boy?)

For me, it wasn’t so much that I wanted to be a girl that I knew I wasn’t a boy. I imagined being a girl was better, I hoped it was right for me, and I wished I were a girl. But I wasn’t positive that it would be until I did it. Maybe a good analogy would be the question, “How do you know you’re hungry?” Well, because you’re hungry! It’s a state of being, something you know you are or you aren’t. I didn’t know I wanted to be a girl because I liked dresses or makeup or dolls. I knew it because it was true.

• What do your family and friends think?  Did anyone give you moral support in making your decision?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I am spoiled, blessed, privileged, and thankful that my friends, family, and coworkers have been so supportive during my transition. I’ve had people (family, mostly) react in a confused way, but I’ve never had anyone who was important to me act in a negative or intentionally hurtful way.

My experience, however, is the exception. It’s (unfortunately) not the rule. But I’d like to work toward a world where my experience – of the people important to me being supportive and enthusiastic of my transition – is the norm.

• Did you lose friends or family relationships?

As I said above, no one important. Some relatives, who I already wasn’t close to, I’m now even less close. Likewise, some people I was casually friend/friendly with drifted apart. But – thankfully and knock-on-wood – I haven’t had any really, openly negative reactions to my transition, or my coming out to someone.

• How long have you felt you were transgender?

This is sort of related to the first question in this post. Rather than expand on that, I’ll quote myself. From “I think I want to be a girl”:

…as early as I can remember having a concept of gender, I knew I would gladly switch bodies with any of my girl friends. There was not a doubt in my mind I’d be happier with the prospect of growing up into a woman rather than a man. I fantasized about magical gender-swapping spells, sci-fi mind-transfer rays, alternate timelines, and even more outlandish possibilities (and I still do…see any of my posts on trans fiction for more on that subject). I had no problem asking, “Why am I not a girl?” or saying “If only I was a girl” or “I wish I was a girl.”

That’s it for tonight. Not even half way through the questions! I’m speaking to the Loyola (college and above) class on Thursday, and the high school class that submitted these questions on Friday. I’ll definitely try to post more answers on this blog, though. It’s been a good writing exercise.

That, realistically, there’s a very slim chance I possibly could have transitioned earlier than I did.

And yet, I keep beating myself up about it. Regretting that I don’t live in the fantasy life I constructed for myself, of going to school as a girl, experiencing adolescence as a girl, growing up into a woman. And I realized it has a lot to do with my own sense of agency, or lack thereof.

I’m not religious. I’m spiritual, and hope that there’s something more to existence than what we can see, but would consider myself agnostic (if anything). But I don’t believe that there is any overarching ‘plan’ or that we all have a destiny. I think humanity has enough good in it (and evil) to have a sense of wonder about our existence without having a man behind the curtain, so to speak.

But that does mean it’s hard to reconcile or come to terms with bad things that do happen. If I blame myself for my pain and suffering, if I take that responsibility onto myself, it causes a lot of grief. I send myself into depressive patterns, and don’t end up any happier for it.

But it makes sense. I understand how the world works: I’m unhappy because of my own actions.

Conversely, lets examine what happens if I say, “I did everything I could. I transitioned as early as I possibly could, and it’s not my fault that being trans is inherently difficult and emotionally painful.” In that case, the world is capricious and unfathomable: I’m unhappy because I had the poor luck to be born trans. Most of the pain that followed was not my fault, it was simply how the world works. That doesn’t mean we can’t work to change the world, and make things easier for future trans kids, but there was nothing more I could have done to make my situation any better.

That’s really scary, because it totally removes my own sense of agency from my life. I don’t mean that this should be taken to an extreme, that nothing bad that’s happened to me is my own fault, but it means a good chunk of my life no longer makes sense; it didn’t happen because I lived my life well or poorly, it just happened because it happened.

It’s a moment where some religion would be nice. The idea that everything happens for a reason, any reason, is really seductive, even if I don’t believe it’s true.

I’m working on getting through this, though. On letting go of letting go of the blame I hold for myself, and focusing on my history as a great foundation to build a future, rather than a shitty past to drag me down. I have some posts brewing that I’m hoping will eventually make way for my next performance piece, focusing on just these issues. But it’s a hard process, and not one I’m hugely looking forward to. . .