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
