Welcome to Trans Tuesday! This week we dive into a topic that’s come up often before, but it’s finally getting an essay of its own. It’s something that can plague those of us who transition as adults all our lives… THE PAST 5: RECOVERING TRANS CHILDHOODS.
This obviously deals a lot with how difficult the past can be for those of us who transition as adults.
For the full picture of what I’m talking about, see THE PAST AND WHY IT HAUNTS US, about about why a past lived not as our true selves can be a lifelong problem to deal with.
See THE PAST 2: THE NEW PAST for how a tv show, of all things, gave me a little piece of the childhood I never got to have.
And then see THE PAST 3 and 4, aka THE NEW PAST 2 and 3, better known as TRANS GRIEF 1 and TRANS GRIEF 2 for the time I confronted that missing childhood, and found a way to maybe vicariously experience it for a brief time.
Also kinda related is TRANS BIRTHDAYS, and how difficult they can be when it feels like you didn’t actually get to live most of your own life. That includes a short letter I wrote to little Tilly which you might want to check out.
Given all of that, I think you can see this is something that I, personally, have struggled to come to terms with. I mean it’s better than it used to be, due to those small pieces of little Tilly that I was able to sort of, maybe, experience, even if I didn’t get to really live those moments.
So when you’re an adult who transitioned well after your childhood, you end up feeling kind of… like you don’t have an anchor. You see people talking about happy childhood memories, and you don’t have those. You see folks posting photos of themselves from high school, and you don’t have those, because the real you didn’t get to exist then.
Which can very much make it feel like you don’t have any connection to your past. I do have my childhood red bow, as talked about in the first essay on THE PAST, but I don’t (and can’t) wear it every day, nor do I carry it around with me everywhere as a tangible connection to this world, to life… saying that I was always here.
And part of my life being stolen from me are all those childhood memories I missed out on. I didn’t get to have a sleepover with all my friends who were girls, or get to do each other’s hair in braids or paint each other’s nails.
This actually even carries over into my teen and adult years, because I don’t know what it’s like to date or be pursued by a woman as the woman I really am. I mean I love my wife more than the universe itself, don’t get me wrong. But I’m hopelessly monogamous, so I’ll also never know what it’s like to date a lesbian as a lesbian, y’know what I mean? And I wonder what that’s like.
And this wonder leads your mind in all kinds of different directions, and you can get a little lost in the “what ifs” if you’re not careful. You don’t want to fall down that path, because it’s a steep drop off and I imagine it’s pretty easy to get stuck down there.
So I think what we need are handholds to keep us from falling all the way in. We need an anchor to our past that says… we were actually always here, even if we were buried in pain and misery by being forced to pretend to be someone we’re not. See the essay on GENDER DYSPHORIA if you need more on that.
One of the things that surprised me was a gift I received not long after coming out. I talked about this in UNEXPECTED BONUSES OF TRANSITION, where it had never even occurred to me that after transition, people might give me “girly” gifts.
And a very dear friend, after seeing me talk about my lost childhood, sent me a big stuffed My Little Pony. (Quick aside to say yes, boys and nonbinary kids can like those too, but often aren’t allowed thanks to a little thing we call GENDERED CHILDHOODS.)
I wasn’t allowed anything remotely “girly” as a kid, and so I was absolutely touched by that gift. But I was surprised by how much I loved it, even though I’m not overly into horses or ponies or anything.
It sits right next to our bed, and I see it every morning when I get up and every night when I go to sleep, and it’s a sweet reminder that even though my family and society forced me to be someone I wasn’t, the real me was always in there, even as a kid.
And what brought this essay about was yet another thing that maybe little Tilly would’ve had and loved to death, but I didn’t even realize that when I got it.
Unless this is your first Trans Tuesday (and if it is, OMG hi! Thank you for reading!), I am kind of a girly girl. I mean I am also buff, and also sporty, because we can all be more than one thing and we do not subscribe to THE FALSE DICHOTOMY around these parts.
But I love girly things, and they make me really happy. I also love science and space and sci-fi, and my wife and I are sci-fi and fantasy writers!
So when I saw this amazing backpack that kind of marries all of that together, I got so excited and it became imperative that I get one. And then I saw I could get it personalized with my name! In pink! So very exciting.
Cute as all heck? Oh yeah. But also practical, because when we go to comic conventions (which we often frequent, as I’m doing book signings and/or am a panelist) I need something to keep copies of my book in, a water bottle, snacks, etc. It’s more than any purse can hold, really. And we have bags, but none of them were girly. Or cute. Or me. It even has a matching thermos/water bottle, also with my name on it!
I didn’t at all anticipate my reaction after it arrived. Because… I love it. I mean, I love it. My reaction was so much more emotional than I thought it would be (to be fair, I anticipated zero emotional reaction, I thought it’d just be a fun thing to have).
But seeing it, holding it… putting it on made my heart swell. I teared up?! What the hell?
I am always always always trying to understand myself better as a person, probably because I spent a lifetime having that person intentionally suppressed and crushed and hidden from me. You can learn how that manifested in my childhood in SEARCHING FOR MEANING (when you’re trans and don’t know it).
So I sat there holding it, looking at it, wondering. Thinking. Pondering. Feeling.
And you’ve probably already figured it out because I obviously decided to write this essay about it. It was another tangible, real, physical connection to my lost childhood. Because this is one hundo percent something little Tilly would have screamed in joy to have, and used every year and loved dearly, so much that it’d get dirty and beat up and wear out, a strap would break and there’d be a hole in a corner on the bottom from where it always scraped the floor as she tossed it under her desk in class every day.
And she would’ve begged to get another, exactly like it, to replace it. Because she would’ve loved it that much.
But now big Tilly has it.
And she loves it that much.
Trans and nonbinary friends, it’s okay and even good to nurture that true little you that you didn’t get to be. It’s good to find what ways you can experience so much of what you might’ve missed out on. It might just help heal some old wounds.
And cis folks, if you see trans people getting toys or dolls or “kid stuff,” try to understand where we’re coming from. It’s not a refusal to live in the present, or to “grow up,” it’s trying to form a connection to a past that we’re otherwise disconnected from. (“Growing up” is overrated anyway.)
I can feel my inner child dancing in glee and just so excited about it, unable to wait to show it off to all her friends.
I can’t wait to show it off to all my friends.
So here I am, showing it off, feeling things I thought might be lost to me forever.
And you deserve to feel those things too.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com
