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.
Welcome to Trans Tuesday! This week we wrap up our 100th episode celebration in episode 102, because I’m mad with power and do what I want! So here comes ASK TILLY ANYTHING! …part 5!
Do see ASK TILLY ANYTHING part 1 and part 2 from years ago, and then the new part 3 and part 4 first, if you know what’s good for you. You do know what’s good for you, don’t you?
On with your questions!
Oh I am SO glad you asked. Okay, so, first:
You can’t tell if someone is trans just by looking at them. You can’t tell if someone is trans just by looking at them. You can’t tell if someone is trans just by looking at them.
That’s the stuff all those bullshit “transvestigators” do and they universally seem to be trying to prove that any cis woman who doesn’t conform to the “gender ideal”, either in presentation or physically, is trans. It’s an awful way of policing gender conformity.
I don’t think that’s what the person asking this question was doing, but I wanted to make that bit clear to everyone else out there first. Just do not make assumptions about people’s gender and the world will be a kinder, better place for us all.
And definitely, absolutely, unequivocally do not ask someone if they’re trans. That could put us in incredible danger, and it’s also asking us to out ourselves to you (or anyone else who may be listening). It is, frankly, none of anyone else’s business if someone is trans or cis.
BUT, if you think this new coworker might be trans and you want to show solidarity and support… wear a trans pride pin. Not only when you talk to them, just… wear it. Always. When something comes up in meetings or whatever that might affect trans people, stand up for us. It is, of course, the right thing to do and SO much safer for cis people to do. You also then spare the person who may be the only trans person present from having to do it and out themselves if they’re not ready to and risk reprisals from transphobes.
In short, just be an accomplice. Stand close enough so that the bricks thrown at us hit you too, and use your privilege as a cis person to stand up for her and all of us. Which is, ideally, what you’re doing even when you think all of your coworkers are cis, right?
Check if your health insurance plan covers trans healthcare. If it doesn’t, fight to ensure that it changes and does.
These are the things we need. We don’t need people to ask if we’re trans and then tell us you support us, we need you to support us with all of the things I just mentioned.
Just keep doing those things. That is the support and solidarity we need.
My friend, my person, my fellow human, I kind of love you for asking this. Because if you’re worried you might be a chaser, that is the first step to not being an actual chaser.
Chasers, for those unaware, are (almost universally) cis men who fetishize trans women and literally chase us around trying to have sex with us. For more on them and how awful that all is, see CHASERS AND THE FETISHIZATION OF TRANS WOMEN. (Warning: it includes screenshots of chasers in my DMs and some of the content is incredibly awful)
See the thing about chasers is that they never think about the feelings of the women they fetishize. That’s literally what fetishizing us is, right? Thinking of us only as objects you can use to get your rocks off.
Chasers don’t support trans rights, they turn on you the second you don’t fawn over their attention, they’re very often bigots who think we’re “naughty” or some “safe” way to explore their own feelings about their sexuality.
It is okay to be attracted to trans women! We’re great! Trans women are hot (just ask me). What’s not okay is to treat us as if we’re not human beings with feelings, wants, and needs of our own.
If you think you’d like to approach her about being more than friends… just do that the way you would with a cis woman. It’s literally no different. We’re just women!
As long as you respect us and don’t hound our DMs, as long as you’re not preying on the newly-out looking for someone to finally see them as the women they are, as long as you’re treating us like human beings, you’re not a chaser.
Just don’t be a creep! Not being a chaser is the easiest thing in the world to do (which makes it remarkable that so very many cis men entirely fail at it).
Yeah this one is really complicated, because cross-dressing isn’t the same as being trans. But some cross dressers are absolutely trans! But some also aren’t.
I think the important thing to remember here is that it’s not cross dressing that makes someone trans, because a whole lot of cis people do it. If you’re trans or nonbinary and a cross dresser, that’s cool, you’re trans. Cross dressing doesn’t negate your transness.
But cis people who are cross dressers do not get to call themselves trans, because by the very definition they’re cis. Or… presumably.
Because invariably some of those cis cross dressers discover they’re actually trans through cross dressing.
So I think we need to be inclusive of the cross dressing community, but I think the cross dressers who know they’re cis need to not take advantage of that. And I think that’s where the hesitance comes in, because there are so few places for trans people that don’t get invaded and taken over by cis people.
I mean I can’t speak for the trans people you mentioned who aren’t accepting of cross dressers, but my gut says that’s where it comes from. Fear over another potential cis invasion of space and privacy.
I think it’s on cis cross dressers to know that things for trans people, that are inclusive for cross dressers, are inclusive of trans cross dressers and are not intended for cis folks.
I mean drag queens technically fall under the cross dressing umbrella, but they’re almost all cis men. And conflating drag queens with trans women is a big problem, because it perpetuates seeing trans women as “men in dresses,” which we are not.
I love drag queens! But outside of the few that are trans, the vast majority are not trans people. They’re cis men dressing up as (often heightened versions of) a different gender.
Do you cross dress for sexual gratification? Not trans. Do you cross dress for fun? Or work? Not trans. Do you want to be/feel or believe you are a different gender than the one assigned at birth? Trans.
It’s not the clothes you wear that make you trans, it’s about who you are.
I haven’t fully examined my thoughts on the topic before, so I’m not sure how well I’m explaining it and these might not be my final thoughts on it. Maybe it needs an essay of its own one day, I dunno. But that’s where I’m at right now.
Cis cross dressers gotta know what is and is not for them, and trans cross dressers are trans.
Well this is a, sadly, very short answer. I can only read and speak English, and that’s it. I had two years of French in high school, and my first teacher was great but the second absolutely killed my desire to continue learning it. So I never went any further beyond that, and I don’t remember much of it, and I haven’t had the time to try and pick up another one.
At its most basic, to just be able to make a living writing and telling stories. For my wife and I to get staffed on a tv show, move up, and become showrunners that get to run shows we created someday. And to work on as much Star Trek as possible.
And if you wanna get really wild, if we somehow ever got incredibly successful financially, I’d love to start a studio specifically to produce movies and tv shows written and created by trans people.
Oh shit. This is going to require some explanation.
It’s an homage/spoof of old time radio audio drama, about a group of pilots with sci-fi planes and rayguns fighting nazis in WWII. It’s very silly, a nazi gets punched for comedic value in nearly every episode, and there’s a robot that goes through a “Servo reassignment surgery” ah ha ha ha there were no signs.
Anyway, as part of the show there were entirely fake commercials in the middle, all for products from the show’s fictional sponsor, that were also spoof of old radio commercials from the 30s and 40s (they. Were. a. TRIP.). And I played the commercial announcer in all fifty episodes of the show, in what can only be described as an ill-suited, warbling voice of discombobulated bewilderment. I honestly don’t think I could even do it anymore, after speech therapy!
And so to answer your question: I would describe that guy as perpetually confused but happy to read whatever is in front of him and support the employer who signed his paychecks.
So first, no, I don’t take any supplements or anything. I just eat a lot of protein and a lot of fiber (and let’s be honest, a lot of carbs). I do keep protein bars on hand for when I get snackish though, because you need a lot of protein to build muscle. My faves are TruBar, because they actually almost taste like candy bars. Best tasting ones I’ve had. I’m particularly fond of their Daydreaming About Donuts, Whipped for Key Lime, and Saltylicious Almond Love varieties. They’re also really high in fiber, which helps because when you eat a lot of protein, uh, you need that extra fiber. I am not paid to say any of this! I just legit love them.
But what supplements you take or don’t take, and what you eat or don’t eat, is going to vary for everyone because every body is different. I eat a PB&J for lunch every day with (rotating flavors of) a sugar-free and high fiber jelly and high-fiber bread, along with a pound of grapes and like three to four bananas. And every other day for dinner I have a salad so big we had to buy an extra big bowl for it, and it’s got an entire head of romaine lettuce and a ton of tomatoes and almost a pound of deli meat in it.
And, like… that is not gonna work for most people. But it works great for me! I talked about that in PARENTS WHO WILL NEVER KNOW THE REAL YOU, I have an unreal alien metabolism, one of the things my dad gifted me with.
Also working out didn’t affect my transition mindset, it was actually the other way around! All the exercise I do was the first thing I ever did to start my transition, years before I could medically or socially transition. I talked all about that in BODY HACKING.
Also also, if you wanna see the latest of where all my exercise is at, check out my FOUR YEAR RETROSPECTIVE as it includes the most recent photo of where I’m at physically with my workouts.
Dr. Pulaski is no more cranky or racist than Bones, and in fact learns and grows beyond her bigotry in her one and only season of The Next Generation. Yet she’s universally derided for it, while Bones is celebrated for it (he’s really unrepentantly racist toward Spock through all of The Original Series, and it’s always played for laughs). That’s some sexism at work.
Chris Pine is a far better Kirk than William Shatner was. Pine’s Kirk is overconfident and compassionate and charismatic. Shatner’s Kirk is smarmy and compassionate and charismatic. And the flip from smarmy to overconfident makes all the difference for me. I can love an overconfident character, but I find myself extra repulsed by smarmy cis white men these days. To be clear I don’t hate Shatner’s Kirk, he’s still compassionate. But sometimes the smarm is too much and it icks me out, and I don’t get that from Pine at all, so I’ll take Pine first every time. (I feel like I haven’t seen enough of Paul Wesley’s Kirk on Strange New Worlds yet to make a determination about where he falls in the Kirk hierarchy.)
Also there is no bad Star Trek. There are some highly problematic episodes, and movies and series that succeeded at what they were trying to do more than others, but… there is no bad Star Trek.
The best thing is how it’s founded on the ideals of inclusion and equality, of hope and wonder.
The worst thing is that it’s made by fallible humans and is always a product of its time. So it’s had sexist episodes, and racist episodes, and homophobic episodes, and transphobic episodes. It, and the people who work on it, are not exempt from the implicit biases of our society.
But it posits a world that is exempt from those, because we’ve recognized and addressed them, and over time it grows more and more into being as inclusive as its ideals have always been. And there’s no other mass media franchise you can really say that about, and that is a huge reason why I love it as much as I do.
It says we can be better if we choose to be better, and look at the wonders we can accomplish together when that happens.
And that’s fucking beautiful.
Oof, there’s no easy answer to that. Internalized and implicit biases are nightmares to root out and get rid of.
For INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIA, the most important thing is, again, community. We can often see it in others when we can’t see it in ourselves. So we need other trans people to be like, hey babe…. That thing you just said about yourself? That’s internalized transphobia. We have to recognize it before we can fight it. And fighting it is about realizing that it’s transphobic society that wants us to feel that way, and they do NOT get to tell us how to feel about ourselves (especially when society wants us to feel embarrassed, or ashamed, or like we’re not enough, or like we’re freaks, or like there’s something wrong with us, or-). Nobody gets to tell us how to feel about ourselves.
For cis folks with implicit transphobia (see IMPLICIT QUEERPHOBIA for more), it’s the same as it is with other implicit biases. You have to recognize that they’re there and that society put those biases in you, and you have to actively work to change your way of thinking about it. And that can best happen by listening to and believing and learning from the people you want to change your biases about.
Because biases and phobias can crumble when the unknown is replaced with knowledge, because then you’ve no longer got anything to be scared of.
This is why representation in media is so fucking important, by the way. It’s the way most of the people in our country first learn about people who are different from them. And so if marginalized communities like trans people aren’t getting that rep (see 2024 TRANS REP IN MEDIA), or worse, have all the propaganda about us confirmed for them (see BAD REPRESENTATION: EMILIA PEREZ), that has real world consequences for us and the way we’re treated, thought about, and think about ourselves.
First I’d say you absolutely need to check out CIS SPOUSAL AND PARTNER SUPPORT for how very, very badly we need you to support us when we come out, and what can happen when you don’t.
Second, I’d say that you may have complicated feelings about it (even if you’re fully supportive!) and that’s okay, because you’re human. But what you cannot do is make your complicated feelings your trans spouse or partner’s problem. Our coming out isn’t about YOU, it’s about us, and it’s already such a complicated and complex and often difficult thing to do.
The last thing we need is you trying to work through your weird feelings about “losing a version of us” or what have you, because that’s not what’s actually happening. This doesn’t mean you don’t have real feelings to work through! It just means your own internalized confusion over it, and possible internalized transphobia and/or homophobia) cannot be our problem, not then. See CIS GRIEF (over trans people when we come out) for more.
So my advice to you is, whatever it is you’re feeling, know that your spouse wasn’t lying to you about who they were. It doesn’t mean your marriage is a lie, it doesn’t mean staying married to them after transition is somehow breaking your vow because you vowed you were “marrying a man” and not a trans woman, or whatever other nonsense.
Your spouse was trying to be the person that society and all of their friends and family and possibly even you told them they were and had to be. And that hurt them, and it wounded them, and they want to be free of trying to be someone they’re not.
You care about them, you love them, you should want them to be happy and to be whoever they truly are. So when they’re on the path to doing that, and they trust you enough to tell you, you have got to support them all the way through it. You’re their spouse, that’s the job. It’s what you signed up for. That’s love, baby.
If you don’t know what they need, ask. If they don’t yet know, that’s okay. Tell them whenever they do, you’re there to help. It’s a scary as fuck time to come out, so just make it unequivocally clear you love them and support them and will be with them every step of the way.
Learn what you need to support them (there are lots of resources… like Tilly’s Trans Tuesdays, oh what?!). Learn as they learn. Follow where they lead. Just as you would with literally anything else in their life, because they’re your spouse, right?
You’re partners. So just… be a partner. Be a spouse. And love them.
Y’know, I’ve never really gotten to have my Progesterone Dream Theater as part of Tilly’s Trans Tuesdays, so it’s about time to change that! Let’s get some immortalized in digital ink.
I should add, for those not in the know, progesterone is a hormone some trans women on HRT take, and it’s got some wild side effects, like increased sex drive, making you sleep really well (I’ve never slept better)… AND WILD-ASS DREAMS.
I never had dreams like these before being on progesterone. And the benefit of posting them to social media for hilarity, is that I now have them all gathered together here. For you.
And now I present to you….
Tilly’s Progesterone Dream Theater!
PROGESTERONE DREAM 1
so Guns N Roses was putting on a concert inside a deli and Slash told me he couldn’t play for reasons, and so I had to play with the band instead but… I don’t know how! he doesn’t care, it has to be me so he takes me to a case with his guitar, and I open it and inside is a tiny guitar half the size of normal made out of rubber and I pick it up and it bends all over, it’s very noodley and I say “but the strings are so tiny!” and they are, even tinier than the rest of this mini bendy rubber guitar cut to the end of Welcome to the Jungle and I’m somehow playing it and things are going okay, but I’m struggling with the tiny strings and it keeps wobbling and bending and is hard to hold and I can’t believe I am somehow holding it and plucking the right strings and somehow playing the song when I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT MUSIC (this is a true fact) and then it cuts right into the intro to Sweet Child O’ Mine and I don’t just manage it, I NAIL it and I look to the crowd, and Slash is there in his hat, and he smiles and gives me a thumbs up
PROGESTERONE DREAM 2
things were REALLY weird and i KNEW they were weird but not that i was dreaming so i kept asking every person in my dream why things were so weird and they all got mad at me for not knowing i was dreaming
PROGESTERONE DREAM 3
I was in an infinite white void running through it was a hallway with no ceiling the walls were covered in Lego plates, so you could build on them there was a bearded burly lumberjack guy in a harness dangling from a rope between the walls, swinging back and forth between them rapidly, sticking legos on to build stuff and there was a flying drone with a bucket attached that had to zoom around and catch any legos he dropped because if any hit the floor WE WOULD ALL DIE
PROGESTERONE DREAM 4
a woman was talking to me, pointed a finger at me and said: “Well I can tell you one weird thing, you’re going to wake up right now.” AND OUR ALARM IMMEDIATELY WENT OFF
PROGESTERONE DREAM 5
I’m on the Walking Dead set and discover over 12 seasons only 240 hours passed for the characters (I was SO mad about it), and then Tom Petty had squirrel teeth and couldn’t sing and demanded I fix them for him
PROGESTERONE DREAM 6 I was being chased by a bundle of dry spaghetti, running through a grid in which, at every intersection, there was a singe dried spaghetti noodle that rose up to the infinite sky. I escaped my pursuer by… climbing a mountain made of one pound bags of baby carrots.
PROGESTERONE DREAM 7
We got a brand new apartment for the first time, and it was big and wonderful, but it was also a huge building up on stilts and the only way down was to ride an invisible cloth hammock conveyor UP 20 STORIES to a tower a couple miles across town and take its elevator down.
Also we had a tiny multicolored translucent gelatin cat with a moose head (complete with antlers) that followed us everywhere and liked to play inside sink drains
PROGESTERONE DREAM 8
real me and a cartoon version of Timothy Olyphant are private detectives tracking down a real rabbit who worked at an ice cream shop, and the rabbit wore a shirt that said “are you a creamer?” (creamers were anyone who likes ice cream)
PROGESTERONE DREAM 9
Woke up with the phrase “uh oh, dinosaurs!” in my head
PROGESTERONE DREAM 10
Dreamed I had a heart attack and instead of calling the hospital, people called the Soulful Wellness Center. A van from there arrived five minutes later, and a woman got out and said I was now booked for a six night stay in June. But I’m having a heart attack NOW, I told her. She shrugged and then misgendered me, so I forced the heart attack away, picked her up and threw her all the way across the street.
PROGESTERONE DREAM 11
I was helping Hayley Atwell learn ballroom dancing (to Total Eclipse of the Heart) and she wasn’t sure if she should keep doing MCU movies I said yes “because they’re running out of bankable stars” she was tooootally into me but respected that I was married and we would just be friends then she asked me to put the eggs (that were on the floor in the corner of the room) away… but only the brown ones
And now, for the installment of Progesterone Dream Theater that I think exemplifies them all:
PROGESTERONE DREAM 12
I know I had three dreams one night, and while I didn’t remember the first two dreams, I did remember everything faded to white between and I was like what is this am I in a void? no there was a TITLE CARD between each of my dreams, and it looked just like this
Thank you all for coming along with me on this ride of, now, two hundred nineteen Trans Tuesdays and one hundred and two podcast episodes.
I do these for you, and I hope I hope I hope they’ve been of some help to you.
Okay, I’m gonna vamoose. My cryotube needs maintenance, but my brain’s too scrambled to do it.
Welcome to Trans Tuesday! To continue celebrating 100 episodes of this podcast, you asked me stuff and I answered stuff! So here’s the stuff: ASK TILLY ANYTHING! …part 4!
You may want to check out ASK TILLY ANYTHING part 1, part 2, and part 3 first! Or not. I’m not the boss of you. (What if I were, tho? What if I were.)
Okay, you asked so many questions it’s taking me three essays to answer, to let’s just get right to it.
“Silly Bridges?” Mm, I see how it is.
Listen, I’m an incredibly silly person by nature (my social media “pre-coffee thoughts with Tilly” every morning should’ve clued you in), so… breathing, I guess? I’m almost never not silly.
One particular goofy thing I do all the time is sing little nonsense songs to Susan, though. Like:
Susan yeah, you’re so good, you’re the hottest chick in the neighborhood
Or
Doin’ the dishes is what I do, even though I don’t want tooooooooooooooooo
Go ahead and imagine hearing that shit all the time for your entire life and you’ll understand what a saint my wife is.
Milly? I- okay, uh, well I don’t actually… know… what the different molds look like or are called. Do they have specific names? They probably do.
But I do not know them.
Ohh this is a whole bit, huh? Aren’t you clever! (no, you are, I am legit amused)
I’m not actually super up on horror movies. Us creeped me out in a delightful way, and The Substance wasn’t really “scary” to me, as much as just… The Most. And if at any point you think it is being less The Most, it will immediately become The Moster.
But you know what? I SAW THE TV GLOW, even with its hopeful ending, still scares the shit out me for very trans reasons.
I grew up in Chicago with horrid winters and black ice and having to wear a heavy winter coat over my damned halloween costume every year, and then nobody could even see it!
And now I live in Los Angeles and I’m madly in love with it.
And while weather is only part of that story (another part of it is in TRANS TRAUMA 2: SOCIETAL GASLIGHTING, and there are still more components to it beyond that), I feel like that answers the question pretty well.
Also I was always cold pre-transition, and now that I’m on estrogen (see HRT), I’m even colder all the time-r.
SOMEONE TURN UP THE TEMP IN MY CRYOTUBE DAMN IT.
Daffodils aka buttercups. They were everywhere when Susan and I were first together, so they always remind me of those heady early days of love, and of spring, and of joy, and of life. (why do they gotta smell like condoms when they start wilting tho?!)
Roses are also great because they’re the badasses of flowers. They grow great in blood.
Okay I must give you a standing ovation for this one, truly the pinnacle of the form.
And as I mentioned in the re-wedding discussion, Never Gonna Not Dance Again is very much a “death before detransition” song, and my dream of a giant dance party to it with all of my friends will happen god damn it.
Outside of that, What About Us? is my favorite because it speaks so much to the times we find ourselves in… as good, wonderful people, so lost at how much of the world could be so evil, and how we deserve better than that.
Outside of that, look… it’s like asking me to pick a favorite kid (or so I hear people say, we only have the one kid ourselves so). So many of them mean so much to me, but…
I think I’d have to go with Raise Your Glass.
Because:
It’s a total banger
It’s about “misfits” sticking together and loving each other
It doesn’t take itself too seriously
It’s fun as heck
IT’S A TOTAL BANGER
It’s about how not being a conformo is good actually
It makes me feel alive
It’s about how she loves all the weirdos who dare to be different, just like me
Did I mention it’s a total banger?
So funny story, I’ve been writing fiction for basically my whole life, and Susan was actually a journalist that I convinced to give fiction a try. The reasons she did are her story and not mine to tell, but suffice to say she did and then we started writing together, found we complimented each other really well, and never looked back.
And I think all of that worked because… I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this here before or not, but… we met each other writing Star Trek fanfic.
IT
IS
TRUE
And I think when you meet doing something so specific in a little niche, maybe a lot of your interests are bound to line up. Ours do. We tend to like and dislike the same things (in stories, tv, movies, etc). We have different hobbies and stuff, but we agree on everything important and she’s my best friend in the entire world.
Being around her all day and writing with her is a literal joy, and I wish for something so amazing for all of you out there. Marry your best friend who’s also super smart and funny and creative and totally hot and just looking at them makes you wanna make out with them.
Highly recommended.
I don’t think I could have done anything else. It’s in my blood, as cliche as that sounds. It’s my heart, it’s my life, it’s just who I am.
The only other thing I would have wanted to be is a singer. But that was never in the cards for me.
When I was little I had chicken pox and I missed weeks of school because of it, and that was the time that like… basic music theory or whatever was being taught? Like basic, basic stuff. And when I came back they just expected me to know it? And I didn’t? And I didn’t understand, and nobody bothered to teach me.
On top of that, my mother helpfully told me for my entire life that I was tone deaf. So with her constant discouragement and my mountains of frustration with not understanding notes and pitch and whatever else, I kind of gave up on it.
I leaned into purposefully bad singing (with all my goofy little songs).
But guuuuuessssss what? After the gender-affirming speech therapy I had, I CAN NOW SOMEHOW CARRY A TUNE. I mean, I think. I don’t really know what that means. And I’m still off a lot. But now sometimes I’m not?
I ain’t never gonna be a pro (lolz no), but now I can actually kind of sing the things I try to sing, and that means a whole lot to me.
So maybe don’t discourage people from their interests and make sure kids don’t fall behind after an illness!
Uh, yeah, didn’t mean to get into a rant there. But writing is it for me.
I have no other marketable skills! (other than being remarkably good-looking)
I don’t have an easy answer for this one! I didn’t have the “oh shit” moment most of us do.
I always felt drawn to girls and “girly things” and “wished I was a girl” and “prayed that I’d wake up a girl” (there were no signs… yes there were, see THE SIGNS WERE ALWAYS THERE), but I was never ever told that was a thing I could be. I was, in fact, actively discouraged and punished anytime I displayed any interest in those things.
So if you’d told me as a kid “oh that just means you are a girl, you’re trans and that’s okay” I’d have screamed in joy and gotten girly clothes and never ever looked back. But I didn’t have that option open to me, or even the knowledge that such an option existed. Which led to a lifetime of pain and GENDER DYSPHORIA, yaaaaaaaaaaay.
It was something that’d always been in the back of my mind, but I thought there was something wrong with me or, somehow also simultaneously, that’s just how all boys felt. Of course we’d all rather be girls, I mean… duh.
Somewhere around 2013 – 2015ish (I mentioned in ASK TILLY ANYTHING PART 3 that my full acceptance was possibly earlier than I thought from new evidence I found), I accepted that I was trans. It’s all hazy because it was so slow for me, and because, again, I knew that even if I was trans (spoiler: I sure am!) I couldn’t transition until mid-2020, I took my time exploring it and figuring things out. See the BODY HACKING essay for more on some of the earliest transition-related stuff I did.
It was horrifically hard to wait all those years, but wait I did. It’s a reason I don’t talk about publicly, though I’ve told a few friends who’ve asked (and please understand how much I trust you if you’re one of the people I’ve told).
So where, in all of that, do you define my egg crack? I honestly don’t know. I kind of feel like my entire life up until that 2013 – 2015ish hazy area was my egg slowly but continually cracking, until enough light finally got through and I had a name to put to this thing I’d always felt and known.
Which is a long-winded way to say “I don’t really know!”, I guess. Sorry I don’t have a clearer answer there!
Ha! Heck no. I’m still learning, but then I think most of us probably are. There’s always more to learn about how to get better at what you do.
You can learn about three-act (or my personal face, five-act) structure, character arcs, writing natural, organic dialogue… but you’re also just as likely to pick up a lot of that by just writing. A lot.
As a wee babe, before I even knew what three-act structure was, I was writing in three-act structure! You pick it up from reading novels and watching movies and tv, comics, and so much more. You absorb an understanding of how story and character work, sometimes without even knowing you have.
There are already so many books on the topic, some good, many terrible. The thing is, again like I talked about a little back in PART 3… everyone is different, and writes in a different way.
I have no desire to write a book on screenwriting, but I’m always happy to answer specific questions if you have them! Hit me up.
Just please don’t ask me to read your script (unless we’re actual friends, in which case I am always happy to read and give notes as needed).
Yeah this one is tough, because I’m not new to writing Trans Tuesdays, nor am I new to making podcasts (my wife and I have been doing it longer than most via our production company, Pendant Productions, which produces and releases the Tilly’s Trans Tuesdays podcast).
I’m not sure I’ve learned anything about myself in the course of continuing to do these two things I was already doing for years when the podcast started. Other than I really love writing and talking about gender and transness, and especially its intersection with art and media, and I think I’m really, really good at it.
Maybe I have also just learned I’m not as humble as I could be, but ehhhhhh I’m confident in the things I should be confident in, I think.
Fascinating question. For me… no. That’d be an incredibly serious surgery, and while it’d absolutely be worth it for the trans women who want that… I just don’t. I feel perfectly like a mom already, even though I wasn’t the one who carried our son before his birth.
I mean, we’re also very happy having only one kid and don’t want any more, but even leaving that aside, that’s just never something I’ve wanted or desired. I know trans women who’d do almost anything for that chance, but that’s never been me.
I don’t know that I associate it all that closely with motherhood, really. Which may sound weird but some trans men and nonbinary people can get pregnant, and that doesn’t make them mothers, you know? They may prefer other terms. And adoptive mothers, and chosen mothers, and step-mothers… all are absolutely real varieties of “mother.”
It also probably doesn’t help that I have an incredibly complex and difficult relationship with my own mother. She was technically and legally my mother, but I don’t feel like she was really much of a mom. Or rather, she was, but not what I’d call a kind, welcoming, parental kind of mom. I suspect that undoubtedly plays into my own feelings on the topic, because if she could carry me and give birth to me and not really be much of a good mom, that probably primed me to accept “just because you carried and birthed a baby doesn’t make you a mom,” if that makes sense. See TRANS PARENTS (Mother’s Day) for more.
I’m one of our son’s biological moms, but I’m not the one who carried him or gave birth to him.
And that’s okay with me.
Here’s an audio question I received from my fabulous friend Zoe:
TRANSCRIPTION: Hi Tilly, this is Zoe with my question for the 100th podcast episode, and it is as follows: do you have any tattoos related to The Matrix? And if you don’t and you were hypothetically going to get one, what would it be? Love you, bye!
So, at present, I do not! The only tattoo I have is the one on my right arm… does it count as more than one? It’s kind of a sleeve, but only on the outside of my arm and a little bit of the inside of my arm? You can see it in the Trans Tuesday on BODILY AUTONOMY (and my tattoo).
I’ve seen trans folks who’ve gotten the base-of-the-skull port that humans use to jack into the matrix tattooed on the back of their necks, and given that those ports all over the bodies of humans freed from the matrix represent the body changes from the wrong puberty trans people are forced to go through by a society that denies our existence (see my book BEGIN TRANSMISSION: THE TRANS ALLEGORIES OF THE MATRIX for more!), I find that such an incredibly powerful thing. To take ownership of that. To choose to put on your body this representation of what society does to us, to claim it, to say we have power over it… that’s… damn. It’s something I’ve thought about.
Buuuuut that’s also the spot that The Pink Opaque tattoo shows up in I Saw the TV Glow, where it’s a positive sign and signifier of the truth in our souls (see the Trans Tuesdays on THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW). And so I’ve thought about that, too. But they can’t both go in the same spot! Argh.
I also don’t know if I want a tattoo on the back of my neck, so these are things I’ve not thought a whole lot about. Hmm, I could maybe get the arm-ports on their bodies in The Matrix down my left arm… that’d be cool. But do I really want those there? I don’t know!
I’ve been too busy to really put enough thought into it, especially making it part of my body forever. Maybe that’ll change in the future! Right now I’m too busy to even think about what to have for lunch, so…
Well, I love this.
And while I am very enticed about the idea of punting duck-sized transphobes into trash cans, I think I’d have to go with one transphobe-sized duck. Why? Aha, it’s a trick question.
It’s because ducks are great and we wouldn’t fight, we’d be besties and now I have a human-sized duck I can ride around on.
Checkmate Tilly!
Come back next week before my cryotube thaws, as we wrap up all your questions, both sensical and non!
Welcome to Trans Tuesday! To celebrate the podcast version of these reaching its 100th episode, you sent me tons of questions, and I have tons of answers! Here’s ASK TILLY ANYTHING! …part 3?!
Okay so before I get into it, I wanna say yes, this is actually the third AMA essay I’ve done (and there will be another one next week and the week after, because you asked me too many questions to answer in one episode!).
The first two were to celebrate Trans Tuesdays reaching one hundred essays, and that happened before the podcast ever existed. So if you’ve only recently discovered Trans Tuesdays, or only listened to the podcast version, those are new to you! So check out ASK TILLY ANYTHING part 1 and ASK TILLY ANYTHING part 2.
Initially I thought I’d do another AMA to celebrate Trans Tuesdays reaching two hundred essays, but that happened in the middle of THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW deep dive, and I wasn’t gonna stop that to do an AMA and then pick it back up again.
Trans Tuesday 200 was actually THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW, part 3, and this essay (and the second one next week, and the third the week after) are actually Trans Tuesday 217, 218, and 219, for all of you Tilly’s Trans Tuesday Trivia Types out there.
But enough of that, we’ve got SO many questions to answer, so let’s get to it! I’m going to answer all of these in entirely random order… some are serious, some are thoughtful, some are goofy. It’s gonna be a good time! Let’s go!
Here’s one that was emailed to me:
I’ve heard you say that “every trans selfie is an act of resistance.” Thank you for teaching me this. It’s meant a lot to me to know that just by existing, I am fighting our patriarchal systems in our society.
I want to ask if you are the originator of that saying, so that I may give you full credit when I share it with others.
As to if I’m the originator of it… actually, I don’t know. I’ve been saying it for years and years, and every so often I feel compelled to say it again with one of the selfies I post. Because it’s absolutely true, especially now with the surge of transphobia in our government and media.
Simply showing that we cannot and will not let you take our joy at being who we are is an act of resistance in a society that wants to legislate us out of existence and pretend we aren’t real. See TRANS TRAUMA 2: SOCIETAL GASLIGHTING.
I think I came up with it? But honestly it’s also likely I may have seen someone else post or say something similar before I ever did it, and it seeped into my consciousness that way. I honestly can’t remember for sure!
This is what happens when you write two hundred and seventeen Trans Tuesdays, I guess!
Also, if you have time, would you detail some of the best tips you know on how to be actively as well as passively fighting for our rights?
Simply existing and refusing to let them stop us is fighting for our rights. It’s fighting for all of us.
Always, always, always vote for the people who will protect our rights See TRANS POLITICS 2: YOU MUST VOTE TO PROTECT US. Even when it’s frustrating. Even when it hurts. Even if all you can do is vote for someone who’s the least bad, or only half as progressive as you’d like. Every step away from full-right fascism and bigotry is a step in the right direction.
Contacting your government representatives is also really important. Even if you’re in a deep red area, call them on their bullshit every time. Even if you’re in a deep blue area, thank them when they do the right thing and stand up for us.
Beyond that, if you have the time and energy and only if it is safe for you to do so, going to marches and demonstrations, trying to be sure everyone in your life knows how important trans rights are. Call out friends and family members on their bigotry and stop letting it slide. Again, I cannot stress this enough, ONLY DO THAT IF IT IS SAFE FOR YOU TO DO SO.
This is why we need cis people to do even more of what I just outlined, because it IS safe for you to do so, and other cis people will listen to YOU when they won’t listen to US. See TRANS POLITICS 1: STOP TOLERATING TRANSPHOBIA.
But mostly, for trans folks for the foreseeable future… stay safe, stay you, and stay on this side of the ground. And be as visible as the sun (if it is safe for you to do so).
If we’re talking about the general population, honestly I think I’d say the Matrix sequels (especially Reloaded and Revolutions). I think people who’ve read my book likely already appreciate them as much as they deserve to be, but the general consensus outside of trans circles is almost actively derisive.
And, like… look, The Matrix was legitimately revolutionary in so many ways. It changed filmmaking. That’s not something that is going to happen with every sequel, too. It’s incredibly rare that that ever happens. I think you can make a case that it changed the medium just as much as the original Star Wars did.
But The Matrix has a more universally identifiable story than its sequels do. It’s very much about realizing you’re trans, choosing to accept that and then transition, but more broadly it’s about not feeling like you’re who society says you are or have to be. Everyone knows what it’s like to have expectations set upon you that you never asked for, and wanting to break out of those to be who you really are. So cis people can connect with it much more easily.
Reloaded and Revolutions (and then much later, Resurrections) are about much more specific parts of trans existence. So if you don’t know what they’re saying about trans people in the allegory… I think they’re somewhat inscrutable to a large portion of cis folks.
And that makes me kinda mad, because when cis folks declare that those movies are empirically bad, it feels like what they’re saying is “I don’t understand trans existence and therefore stories about said existence are not worth telling.” But then I remind myself that most of the folks saying that probably don’t even realize how specifically and intentionally trans the movies are. Yet it still feels like the core of it is that they think trans stories aren’t worth telling.
I swear I didn’t mean for this to turn into an advertisement for my book, but I wrote the damn thing because I’m passionate about storytelling, writing, and trans issues, and I think our stories are more important than ever.
So anyway, if you want to understand what the whole Matrix franchise is saying about trans people, and maybe understand the sequels in a way you never did before, BEGIN TRANSMISSION: THE TRANS ALLEGORIES OF THE MATRIX is the book for you! (I link to the ‘zon only so you can see the reviews, please do buy it elsewhere… but leave a review for it there if you could, it is sadly still vital to a book’s success).
I think the answer to this one is because we should not HAVE to be brave just to be ourselves. We absolutely do have to be in this world, and that’s really fucked up.
So it feels hollow and patronizing because they’re acknowledging how difficult cis people have made it for us to come out… while seemingly doing and saying nothing about how they’re going to fight to make a world where we don’t have to be brave to exist.
Again, that is on YOU, cis folks. There aren’t enough trans people to change society on our own, and it’s not our job to fix cis transphobes’ hearts. IT’S YOURS.
Maybe stop telling us we’re brave, and instead tell us how you’re going to protect us and fight for us so we don’t have to be brave just to exist.
Well gosh. Thank you, truly. I don’t know that I’ve enabled others to help each other, though. I mean, I hope I have, but that’s not for me to say. But it means a lot to me that you said that, so thank you again.
I just want to help.
I’m guessing by “different” you mean “trans” or “not cis” or “not a boy,” so that’s how I’m going to answer it (though I think I’m different from most people in a lot of ways).
I honestly don’t know how old I was, but I was pretty little… every time we would go to visit my grandma and great aunt, they would let me dress up in their dresses and costume jewelry and high heels, and I’d walk around saying I was a pretty girl.
Anyway, they (and my mom) all thought this was hilarious and that I was doing it for laughs, because of that ol’ “boys and men doing anything feminine is worthy of mockery and derision” chestnut that pops up time and time again. See any of my TRANS REP IN MEDIA reports for just how often this implicitly transphobic idea pops up.
I was… probably 3 or 4? Somewhere in there. But there came a point where suddenly it wasn’t funny anymore and I was told I was “too old” to do that now, because that’s not what boys do.
I was heartbroken.
So much so that despite most of my memories being lost from dissociation due to GENDER DYSPHORIA, that one has stuck through everything. The hurt of being denied the happiest thing I got to do.
Do not ever say there’s no such thing as trans kids. I will fling you into the sun.
Goodness, I have too many. Charlize Theron, Lupita Nyong’o, Aubrey Plaza, Hari Nef, Hayley Atwell, Katy O’Brian, Laverne Cox, Sunita Mani, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Gina Torres…
Listen, I must stop because I don’t have all day.
Michelangelo all the way. I will love the goofball every time.
All I can tell you is what works for me, but writing is kind of like transition… no two paths are exactly the same and we all have to find what works for us.
I love writing. I love writing. But even still sometimes it’s hard to face that blank page. Once I get going… I’m fine, all the way through the draft, revisions, you name it. It’s that blank page that always gets me, and I’m sure (despite all evidence to the contrary) that this time will be the time I’ve entirely forgotten how to do it.
So I force myself to set up the document, look at that blank page… and just write. JUST DO IT. Doesn’t even matter what it is, if I delete it all later, whatever. Once I start the writer-brain kicks in and off I go.
The most important thing I learned long ago, and that I think many “newer” writers struggle with, is letting go of perfection. In fact, you have to let it suck. It’s hard to just let something be bad! But it’s okay, and in fact necessary. LET IT BE BAD. You can make it great in revisions, that’s what they’re for. But you can’t fix what’s not there.
It’s why first drafts are always the hardest for me. Just let go. Let it all go and put some words down. It all starts there. And then just keep putting more words down, without worrying about if they’re good or what you want them to be. Just get ‘em out.
This is the first of several Star Trek questions that were asked, and let me just say I was delighted to see every one of them.
I have a few. Jean-Luc Picard, because I love everything about him and also because he’s my space dad. I learned a whole lot about how to be the person I am from him.
Jadzia Dax, because to a trans girl who didn’t know she was trans, I saw so much of myself in her for reasons I didn’t understand. I learned a whole lot about the person I was and wanted to be from her.
In the modern Trek era, I glommed on to Michael Burnham immediately, and over the course of Discovery she absolutely entered the upper echelon of my Trek faves.
I also gravitate a lot toward D’Vana Tendi, because I see so much of myself in her.
I can’t imagine how I’ll feel once a trans woman character finally shows up in Trek (there’ve been multiple nonbinary characters and a trans man, but still no trans women).
Or maybe I can imagine…
Wow, okay, popular question. Little known fact, but one of the earliest Trans Tuesdays was on NAMES AND PRONOUNS. You can read it for the full story on how I came to “Tilly.”
I’ve struggled with revising that one and bringing it back (and to the podcast for the first time), because it includes mention and discussion of my deadname. As this was very early on in Trans Tuesdays (it was number six!), almost everyone who was reading at the time were people who knew me pre-transition.
Even though almost nobody was reading them at the time, that was the main audience at the start. I didn’t know if other trans folks, or anyone who didn’t know me pre-transition, would ever find or read them.
So I approached it from the angle of “this is who you knew me as, but this is who I really am.” And that’s demonstrably not true for the audience for Trans Tuesdays today, as they’ve grown so much bigger than I had ever anticipated.
BUT the name “Tilly” is inextricably tied to my deadname, in that it’s hard to fully explain it without mentioning and discussing my deadname, and I just do not have any desire to do that. So go read that original essay!
The gist of it is that I liked some things about my deadname, even though I hated the name itself. I liked part of how it looked, I liked it ending with an “ee” sound, and that led me to where I ended up.
I briefly considered Victoria, but it just didn’t feel like me at all, Vicky even less so. But then I thought of Tori, as a diminutive for it, and I kind of dug that. But it wasn’t quite right.
So it went from Tori being mashed up with a few things I liked from my deadname, and Tilly was the result. Once I hit on it I knew that was it. I tested it out in my head for a while and every time it felt right.
I had it picked, and knew it was my real name, years before coming out publicly and beginning my medical and social transition (I’ve said many times I knew as far back as 2015 that I was trans but couldn’t do anything about it until a set time in 2020. Though I recently discovered evidence I’d forgotten that now makes me think it was even earlier, maybe 2014 or 2013.)
Anyway! Go read that essay if you want more, but caution: contains deadname! I don’t care if people know what my deadname was, I came out in such a public way because I was already fairly well known in the podcasting community and my deadname and deadvoice are in the credits of hundreds of podcast episodes, there’s no way I could change them all so it’s not like I could hide it even if I wanted to.
I just don’t like thinking about the time I was associated with that name.
There’s a great power in choosing your own name, though. If you don’t feel yours fits, pick one that does! First, middle, last, whatever! This goes for cis people, too.
You get one life and it’s yours, and nothing is more you than your name. It should be what best speaks to YOU.
I sadly never really got into webcomics, for a whole list of boring reasons about my available time and how much more of it I wanted to spend at my computer when the webcomic boom happened (and you couldn’t yet read them on smartphones, as there were no smartphones).
One of the hardest parts for me, for a long time, was “the cringe” of having to hear my old voice over and over again. Not just when speaking it, but even worse… when recorded and played back. Recording yourself practicing and listening to it played back is the best way to hear what techniques you need more practice with, and which ones you’re doing well.
And that’s so hard to do when your voice gives you dysphoria, like mine did.
What I had to do was remind myself, every time, that I was doing this for me. Spoiler: that’s also what kept me practicing consistently every single day for three years!
It feels like a chore, it’s painful to listen to and makes you feel awful, but we’re doing it to make ourselves feel better. I cannot tell you the joy and GENDER EUPHORIA that I get from hearing myself now, because it sounds like me.
And I could never have gotten to that point if I didn’t put in all the work, and push through how bad hearing my old voice made me feel.
So just remind yourself that you’re doing it so that you won’t sound so cringe to your own ears in the future. We’re dealing with it more now so that we can hopefully reach a point where we never have to deal with it again.
Damn. I wish I had an easy answer for you. Though… maybe I do.
Because what I was going to say was that you’re not alone. I feel that way and ask myself that, too. I think all of us do.
And that’s where the “easy” answer is. You get the will, the wherewithal, the whatever it is you need to get through from community. Absolutely none of us, myself included, are going to get through this alone.
We need each other for support and help. I find, so often, that in helping others with their struggles I help myself in the process, and I think that’s almost universally true.
And if you don’t have any community, come on over to my Discord, because there’s a whole thriving community there who’d be so glad to have you.
Here’s an audio question I received from my lovely friend Jenn Wallace:
TRANSCRIPTION: Hello Tilly, hello Susan, Jenn Wallace here. Congratulations on your first hundred episodes. You know, when you had me on you asked me four questions, but I’ll just go ahead and ask one. So, what’s been the absolute best thing about your first hundred episodes. All right, love you, bye!
For me, I think there’s a couple things. I love all the folks we’ve been able to bring on and introduce to all our listeners, and show the world how incredibly diverse and different and amazing and human we all are. I love love love being able to do that, and that’s something the podcast gets to do that the text version of my essays don’t. So I’m very grateful for that.
But if one hundred podcast episodes and two hundred seventeen essays have shown me anything, it’s that I love doing this, and it means so much to me that it’s meant so much to all of you. Your responses have always been the best part, and that’s not changed. Knowing something helped you, or helped someone you know… it’s just everything.
And I’ll keep doing it for as long as I have something to say and am able to.
And with the way trans people written by cis writers in media is going, I will not be allowed to die and will be doing my 2874 TRANS REP IN MEDIA report from my cryo-tube at the end of the universe where I think my thoughts into a computer and they’re beamed right into your brains one cryo-tube over.
Like oh my god, can you believe how cold it is in here? Unacceptable!
Come back next week as I beam more AMA answers direct into your thinkmeats!
Welcome to #TransTuesday! Let’s talk about something that I think nearly every trans person who transitions as an adult wakes up to, and something many cis people probably never even realize happens. Let’s get into TRANS TRAUMA 2: SOCIETAL GASLIGHTING.
Let me start by saying that trans people are not the only marginalized population that this happens to. To different degrees, it happens to every community that isn’t non-disabled Christian cishet white men.
But as this is a trans Tuesday essay, I’m obviously gonna be talking about the ways it affects transgender people. I just don’t want anyone reading to think I’m implying this only happens to the trans population. Some of the specifics may be unique, but broadly this is something that every marginalized community probably deals with in some form or another.
And if you don’t understand how every marginalized community has more in common than not, how none of us are free until all of us are free, how if we’re not fighting for each other we’re not really fighting the problem and nothing will ever change, see the Trans Tuesday on TRANS INTERSECTIONALITY.
Allllllright, so what the heck am I talking about when I say “societal gaslighting?” You’re not gonna believe this, but it’s exactly what you think it is when you read those words.
It’s when all of society gaslights you. And just in case you’re not familiar, gaslighting is when someone (usually just a single person, or small group) acts like or pretends that what you know to be real is, in fact, not real. The goal is to make you question whether you know what is real and true.
The term comes from the 1938 play Gas Light (adapted into the film Gaslight in 1944), where a husband used, you guessed it, gaslights to do this very thing to his wife to try and convince her that she’s crazy so he could gain access to her inheritance. You can learn more about it here.
“How can something like that be done on a societal level, Tilly?!” I hear you scream.
Okay, listen. L I S T E N.
I’m not saying every cis person goes to their weekly Cis People Are The Best meeting and actively plans to lie to and deceive trans people as a whole (we all know those meetings are just to talk about cargo shorts and how great it is to feel like your mind and body are connected by default).
What I’m getting at is that society has trained us, both cis people AND trans people, to gaslight we trans people about the nature of our existence.
How in the hell is that possible? Well, my friends, it’s because implicit biases are in all of us. Yes, ALL of us. Even me, and even you. We didn’t want them, we didn’t ask for them, we didn’t put them there, or even know they’re there. But they are.
It’s the result of growing up and living in a system that reinforces compulsory cisgenderness at every single turn, often to the exclusion or even acknowledgement of transgender as a thing people can be.
For more on this, see the Trans Tuesday on IMPLICIT QUEERPHOBIA, and how even people who think they’re a good ally to trans and queer people, can hold biases against us because we are “outside the norm” of their expectations… expectations seeded by the compulsory cisgender heterosexuality of our society.
And when I said that most trans people, by virtue of being raised in this system and society, gaslight other trans people (and ourselves), it’s because we’ve also absorbed those implicit biases about ourselves. And we call that INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIA, so see that Trans Tuesday too.
And if you doubt the compulsory cisgender heterosexuality of our society, see the Trans Tuesday on GENDERED CHILDHOODS for all the deets on that lil’ poop nugget.
And if you need more on how society does this with basically everything, see the Trans Tuesday on THE FALSE DICHOTOMY.
I’ve mentioned time and Time and TIME again how for most of my life, I didn’t even know that trans was something someone could be. I can’t link you to a Trans Tuesday where I’ve talked about it, because it’s popped up so often I can’t even remember them all.
If you’re thinking that an entire society gaslighting you into thinking a fact of your existence is not real would really fuck you up, kudos to you because it certainly does.
You can see one of the ways it manifested for me in the Trans Tuesday on SEARCHING FOR MEANING (when you’re trans and don’t know it), and how I was always trying to find the inner truth about myself for my entire life, but not knowing where to look… or even being aware that that’s what I was doing.
And so it absolutely makes you question your reality, and what’s real. Because if I have these feelings that “I’d really like to be a girl” and “I feel way more like a girl than a boy” but your parents, your friends, your family, every stranger you meet and all the media and art you absorb says YOU ARE A BOY, well… how could all of them be wrong?
HOW COULD EVERYONE IN THE WORLD BE WRONG?
IMPOSSIBLE!
THEREFORE… SOMETHING MUST BE WRONG WITH *ME*.
But the feeling doesn’t go away. Even when we pretend it’s not there. Even when we try and try and try and try and try and try and try and try to make it go away.
You can see it in the Trans Tuesday on THE SIGNS WERE ALWAYS THERE, where once we realize we’re trans, we can often look back and spot countless examples of our transness from our lives, even though we didn’t know that’s what they were at the time.
You can also see it in the Trans Tuesday on HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE TRANS, where we try to figure it out and maybe even recognize things that are clearly signs of transness to anyone looking, but will tell ourselves, “Still cis tho!”
Gaslighting ourselves, at the behest of our own internalized transphobia, telling ourselves that a fundamental reality of our existence cannot possibly be true, because that would mean literally everyone else was wrong.
IMPOSSIBLE!
This plays out in brilliant ways in media designed to talk about the trans experience, like THE MATRIX franchise (see my book on it), and in BARBIE, and in I SAW THE TV GLOW… all of which have people living in an alternate, fake reality, living a fake life, and not knowing what’s real!
And it’s also part of what makes a seemingly unintentional trans allegory like season one of SILO so very trans, too… because the characters don’t know what’s real and are being lied to about it by society.
I was obsessed with writing stories about “the nature of reality” pre-transition, and I didn’t know why. It was just part of trying to figure out why the entire world felt so broken and wrong. But the entire world can’t be broken and wrong, so maybe I am? That’s what our gaslighting society would have you believe, as you see playing out time and time again as all-cisgender politicians attempt to legislate trans people out of existence and deny our rights… as if they’re not true. As if we’re not human beings deserving of the care we need and the right to live our lives as our true selves. That’s all part of it.
They call us “unnatural” (a lie), “aberrations” (false), “anomalies” (nope, we’re not those either).
And that inflicts a trauma on you that you would not believe. It’s something I still struggle with, four and a half years into social and medical transition. I’ll probably always struggle with it, because that trauma’s built up over a lifetime.
One thing I want to mention from those Trans Grief essays, and it’s something that you’ve probably seen pop up in a few other essays as well, is how my life was stolen from me. My childhood was stolen from me.
I didn’t get to be a little girl, or a teenage girl, or a young woman. I mean, I was always a woman, but I didn’t get to live as one, as me. I lived it pretending to be someone I’m not, and that too royally fucks you up. See the Trans Tuesday on GENDER DYSPHORIA.
And I’m still finding new ways that it’s impacting my life.
I grew up in the midwest, and lived there into my adulthood before we moved out to Los Angeles. LA feels like home in a way no other place ever has, and I love it here for so many reasons, and I thought that’s why the idea of going back to the midwest didn’t appeal to me.
But it’s more than that. There’s this stretch on the route I drive my son to school on, that… is bad.
It’s only a block long.
There’s just large apartment buildings on either side of the road.
There’s literally nothing remarkable about it.
And it… terrifies me? It makes my chest clench and my breathing ragged, and I feel like I’m being crushed. Like I’m drowning. HEY WAIT, that’s how I described my dysphoria.
And that’s also how I feel any time I so much as think about the possibility of going back to the midwest. What the heck?
What I discovered in searching and studying this block every time I drove through it was that it reminded me of the midwest. Of Chicago, where I grew up. It’s all tall buildings and right angles and deciduous and pine trees. And especially on gloomy days, when it all looks extra gray and flat and morose, it makes me want to run away and hide.
Because the association with extra gray skies, flat ground, only deciduous and pine trees, tall buildings and right angles… they remind me of my childhood. And that was nothing but a sea of dysphoria, and so it triggers those dysphoric feelings in me and makes me panic.
Like I’m going to lose everything I’ve gained. Like I’m going to be forced back into the false shell. Like I’m going to be forced back into living that lie. Like I’m going to be forced back into unending pain and despair with no way out.
Like I’m dying.
But this is the fastest route to take and my time is always at a premium, so I have to keep driving through that stretch. I can’t avoid it.
So I studied it further. And I realized there are a few palm trees scattered in there, but I’d been missing them. There are mountains waaaaaaay off, but I can see them (when it’s not too hazy). And I can remind myself you are not THERE. HERE is NOT there. You are in California. You are living as your true self. You made the impossible…
POSSIBLE!
But damn if it wasn’t tough to do that. And I have to remind myself to look for the palms, look for the mountains, to not panic through that innocuous stretch of one block of apartment buildings.
There are other ways this has impacted me too, that I haven’t really found a way through yet.
There’s music that, as a teen, I used to love. I was a known fanatic of a few singers.
When my wife and I got re-married earlier this year, to have a wedding with the real me, this actually came up. NO music from the artists I was a former fanatic of were on that playlist I kept getting complimented on.
And as I mentioned in the Trans Tuesday on A TRANS RE-WEDDING, the same old friend who was very surprised to see the “new” (true) me and how different I was, especially from our original wedding, said she was surprised there was no music played from these artists I was such a huge fan of.
And I had to tell her the sad truth of it is that I can’t really bear to listen to their stuff anymore, because it takes me right back to high school. And while a lot of music can do things like that for a lot of people, when the place it takes you back to is one of misery and pain and endless, hopeless despair… that’s not a place you want to go back to.
I’ve thought about maybe taking time to revisit those artists, to see if I could find a way through like I did with that one block of apartment buildings that nearly gave me a panic attack. But that’d mean taking hours to subject myself to terrible feelings to try and work through them.
And while that’d probably be a good and healthy thing for me to do, again my time is at a premium and I don’t have a day (or more) that I can potentially lose to the emotional fallout of whatever misery it might inflict.
So until I have the time and energy to confront that, I basically have to just avoid those artists entirely.
I guess where I’m going with this is that for so many of us who transition as adults, our past lives are filled with pain and trauma and it’s so hard to deal with. And that’s just from the transphobic gaslighting of society, never mind any other stuff in our lives that may have been painful on top of all that.
I want to say really quick that Trans Tuesdays will be off for the rest of the year for a planned break (these are just so much work), but will be back mid-January 2025!
I want to thank our sound editor Jillian Morgan for making the podcast version of Trans Tuesdays possible, without her I never could have brought Trans Tuesdays to that medium. I’m so glad she’s my partner in this.
I want to thank all our podcast guests this year, because I think we’ve had some really important, lovely, vital conversations.
And thanks to all of you for reading just so much of my writing for another year. I appreciate your time and your eyes more than you know, and I hope these have been some help to you.
As my final thought for the year, I want to say this:
To the cis folks reading, please try to understand some of what we might be dealing with. And go out of your way to assure us that you see us. That you support us. That you’re there for us. And remember that we need action, not just words. We NEED you.
And to the other trans, nonbinary, non-cis folks reading, let me say this:
Welcome to Trans Tuesday! Much to my own surprise, this week is a topic people have asked me about for literal years, which blows my mind, but here we are! Welcome to PHOTOS 3: TILLY’S GUIDE TO SELFIES.
This is all related, first of all, to the Trans Tuesday on PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS, and how those can be so difficult for so many trans people for most of our lives.
And then there’s the Trans Tuesday on PHOTOS 2: THE SELFIE APOCALYPSE, when everything changed and I started seeing myself in photos all the time without even trying.
Over the past few years, especially after all my photos flipped to being amazing for me, people asked me for tips on taking selfies. Trans people, certainly, but even cis people were asking me how they could get such good selfies.
And at first that was so weird to me. Well okay, it’s still so weird to me. Because I look at the photos and I like them and think they’re wonderful, but that’s literally all I care about. So the fact that they (and by extension, me) could look good to anyone else wasn’t even something I had considered.
Though I should have, for I am very hot and cute and need to be told so regularly 😌
It’s important to know that cameras lie. But they also tell a truth. Not the truth. It’s complex!
So a camera only records exactly what’s in front of it, right? Yes! Exceeeeeeeept…
What’s in front of it is drastically impacted by the framing of the photographer, the lens, the lighting, perspective, the angle of the shot, and more.
I love this image, but I have no idea where it’s originally from.
The genius of that image is it’s used to talk about the way the media frames stories, like refusing to name Trump’s bigotry for what it is and instead saying he has “unconventional ideas” or whatever.
But it also works for actual, literal cameras. The person controlling the camera controls what you, the viewer, see. The camera isn’t lying, but it’s also not telling the truth.
In fact, Hollywood has used this sort of thing for ages for special effects, long before the advent of CGI. This gif from the silent movie Safety Last! shows you how forced perspective provided an astounding special effect.
So that camera wasn’t lying, right? It was showing you exactly what it saw. But the people using that camera used what it saw to distort what you saw. And this is how cameras can both lie and tell the truth at the same time.
Forced perspective is used all the time, and in fact is what was used, rather than CGI, through most of the Lord of the Rings films to make the hobbits appear small!
So the art of a good selfie is being aware of things like that, and manipulating the camera to get it to show the you that is the truth, and not a distorted view of who you are and what you see.
Annnnnyway, over the course of taking mumble mumble number of selfies, I’ve learned a whole lot about what works and what doesn’t. And while what works for me may not be what works for you, there are some general guidelines that will help everyone!
I believe there are three main components to good selfies:
1 – Lighting
2 – Angle of the camera lens (and the lens itself)
3 – Your style
I shall now attempt to explain them all as best I can! Let’s go in order.
LIGHTING
Your best lighting is almost always going to be sunlight, but not direct sunlight. It’s way too strong and will wash you out or make things look harsh. That’s true of artificial light too, however.
Direct light is harsh, and even more importantly it casts hard shadows, which are going to make absolutely everyone look bad or like you’re in a horror movie.
You want diffuse light, ie light that is ambient or bounced or reflected back toward you.
This is the main reason most of my selfies are taken in the same spot in our small apartment, because it’s the one place with really good, natural, diffuse lighting.
Note the lack of hard shadows (or any shadows!) as I half-turn toward the light source so the diffuse light is hitting my face and front side.
I take my photos right next to a big window, but never when the sun is directly shining in the spot I stand.
So the light you see in them is bouncing in through the window off the street, sidewalk, plants, and buildings outside. It gives a really soft, natural glow and I swear to you that’s fifty percent of the entire battle.
What happens when the lighting is bad?
This photo was taken by my lovely wife Susan at Nickelodeon for the Monster High “graduation party” that wrapped season two of the show. We wrote six episodes that season! That’s why we were there. If you didn’t know, now you know.
Anyway, I like this photo because it shows me and my fabulous fit at the Monster High party, but I don’t like how my face looks in it at all. There’s no dysphoria from it, it just looks… bad. And kinda not like me.
This isn’t Susan’s fault. In fact, she’s the one that told me there was really bad lighting there but I wanted a photo anyway. It was important to me to commemorate the show and getting to attend the party, but it’s not a great photo of me.
There’s harsh light directly overhead, and look at the stark shadows it’s casting all over my face. It makes me look weird! That kind of lighting will make anyone look weird, which is the point.
If you’re not thinking about lighting, you’re going to have a really tough time getting photos of you that look good. There’s a sort of meme along the lines of… if you want to know where the good lighting is, just follow the trans girls. We spent a lifetime waiting for amazing pictures of us, and even subconsciously many of us figure out how to find the good lighting wherever we’re at.
If you can’t tell where the good lighting is in your home, it’s super easy to figure out with modern phones. Just turn on the front facing camera so you see yourself on the screen, and then… turn and walk around, paying close attention to the ways the light and shadow move across your face. When you find a spot that gets you good, consistent, even, diffuse lighting… X marks the spot.
If you’re outside and it’s really bright, photos in the shade are your friend. But there’s other things you can do, too. My large sunhat (in stealth trans pride flag colors, heck yeah) can turn direct sunlight into diffuse sunlight that hits my face, meaning I can get pretty good selfies anywhere outside when I’m wearing it.
ANGLE
We all have angles we prefer and dislike, for a variety of reasons. There are angles we feel we look better from, angles that are unflattering to almost everyone, angles that help us see what we want to see. People say they have “a good side” for a reason.
I’m partial to the right side of my face, as opposed to the left side. I don’t hate the left side! But I think the right is… better somehow. It probably has something to do with my left cheek having a scar on it that I really don’t like.
And like, don’t feel bad if you have scars. Scars can be cool! But this one isn’t, for me, for reasons. I don’t like it, and I think it messes up my selfies, so you will rarely see it.
It just so happens that I am also right handed, and so when taking selfies I hold the phone with my right hand, and thus it’s easier to shoot the right side of my face.
It also just so happens that the spot in our small apartment with the best lighting is the window I take most of my selfies near, which requires turning to my left for better lighting and no shadows.
It’s a trifecta of things that make right-handed selfies in that one spot work really well for me.
But also you might not even realize just HOW much angle will affect how a person looks. We can debate whether this photo is a selfie or not (I used a tripod and a remote, so it’s me taking the photo, but I wasn’t holding the phone), but here’s a straight-on shot of me.
Look how much it changed the shape of my face compared to the selfie in the white top with poofy shoulder thingies. I’m the same human, nothing major happened to me or even with my HRT between these two photos, so no major changes to my face have occurred (see the Trans Tuesday on HRT if you need more info).
This is exacerbated by the very light shadows on the right side of my face, your left as you look at the photo. This is because I’ve turned a bit away from the light source (the window I use), and so my nose and other features are now casting those shadows.
They’re very faint, because it was very bright when I took that photo and a LOT of light comes through the window, so it’s not dire, stark shadows like in the one from the Monster High party. Soft shadows can be okay (and you may even prefer how you look with them!), but they will change the way your face is perceived by both you and others.
There’s also likely to be some kind of distortion no matter what angle you use. In fact, different lenses shot from different distances can completely alter the way a face looks. Here’s a great article about it!
So how much can the angle or lens change an image? Well all of my selfies are taken with my phone’s front-facing camera, so the lens doesn’t change. But my distance from it does (especially when I use the tripod), and the angle always does.
Look at this shot of me in my first bikini!
Pretty great, right? It’s okay, you can tell me. 😉
But look at my stomach there. Which is a weird thing to say, but it looks soft and nice.
But I’ve worked for years and YEARS on shaping my body with exercise, it was the first thing I ever did to start my transition. You can read all about it in the Trans Tuesday on BODY HACKING.
So when I posted that bikini pic to social media, I had to include a second photo… because that first one does not at all accurately show you what I’ve achieved with my abs.
Now look at me in the bikini from another angle.
Look how different my abs are in the second photo! Look between the two photos and marvel at what angle alone can do.
For that matter, feel free to ogle those biceps I’ve worked so hard for. I love them so much.
Okay but now look at that exact same bicep in similar lighting but from an entirely different angle.
That angle erases all the years of work and progress I’ve put into my biceps! It looks tiny and barely defined at all.
And if angle alone can do that for a bicep, just imagine what it does to a face.
You can find the angles you like and that you think work for you the same way you found good lighting.
In fact, that’s where you need to start. Go back to that “X marks the spot” that you found with good lighting, and now use your front-facing camera and move it all around you. Up, down, left, right.
Look at the ways it changes your face shape and appearance, and find the ones that show the true you. In fact, just turn your phone sideways as if taking a horizontal selfie and watch how that changes your face too. Because you’ve moved the lens and it’s now shooting you from a different angle, which will make you look different.
For what it’s worth, I STILL haven’t figured out how to find an angle I really like in horizontal selfies. So if I want to take a selfie with a bunch of people all gathered and turn the phone horizontal to fit them all into the frame, I’m not gonna like what it does to my face because I haven’t found the right spot for it yet.
I don’t take many selfies in landscape mode for a reason. I mean I don’t often have occasion to, though, so I don’t practice it. And if we don’t practice at something we’re never going to get better.
Practice, practice, practice! It really helps.
If you pay attention, trans folks, you’ll see a ton of cis people who post great selfies are already doing this. They know their angles, they know where the good lighting is, and they stick to them.
And that’s great for them! And for you, too. Do whatever you have to in order to make the camera show you the truth.
STYLE
This is one that may seem unrelated, but it really matters.
Part of (but not the main or even biggest portion of) the reason I disliked so many of my early selfies is because it took me years of trial and error to find my style, to find the clothes that truly expressed myself and who I am.
And so, surprise surprise, when I was taking selfies in clothes that didn’t accurately represent me… those photos didn’t accurately represent me! It definitely played into them not feeling all the way like “me”.
I did a whole Trans Tuesday about FINDING OUR TRANS STYLE that may hopefully help you through it a little, but unfortunately it’s something we all have to figure out on our own. Nobody can tell you what your style is.
We can tell you what we think might look good on you, but what we think is not what you think, and until you’re happy in your skin and your style, your photos might always feel like they’re not really you yet. Because they aren’t!
So do what you can to settle into the way you want to express yourself through your clothes.
Find the angles you love.
Find that good lighting.
Experiment. Fail. Learn. Experiment again.
And eventually maybe you’ll find your way to selfie nirvana.
Welcome to #TransTuesday! This is a completely unplanned, last-minute installment because I couldn’t not talk about what just happened. Here comes THE 2024 ELECTION RESULTS: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
First off, I want to apologize for it taking most of a week for me to get this up. My schedule is always bananas busy, but I also just didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what I could say. I didn’t know how to voice the feelings that I didn’t know how to describe.
But I’ve found myself in a position I never thought I’d be in, or intended to be in. Way back when I started Trans Tuesdays (see WHAT IS TRANS TUESDAY for more), it was because I wanted to use my privilege and the skills i have as a writer to try and help people.
And since then they’ve grown so far beyond anything I ever imagined when they were just little social media threads being read by all of two people, one of whom was my wife that I made edit them for me.
But then they led to MY BOOK, and a much bigger following, and a whole Discord community that popped up around them and became a truly amazing, friendly, wonderful, and supportive place. And I have all these eyes looking to me for some kind of answers about what happened in the 2024 election, and I didn’t have any.
I was reeling. I was grieving. I was so scared, and so wounded.
I wanted to curl up into a ball, hide under the covers, and never ever come out again.
And in the middle of that, I had people begging me to not leave social media. I had people telling me that I am somehow one of the “important trans voices” they’re worried will be silenced.
(for the record, any social media owned by a billionaire, especially Musk and Zuckerberg, are going to be incredibly friendly to the incoming administration. Their platforms have not been safe for trans people, and it’s going to get even worse. FIND ME ON BLUESKY.)
Anyway, all of that was… I don’t know how to deal with it. I never set out to be looked up to, or to be “important,” or anything like that.
I’m just some chick, y’know?
Just some chick with a lot of privilege who wanted to help people. And it’s been amazing to know that I have. I don’t mean that egotistically or anything, it’s just that you’ve told me.
Time and again, in the reviews of my book, in the emails you’ve sent me telling me how much the essays or podcast helped you, or helped people in your life understand you, or helped you understand your trans kids.
You’ve told me in my DMs as your egg cracked right in front of me and you needed someone to tell you we’ve all been through it, and that it was going to be okay. That you could do it and be that person inside that excites and terrifies and electrifies and invigorates you.
I never thought any of that would happen, or even could.
So as I sat lost in my own head, as my wife Susan repeatedly held me and hugged me and kissed me and let me work through it all, even as she was working through just as much, I realized that I had to say something, so I strapped my ass-kickin’ boots back on.
Because if the goal of Trans Tuesdays is to use what I have to do what I can to help everyone I can reach (and it absolutely is), then it’s more important than ever that they continue.
That I try to correct the ocean of misinformation, one raindrop at a time.
That I try to help trans and nonbinary people out there feel like they’re not alone.
That I remind you that we’re all more alike than not, that our differences should be celebrated and are what make us strong and beautiful.
That the darkness does not own us.
Cannot claim us.
Will not stop us.
And I wish I didn’t have to say this, but here’s the hard truth: the results of this election cannot be fixed overnight. They cannot be fixed quickly. The damage hasn’t even started yet, and it may take so much longer than any of us want for it to be undone. SCOTUS is probably fucked for the rest of my life, and that’s really hard to deal with.
But we can’t ignore the very real danger we’re facing. We have to acknowledge it.
So we can plan. So we can work to fight it.
Because I want you to remember that seventy million Americans voted to protect our rights.
And millions less people voted for Trumpin 2024 than 2020.
I’m not going to get into Monday morning election quarterbacking or figuring out who to blame (but everyone who didn’t bother to vote? You’re on my eternal shit list, and whatever’s coming is just as much on you as it is everyone who voted for Trump).
The point is we are not alone. There are good people out there, who will fight for what’s right, and for every human being to be treated with dignity and respect and who will fight for all of us to one day be truly equal in the eyes of the law.
So how do we get through this?
I don’t have all the answers. I’m not the Oracle. But I can continue loving you like I do, and doing what I can. I can be as much of an Oracle as possible, even if I’m one who’s incredibly human and prone to mistakes and typos and eating too much pizza (because why would I stop when it’s so fucking good? Riddle me that, Batman).
So here are my suggestions to you. Maybe they’ll help.
Feel those feelings.
You cannot do anything else until that’s out of the way. Burying them only lets them fester and makes things worse. You gotta let ‘em out. Sob in the arms of a friend, go to a smash room and break a bunch of shit. Do whatever you gotta do to get yourself back to as close to whatever “normal” is gonna be.
It’s okay to be sad, to be mad, to be scared. Feel it. Release it.
We feel it, but we do not give in to it.
Survival is the most important thing.
Trans and nonbinary fam, please listen to me. I know you’re hurt. I know you’re full of rage. I know you’re scared, and not knowing what’s coming doesn’t help. But this is the most important thing going forward:
You must survive.
YOU MUST SURVIVE.
YOU (yes, YOU, the person reading this, I swear to fuck I’m talking to YOU) MUST do EVERYTHING YOU CAN to remain on this side of the ground.
They want us to not exist. They want to pretend we’re not real. They want to pretend we don’t matter.
And the biggest act of defiance any of us can do, the best way any of us can fight them, is to continue existing in spite of all they do.
If it’s not safe in your area, move if you can. If you can’t, and you have to go back into the closet or hide your transness to protect yourself, that’s okay. There is nothing wrong with that! It doesn’t make you less trans!
I’m not saying that wouldn’t hurt, and I’m not saying you SHOULD go into the closet. Only you can make the determination if that’s what’s safest for you until you can get somewhere safer.
But if you feel that’s what you have to do to stay safe, then it’s okay to do it. I’m telling you right now, IT IS OKAY. You are still trans, you are still loved, you are still part of the community.
If it’s not going to be safe for you to be out and proud, go stealth. Not an ideal situation, of course, but again survival is Priority One. And if that will get the job done, then do it.
And for those of us, like me, who are privileged to be in a safe home, in a state that protects us and is already vowing to fight Trump as best they can and gum up the works so he gets less done, and to continue protecting us:
It is more important than ever that we be out
that we be LOUD
that we be ULTRA ROBO MEGA BRIGHT AS THE SUN VISIBLE.
We have to show them that we won’t be cowed. Won’t give in to the despair that they want to drown us all in. To show those of us who DO have to be stealth, that DO have to go back into the closet, that we will be there for them. That we will be out because they can not be.
We will be their visibility until it’s safe for them to join us, or until we’re forced to stop.
Only you can make the determination that if it’s safe for you to be extra out, loud, and proud. And one day it might not be, because things change and we don’t know how bad it’s gonna get.
But we do not know what’s coming or how bad it will get.
Blue states are fighting back. Seventy million of us tried to stop this. We’re going to resist and fight and slow everything down as much as we can. And we need to start working NOW on trying to get the House and Senate back in 2026, so we can gum up the works even further.
Do not catastrophize.
And for all that is worth saving:
DO NOT OBEY IN ADVANCE.
Do not say “well they’re going to make HRT illegal, so I might as well stop taking it.” Do not say “well posting trans content on the internet might be made illegal, so I guess I’ll stop Trans Tuesdays.”
No.
NO.
FUCK THAT NOISE.
All that does is cede your power to them without them even trying to take it. You’re teaching them what they can do.
From On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder:
I write. It’s what I do. Because I must. And I believe art can change the world. Susan and I will keep telling trans and queer stories, keep showing that love and hope can and will win.
Art can change the world.
Trans and queer friends, don’t give up creating. The world needs your stories, your drawings, your paintings, your music, all of our art now more than ever.
Make it as trans and queer and weird as you can. Let it fly.
I was recently on a podcast discussing The Terminator (you’ll get to hear me be too vulnerable and cry about how much it means to me). It’s one of my favorite movies of all time.
And I bring this up now for a reason, because this is about the power of art.
HALLOWEEN has always been complex and difficult for me, for reasons I talked about in its Trans Tuesday. After transition it was suddenly fun and exciting, but I felt all this pressure, because in my first real costume of my entire life (not a costume on top of my bad costume of a cis man), I felt it had to be meaningful. I wanted it to be important to me.
My first Halloween as an out trans woman, I did nothing, because I was too newly out and not feeling much myself yet. The second I just tossed on some random 80s clothes (yes I already just had them, shut up, whatevs, as if) and went as an 80s chick. Fun, but not really a costume.
Last year I went in a purple dress with spiderwebs all over it. Also fun! But still not really a costume.
But this year? I figured it out a year early. My first real costume would be… Sarah Connor. And not the badass Sarah Connor from T2, but the in-over-her-head Sarah Connor from The Terminator.
Because this is where Sarah Connor becomes a badass.
Where fate stares her in the eye and she says no.
NO.
There is no fate but what we make.
And that’s such a trans affirmation of life. Fate made us trans, but we decide what to do about it. We decide, when it’s safe for us to do so, that we can change everything and live a better life.
I choose to fight. I choose to be me. I choose to not accept fate.
Me and seventy million of my best friends are gonna fight for a better world.
Trans Tuesdays will continue as long as I have something to say, and until they make me stop.
I will use my voice. And I will write.
P!NK is so super important to me (see the Trans Tuesday all about her), and she summed it up perfectly:
I will do everything I can to open people’s hearts, ears, minds. Because I’m not going anywhere. I’ve seen change, and I HAVE to believe that change is possible. Because if I stop believing that? Then it’s just a little too much for me. So I have a pen and I write. I write about that.
Let me leave you with my favorite line from The Terminator (which is so apt, because the movie’s about people running from, and then working together to stop, a seemingly unstoppable force).
And this line is so trans. So trans. Especially in this moment.
So here it is, from me, to all of you, my trans and nonbinary siblings. Hear it from my heart.
Thank you, Sarah, for your courage through the dark years. I can’t help you with what you must soon face, except to say that the future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. You must be stronger than you imagine you can be. You must survive, or I will never exist.
Together. That’s how we get through this.
Find community. Hold on to them tight, we’re all gonna need each other.
If you don’t have any (and even if you do), you can JOIN MY DISCORD. It’s become such a wonderful, supportive community full of amazing trans people and our accomplices. We’d love to have you join us.
And for as long as I can, as long as I am able, I will try to be your lighthouse in the darkness.
I will keep writing about the trans experience for as long as the foundation holds.
And cis friends, it is more important than ever that you share these. Often.
YOU must help us fight this.
I love you, babes. That’s not hollow, or just words.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
Yeah things are bad, but you think you can stop me, motherfuckers?
I lived a lifetime with dysphoria, don’t test me.
I will fight you forever. For me, for every other trans person, for every other marginalized community you want to hurt (INTERSECTIONALITY is the only way forward and the only way we win, babes).
I wanted to add this here as I feel it’s apt to the essay as a whole. As I’ve mentioned a few times before, every morning I post a “pre-coffee thoughts with Tilly” on social media, and I wanted to record a couple of them.
November 6, 2024, after waking up and seeing the final election results:
hope in the face of darkness is the most punk thing ever, but holy shit it’s not easy
And then November 7, 2024, my general outlook going foward:
like a mountain breaking the plain to reach for the sky full of curves and altitude resisting the gravity of it all she stood for all the world to see
Welcome to #TransTuesday! This is part 2 of a series that are some of the most important Trans Tuesdays ever. Cis friends, again… please read. Take it to heart. Talk to other cis people about this, we need you. Here comes TRANS POLITICS 2: YOU MUST VOTE TO PROTECT US.
Cis friends, I have two big asks for you at the end of this essay. Please take them to heart.
Also, a quick reminder that Trans Tuesdays are off next week for election day. We’re back on Nov. 12!
To begin with, please be sure to have read TRANS POLITICS 1: STOP TOLERATING TRANSPHOBIA. You need to understand how and why transphobia, and all bigotry, cannot be, must not be tolerated.
Perhaps you think I’m blowing things out of proportion. Perhaps you don’t know about all dangers the trans and broader queer community face. Biden’s been president for four years, how bad could it be?
Biden’s not running again, so I’m not going to get into the specifics of his policies, but I will note that while he did some things to protect trans folks, he also did some things to harm us. And he repeatedly said he “had our backs” and then did nothing to stop half of the country from legislating trans rights away.
But they haven’t attempted anything on the federal level, at least! Right? Right? Incorrect.
Policies like these will cause trans people, and trans KIDS, to end up dead. Sure maybe they can’t pass now… but if the Republicans take control of the house and senate and presidency, what then? They already have the Supreme Court.
To prohibit the use of Federal funds to develop, implement, facilitate, or fund any sexually-oriented program, event, or literature for children under the age of 10, and for other purposes… This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Stop the Sexualization of Children Act”.
They classify telling kids that trans people exist and are a type of person you can be as part of this. And call it SEXUALIZING children! When trans kids who don’t receive gender-affirming care already are at very high risk of suicide! See the Trans Tuesday on TRANS KIDS AND THE INTAKE EXAM.
Read that bill and see how many things it would affect. Schools. Libraries. Private businesses. THEY ARE TRYING TO ERASE US FROM EXISTENCE. Which will cause trans people (including kids) untold pain and suffering and possibly a lifetime of trauma. It’s sickening and abhorrent.
And if you don’t understand how these laws result in dead trans kids, please do some reading.
That proposed bill definitely didn’t become law, but it’s not a one-off thing, is it? They’re not gonna go “aw shucks” and never try again, are they? Especially if they control all branches of government.
Just look at what Project 2025 says about trans people.
Project 2025 classifies EXISTING AS TRANS as being pornographic (and that we’re child predators by default), and then it says pornography should be outlawed.
THE MAIN REPUBLICAN PLATFORM IS TO MAKE BEING TRANSGENDER ILLEGAL.
THE FACT THAT WE EXIST IS NO MORE SEXUAL THAN THE FACT CIS PEOPLE EXIST.
oh my god oh my god I’m so mad. Are you as enraged as we are? YOU SHOULD BE.
And it’s not like that’s the end of the horrors of Project 2025. It’s a nightmare in every conceivable way, and you had better be familiar with it. It’s the Republican plan.
Trump has tried to distance himself from it, but it’s almost entirely created by his former staffers and he lies about literally everything, so what does all that tell you? Just look at the dangers of this thing.
And if that is somehow not enough, remember that in Trump’s last term he appointed three Supreme Court justices! It’s been the conservatives’ plan to overtake the judiciary branch and stuff it with judges who will rule along their ideological lines regardless of facts and truth and impartiality. Last Week Tonight did a recent segment on the four alarm fire that is the federal judges situation. Have a watch.
Here’s another article collecting quotes and information about the incredibly real threat another Trump presidency poses for trans people.
We have to STOP THEM RIGHT NOW, so they do not control both houses of congress and all three branches, because if that happens BILLS LIKE THE ABOVE AND PROJECT 2025 WILL ABSOLUTELY PASS.
PAY! ATTENTION!
There’s a reason every minority group of every stripe favors Democrats. Because the other party wants to strip us of every right we’ve fought so hard for and would rather we all just went away (and that’s putting it far too kindly).
EQUAL RIGHTS ARE NOT, AND CANNOT BE, A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION.
Everyone is deserving of them, and that’s an objective fact. The only people who disagree are bigots.
Black people are routinely disenfranchised (as is everyone who’s not a non-disabled cishet white man, but Black people get the brunt of it). Antisemitic attacks are on the rise. Disabled people have to fight for every bit of access and assistance they are due and still often don’t get what they need.
Defending trans people and trans rights should be enough on its own. We’re human beings and deserve to be treated as such. But if that’s still somehow not enough to motivate you, first question your life choices, and then know everyone who’s not a non-disabled cishet white man is next.
There is no way things get materially better for Black people, disabled people, immigrants, seniors, queer people, trans people, Jewish people, Muslim people, or any other marginalized community under Trump. There’s NO. WAY.
Look what happened in Australia, when lawmakers undertook the very real ways trans people, especially trans women, lose homes and jobs and fall into poverty after coming out.
But could voting for Kamala Harris actually help things like that happen? If Democrats have the house and the senate too, just maybe!
Oh, you heard Harris was transphobic and put trans women in mens’ prison etc etc? None of it’s true, it’s propaganda from the right to get progressives to not vote for her. Here’s what actually happened, what she actually did, how she took accountability for it, and worked to change the law so it would never happen again.
She received some criticism for a position she took as AG, backing the state of California when it sought to deny gender-affirmation surgery to a trans prisoner. But Harris has pointed out that when she was attorney general, the state’s Department of Corrections was a client of hers, and she had to represent its interests — but she worked behind the scenes to get the policy changed so that any inmate requiring such procedures could receive them.
That is WHAT YOU WANT IN A POLITICIAN! She had to follow a bad law, admitted it, and then said let’s change this bad law so this never happens again.
In fact, she co-sponsored the first (in the nation!) bill to ban THE TRANS PANIC DEFENSE (broadly, it’s “I learned this person was trans and panicked, so I killed them” and states ALLOW this as a legal and valid defense!).
And after she got it banned in California, she worked with other states to get them to ban it too!
Maybe you don’t love some of her other policies (same for me!). Maybe you think she could be far, far better on some of her policies (same for me!). But you cannot argue, in any kind of good faith, that she would not be better than Trump on any policy (unless you’re a bigot or a billionaire).
Politics isn’t about perfection.
It’s about harm reduction.
It’s about taking the bus that gets you closest to where you want to go.
It’s about choosing your opponent as you push for all the things you want our society to be.
Do you want a flawed but compassionate lady who cares and whose mind can be changed?
Do you want the person who ghosted Netanyahu when he appeared in congress and has pushed Biden to be better on Palestine (his response there, and his abdication of covid precautions, are also huge problems for me), or do you want the guy who’s friends with Netanyahu and has pushed for Israel to be even more violent, and said “Biden was too tough on Netanyahu?”
Do you want the guy who will ignore all we say, deport millions, strip citizenship from people he doesn’t like, jail his opponents, further disenfranchise anyone who doesn’t vote for him, tries to suppress voting, staged a coup (and hasplainly said they don’t plan to leave office ever again), and would criminalize trans existence?
Or do you want the person who is literally the opposite of all of that?
I get it, it can be disheartening when a politician isn’t all you want them to be. Or even does things you really don’t like.
My representative is Adam Schiff. He’s incredibly corporate, incredibly centrist, and he’s done a lot that pisses me off. I vote for someone else in every single primary, (like Maebe A. Girl, she’s amazing!). Schiff is running for senator this time, and as he’s up against a Republican so I HAVE TO VOTE FOR HIM AGAIN AND I AM SUPER SALTY ABOUT IT.
Maebe didn’t make it to the general election this year, but you can bet she’ll have my vote in 2026.
In California the top vote earners in the primary advance to the general, regardless of party. As Los Angeles county is deep deep deep blue and has a higher population than 40 entire US states do, this means our general election can be between two Democrats. Hooray!
But when it’s between a Democrat and a Republican who is harmful to the human rights of everyone who’s not a non-disabled cishet white man, I will vote for the Democrat, even if it’s Adam Schiff. I will not like it, but I will do it for harm reduction and to protect those who the Republican candidate would attack.
I also do not like our governor, Gavin Newsom. He’s done some stuff I like, but like Schiff he’s very corporate and very centrist and has done a lot of shit I despise (like all his recent anti-homeless bullshit).
Multiple times I’ve had to vote for governor between him and a Republican, and I will vote for Newsom. Every. Time.
I do not like him! I DO NOT LIKE HIM.
I am SO MAD my fellow Californians refuse to primary him so we can vote for someone better, thus forcing me to keep voting for him.
BUT I DO IT BECAUSE HE IS BETTER THAN THE ALTERNATIVE.
I know there are people who feel if both candidates have policies they don’t like, they will just not vote (or will “protest vote” for a third party with no chance of winning).
And I understand that impulse. I do. I’d say our two-party system was broken, but it isn’t. It’s working exactly as designed. It was DESIGNED to only give us two options, and that’s not great!
But pretending that is not the case does not change that it isthe case. For President, for nearly every federal seat, ONE OF TWO OPTIONS WILL WIN.
The system needs to be changed, and we do that by voting for more progressive candidates in local elections, building up support and experience, and changing things from the inside. You cannot cannot cannot change things by not voting or voting for a person with zero chance of winning.
Republicans don’t want you to vote. They work so hard to take votes away from so many people.
Because you not voting helps them. Bigots always, always, always vote. And they vote Republican.
But there are a finite and rapidly dwindling number of them, which is why they have to work so hard to gerrymander and disenfranchise to hold on to power.
NOT VOTING HELPS PUT REPUBLICANS IN OFFICE. For the presidential election, VOTING GREEN PARTY OR LIBERTARIAN OR FOR ANY THIRD-PARTY CANDIDATE HELPS PUT TRUMP IN OFFICE. That’s the sad truth of it.
TV writer/producer John Rogers has talked a lot about this in a way I feel is very easy to understand… “the thing is what it does,” which basically means that regardless of what something was designed to do, the outcome it produces is what it actually does.
I’m going to quote some of his BlueSky posts here where he was replying to someone who felt not voting was the morally superior option. He totally deserves a follow. He showruns Leverage!
You need to vote in EVERY ELECTION, including LOCAL OFFICES where your voice has the biggest impact, and much more progressive candidates can get into office.
You can often engage DIRECTLY with candidates for local office and pressure them on trans rights (and other things you believe in). I have, and it’s WORKED.
The ACLU and Planned Parenthood often put out progressive voter guides so you can get more information on the people running for office. Seek them out for your area.
There are likely others, people putting in the work and research to help you be more informed. USE THOSE RESOURCES.
In California, Vote 411 is a really great site that lets you compare candidates directly. Even if there’s not always a ton of info for every local candidate, you can learn a LOT by seeing which people and organizations donated to/support each candidate. Look at who has money coming in from huge corporations, who’s been endorsed by who, and it can tell you so much.
Especially because you can see which “Democrats” are really Republicans calling themselves Democrats (this happens in California sometimes). Watching who they’re willing to be associated with and take money from can tell you as much or more than what they say their own policies are.
Cis friends, if you want to be an ally, if you want to BE AN ACCOMPLICE, you HAVE to vote for people who will fight for trans rights, or we’ll never get them. We’re too small a part of the population to do it on our own. IT IS THE BARE MINIMUM YOU CAN DO.
And now here’s the big ask, cis folks. This is SO IMPORTANT:
I want EVERY SINGLE CIS PERSON READING THIS to commit to always voting for the candidates who will protect trans rights.
But JUST AS IMPORTANT:
You need to talk to your friends and family that you know vote to hurt trans people. You have to try to convince them to change. If they won’t? GIVE THEM CONSEQUENCES.
Remember TRANS POLITICS 1? We cannot tolerate intolerance. That is the death of actual tolerance.
You need to tell your friends and family that if they continue to vote for people who will strip rights away from and criminalize the existence of people who are different from them… you’re done with them until they change their minds.
Stop going places with them. Stop inviting them to family gatherings.
Why would you want to be with a bigot anyway?
You, right now, can be a hero.
You can fight for justice and equality.
You can make a difference by fighting the rise of fascism.
Don’t be the German citizen who did nothing to stop the Nazis, because THEN YOU’RE NO BETTER THAN THE NAZIS.
PS – California has permanent vote-by-mail, and these are all the ballot drop boxes in Los Angeles County (and this doesn’t include post offices or mailboxes!). This is what the opposite of voter suppression looks like
Welcome to #TransTuesday! Today we’re talking about a little thing I’m going to call COMPLETE TRANS HEALTHCARE, or more pointedly, THE LACK THEREOF.
This was brought about by this image above, which you may think, HA that’s funny for I obvs do not have a cervix.
But the thing is, while this is funny, it’s not necessarily harmless as it’s a symptom of larger issues that are actually a problem for trans folks. Before proceeding you should check out this trans tuesday about my experience with our healthcare system, NO ESCAPE 2: SOME ESCAPE DUE TO CIS ALLYSHIP.
I will remind you that through all of this, that message in the image, and my entire transition, and the medical procedure in the thread above, I have been with the same health insurance and provider. I’ve been with them for a long time pre-transition too. For about a decade.
These folks have all kinds of things in place for trans healthcare. Psychologists, endocrinologists, people on staff who can and do perform gender confirmation surgeries (both top and bottom), facial surgeries, even my voice therapy.
They have my entire medical history, and again have been the only people seeing me for a decade. And they still sent me a reminder to get an exam for a body part that I do not possess.
As was evidenced in my thread linked above, despite providing all of these trans services they are completely at a loss as to how to handle trans people.
And I will point out that though my name and gender is legally changed and I gave a driver’s license to prove it, none of that has yet been updated with my healthcare provider due administrative issues I’m not getting into here.
Point being in their system I’m listed under my old male deadname, and it says right in the file I’m a transgender woman. AND YET THEY WANT TO EXAMINE MY NON-EXISTENT CERVIX.
So let’s look at the bigger picture it’s indicative of. Because if this can happen, you’ve got to wonder if they’re going to remember that, uh, I’m still going to need prostate exams?
All trans women will, even if they get the full “bottom surgery,” as the prostate isn’t usually removed. This is a thing they should (and I would presume, do) know, and yet they seem to be entirely unprepared to deal with this.
At least urologists perform prostate exams, and people of all genders see them for a variety of reasons. So it wouldn’t be weird for me to be sitting there.
But spare a moment to think of trans men who DO need cervical exams and cervical cancer screenings, and other OBGYN care. They may not even get notified, and if they do, when they go in the cis women present are going to see a man.
A man in the waiting room, a man being called in, a man walking around inside the office and going into an exam room. And I imagine that could be extremely uncomfortable for trans men, when being associated with things for women is likely a very dysphoric experience.
But what choice do they have? They need this medical care, it’s important stuff, but they have to go through something that’s awful for them, just to get that care. Because there’s no places that specialize in JUST trans medical care.
Or if there are, they’re so few and sparse that they certainly aren’t available to most people. I live in Los Angeles and don’t even know of any. There probably aren’t enough of us to make it “financially viable.”
But frankly it’s putting a lot of trans people at risk. We need (and deserve) the same care cis people get, and yet the entire system is just stymied by our existence at every turn.
Are they going to remember I need mammograms now? Or when I need to go in for my first one? It’s going to be on me to contact my doctors and remind them I have breasts now and so that will be kind of important.
But I also have a prostate and checking THAT is important! This would weirdly make more sense, in a horrible kind of way, if they weren’t set up at all for trans care.
If they didn’t provide any at all, that would be discriminatory bullshit, but at least it would make sense that they don’t know how to deal with us on an administrative level.
But if you’re going to offer trans services (and you SHOULD, every provider and insurance should!), you have to go ALL THE WAY.
And this isn’t just paranoid speculation on my part, I know trans people this has happened to. I hoped it wouldn’t happen to me, but then I got that notice it was time for my cervical cancer screening and it feels like it’s already starting.
It’s not just hormones and surgeries. Not even just mental health and voice therapy and electrolysis. We have other needs that cis people don’t (and some they they do!). It’s YOUR JOB to know that and to take care of us.
In a world that discriminates against us at every turn, where trans people often lose family, friends, jobs, and housing just for coming out as who they really are, where our governments routinely try to legislate us out of existence, we can’t even trust our doctors.
And I wish they didn’t put it on us to have to keep reminding them of who we are. We shouldn’t have to constantly say HEY I’M TRANS AND I NEED THIS CARE. It shouldn’t be on us. And it shouldn’t be awful to go through.
Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we’re discussing something every trans person has to deal with, all these little things that add up in ways cis people likely don’t even realize. It’s death by a thousand cuts with TRANS MICROAGGRESSIONS.
Cis folks, this one is again largely directed at you. So please read and try to understand. Please share this with other cis folks, because you can have a greater impact on them than I can. And this is one of those things we need to change.
If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of microaggressions, they’re small comments usually made offhand, and usually without any ill intent. But due to unfamiliarity with the marginalized community they’re being said to, they end up being hurtful.
But Tilly, how can that be? Listen, it’s confusing, right? If you’re not intending to be hurtful or biased toward a marginalized community, how can it happen? Well let me direct you to the trans tuesday on IMPLICIT QUEERPHOBIA.
And this happens even with parts of our own identities, as you can learn about in the trans tuesday on INTERNALIZED TRANSPHOBIA.
All of us, by “virtue” of being raised in a white, non-disabled, cisgender, heterosexual society have these biases implanted in us without our knowledge. Also see the trans tuesday on GENDERED CHILDHOODS for more examples.
And I’d be remiss if I did not mention that any trans person who faces more than one societal marginalization has to deal with compounding microaggressions, which makes things even harder. See the trans tuesday on TRANS INTERSECTIONALITY for more on that.
So let’s talk about some incredibly common trans microaggressions, so you have an idea of what we’re talking about and, if you’re cis, what NOT to say to trans people.
The most common one I personally received, especially in the early days after coming out, was “welcome to being a woman!” And it universally came from cis women, and it was in response to me talking about something I was dealing with.
“My bra is uncomfortable.” welcome to being a woman!
“Gosh the women’s bathroom line is long.” Welcome To Being A Woman!
“I experienced misogyny.” WELCOME TO BEING A WOMAN!
It came as a response to ANYTHING remotely about BEING a woman in society. And what’s so bad about that, you ask? Well, first of all, being a woman WAS NOT NEW FOR ME. I’ve been a woman since I was born, but I had junk that made a doctor decide I had to be a man.
I’ve said it a hundred times before, if you’re trans you’ve always been trans. Even if you weren’t transitioning, even if you weren’t out, even if you didn’t KNOW. Nothing can just MAKE someone trans, just like nothing is going to make trans people suddenly cis.
Yes, it’s true, conversion therapy doesn’t work… for sexuality OR gender, and it’s because these are internal parts of WHO WE ARE, not choices we make. We can choose to transition or not, but we don’t choose to be trans.
Just because you didn’t KNOW I was a woman doesn’t mean I wasn’t one. I wasn’t dressing as a woman, I wasn’t experiencing the same discrimination as a woman, but I was ABSOLUTELY experiencing discrimination trying to be a gender non-conforming boy/man.
And when I say gender non-conforming there, I don’t mean in clothes or presentation. I tried. I tried so hard to be the dude society said I had to be. But I never ACTED like a dude. I never THOUGHT like a dude.
And when cis boys and men see another (perceived) cis boy or man not thinking or acting as they have been taught that men “should,” they will one hundred percent punish you for it, in a wide variety of ways. Cis gay men know this all too well.
So getting back to microaggressions, what the particular “welcome to being a woman” was implying was “oh, this is all new for you because you just became a woman,” which in a roundabout way denies the incredible struggle I went through.
It ignores that I’ve ALWAYS been a woman. It ignores the reality of my life. It implies I have APPROPRIATED womanhood that does not belong to me, rather than embraced the womanhood THAT WAS ALWAYS RIGHTFULLY MINE.
If it was one person who said it, not that big of a deal. You roll your eyes and move on. But that’s why microaggressions are the death of a thousand cuts, right? One cut isn’t a huge deal. But a thousand at once? Now you’ve got a serious problem.
So when a dozen cis women level that on you in the span of a month, especially right after coming out, you feel wounded and hurt and unwelcome and like you’ll never really belong or be accepted by cis women.
And after a lifetime of battling the pain and misery of dysphoria, to finally be on the journey to being who you always were inside, to have THAT dropped on you is extra horrible.
I’m well acquainted with how uncomfortable bras can sometimes be, and women’s bathroom lines, and misogyny. I HAVE BEEN A WOMAN MY WHOLE LIFE. Do not welcome me to the thing I’ve always been as if it was a choice I just made and not a lifetime of struggle.
If you need more on just how awful that can be, see the trans tuesday on GENDER DYSPHORIA.
Hopefully you’re now getting an idea of just how bad microaggressions can be, and how they add up to a big problem. Now imagine you’re not just getting the WELCOME TO BEING A WOMAN microaggression… but that and a dozen more.
Here’s some other common ones:
ACCIDENTAL MISGENDERING – we all slip up sometimes, but when it KEEPS happening from multiple people, that wound goes deep. See the trans tuesday on MISGENDERING AND PASSING.
ACCIDENTAL DEADNAMING – exactly like accidental misgendering, accidents happen and nobody is perfect. But a lot of them can add up to feeling like NO ONE sees you as the real you. See the trans tuesday on NAMES AND PRONOUNS.
YOU’RE A MAN NOW, ENJOY MALE PRIVILEGE! – trans men have ALWAYS been men, and they do NOT experience male privilege the same way cis men do.
YOU’RE A WOMAN NOW, HOW COULD YOU GIVE UP MALE PRIVILEGE? – trans women have ALWAYS been women, and do NOT experience male privilege the way cis men do.
HOW CAN YOU BE A MAN AND A WOMAN, OR NEITHER? – questions about “how” our very identities can be a thing that exists, and how that’s just so unfathomable to you, a cis person
ARE YOU GETTING “THE SURGERY” – do not ask us about our genitals, what is wrong with you, you entire gas station hot dog? Do you ask cis people about their genitals???
RECOILING IN HORROR WHEN YOU LEARN WHAT “THE SURGERY” IS – super great that life-saving medical care some trans people need grosses you out, thanks so much!
YOUR LIFE IS SO DIFFERENT FROM NORMAL PEOPLE – cis people aren’t “normal”! Please please please see the trans tuesday on CIS IS NOT A SLUR (aka there is no default human).
WHY MAKE LIFE SO HARD FOR YOURSELF? – good lord, tell me you have absolutely no idea how bad dysphoria is without telling me you have absolutely no idea how bad dysphoria is. Also! Y’know who makes existing as trans hard? CIS PEOPLE. Maybe talk to them about that.
CAN’T YOU JUST BE A LESBIAN OR A GAY MAN – y’know what, not all of us are gay! And don’t you think we WOULD spare ourselves a life of discrimination and difficulty if we COULD? Also! See the trans tuesday on SEXUALITY IS NOT GENDER.
WHEN DID YOU DECIDE YOU WERE TRANS? – when did you decide that you were cis? Or was that just something you intrinsically knew?
IF YOU DIDN’T TELL ME YOU WERE TRANS I’D NEVER HAVE KNOWN – what this is doing is saying “you look like a cis person, and that is good and desirable! If you ‘looked’ trans I would have already known and that would be bad for you.”
YOU’RE PRETTY FOR A TRANS PERSON – why, because being trans usually makes us ugly? C’mon now.
YOU DON’T NEED SURGERY/HRT, YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL – it is not, Not, NOT about how YOU think we look or need to be. It’s about US and what we NEED to be our true selves.
YOU WERE SO PRETTY/HANDSOME BEFORE TRANSITION – it is not, Not, NOT about how YOU think we look or need to be! It’s about US and seeing OURSELVES in the mirror.
I’M NOT TRANSPHOBIC, I JUST THINK (REPEATS TRANSPHOBIC PROPAGANDA) – this one feels pretty self-explanatory!
WHAT’S YOUR “REAL” NAME – our REAL names are WHAT WE TELL YOU THEY ARE, regardless of what government documents may say. Asking this means you think what a government paper says is more important than our actual truth.
WHAT ARE YOUR “PREFERRED” PRONOUNS – there is no PREFERENCE for our pronouns. “What are your pronouns?” is the way to ask. Saying they’re a “preference” implies they’re not our real pronouns.
DANCING AROUND OUR PRONOUNS – rather than using our pronouns, you contort your sentences to just never use them, or overly use our name, or default to “they/them” for everyone (which is still misgendering people who use she/her and he/him). Just ask for our pronouns!
I HATE MY BODY TOO BUT I DON’T NEED SURGERY – body dysmorphia or a poor body image are big issues in our society, but THEY ARE NOT COMPARABLE TO BEING TRANS. Equating the two minimizes the pain of dysphoria.
I CAN’T IMAGINE WANTING TO CHANGE MY BODY IN SUCH DRASTIC WAYS – this others us, or implies surgeries we need are elective. Also, please see the trans tuesday on CIS PEOPLE GET GENDER AFFIRMING HEALTHCARE TOO.
I HATE MY PHOTOS TOO – not liking your photos is not the same thing as the pain they can cause trans people, and equating the two minimizes the pain of dysphoria. See the trans tuesday on PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN – this is ignoring every single nonbinary person by default. Humans are more than just ladies and men! And when you open anything with this, you are instantly making nonbinary folks feel unwelcome. Use “friends.” or “fellow humans.” or “foolish mortals!”
THIS IS FOR ALL FEMALE-IDENTIFYING (OR MALE-IDENTIFYING) FOLKS – this one feels like it’s not so bad, right? The intent is clearly to make trans people feel like they are included.
But what it’s implying is that trans people self-identify as their gender, not ARE their gender. Because you don’t call just cis women FEMALE-IDENTIFYING, do you? This one is easy to fix though. Because did you know… “trans” isn’t a bad word?
You can just say “this event is for cis men and trans men,” or “trans and cis women welcome.” then you’re conveying the exact same information, but not implying that our genders aren’t real, or are somehow less than the gender of our cis counterparts.
This is not an all-inclusive list. There are many, many more ways microaggressions can happen. And again, almost all are unintentional. They usually come from a place of ignorance about what trans people go through, rather than a place of maliciousness.
But imagine what getting a dozen of these a day would do. Now imagine getting a dozen of these a day EVERY day, because for a lot of us we’re THE ONLY TRANS PERSON YOU KNOW (see the trans tuesday on that, too)
And then imagine on top of that all the other microaggressions someone might face for other marginalizations that they experience. The cumulative effect can hurt, destroy mental health, and make life miserable.
Hopefully, from the examples I provided, you will be able to spot OTHER things you might say without thinking that could harm someone. And listen, you don’t need to walk around eggshells around us or anything.
I’m just asking you to PLEASE think before you say something that might be horribly damaging to whoever you’re talking to. And if you slip up (it happens to all of us, we’re human), don’t underestimate how healing a genuine apology can be.
None of us are perfect. But we’ve all got to do the work to do as little harm to each other as possible. We’re all trying to get through this life together, and we’re all we’ve got.
