Trans Life

THE PAST 3 aka THE NEW PAST 2 aka TRANS GRIEF 1

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This is the most difficult installment I’ve ever had to write. I thought it would be about TRANS PEOPLE AND A.I., and it is, but I was surprised to discover it’s so much more. This is THE PAST 3 aka THE NEW PAST 2 aka… TRANS GRIEF 1.

In fact, this was so tough it went really long, and so it’s going to be split into two parts. This week we’re going to discuss the topic as a whole, and next week we’ll get deeper into a specific experience that maybe changed my life.

Trans grief has been on my list to talk about for years. I put it off. I knew I had to write this one now and I STILL PUT IT OFF AS LONG AS I COULD. I knew, I KNEW what it was going to do to me if I looked into that dark pit. Yet here we are.

If I am able to face it, to get through, to put to words something so many of us struggle with, and there’s a chance it could help even one other person out there, then damn it I’m gonna forge ahead. Perhaps my pain can be your gain, in understanding, in compassion, in empathy.

Also talking about AI in the present climate is also fraught, so I’m going to please ask you to read this entire essay (both this one and next week’s conclusion) with an open mind before you yell at me.

So let’s get it out of the way right off the bat: I am fully, wholly, 100% against the use of AI that takes people’s jobs or plagiarizes their work. That’s one of the very things the WGA and SAG-AFTRA were on strike over (and which TAG may strike over next year).

If you want a little more about my own experiences out on the picket lines, see the trans tuesday on PROACTIVE ALLYSHIP aka BE AN ACCOMPLICE.

But not all AI use is bad. It can be used in great ways, like to help doctors spot tumors and save lives.

The problem becomes when it’s used to replace people, as studios want to do for writers and actors, or when an image-generating AI is trained on an artist’s work without permission to use the source material, or when text-generating AI is trained on authors’ work without consent.

But for years there’s been a prevalence of FaceApp among trans people (long before any of these concerns about AI were known). If you’re not familiar, you upload a photo to it and it will use AI to make you younger, or older, or hotter (problematic!), or A DIFFERENT GENDER.

It’s dicey even in its gender swapping capabilities, because it relies on gendered stereotypes to generate the images. AND YET trans people use it often, out of curiosity or to help us see what might be, or to help their photos look more affirming to them.

And here’s where I’m going to reveal that yes, I too used it before I began my medical transition. I’ve mentioned many times how I knew I was trans in 2015 but couldn’t do anything about it until 2020 (see my THREE YEAR RETROSPECTIVE for more info).

As far back as 2017, I was using FaceApp to see what might be possible. And it was… both good and bad. Because it gave me hope, but it also gave me (and a lot of trans people) possibly unrealistic expectations.

At first its swaps were much more subtle, and thus possibly also more realistic. The first one I ever did was part of a collage with “old me” and “young me” because then I had plausible deniability, you see! I wasn’t doing it JUST to swap my gender, it’s just fun! (sure)

I don’t have it any more, because I deleted it. But this is the oldest one I kept, from 2017. When I look at it now, I don’t see me or even a hint of me. I see HIM with a slightly gender swapped face. Doesn’t look like the real me.

A very “gently” gender swapped photo of me pre-transition

But at the time, it made my heart swell with hope, because even what I saw in that photo seemed impossibly far away and unattainable. I did a lot of these. I even got other apps to adjust hair, and makeup, and even add piercings. Just to see how I felt.

An AI gender-swapped version of pre-transition me with way too heavy makeup and a lip piercing and long wavy blonde hair.

And these weren’t even aspirational, per se, as much as just trying to see if I could find some hint of the real me since I didn’t know what she looked like. I think the lip piercing is interesting to note, though. I don’t actually want one. But!

Even this bad AI version of pre-transition me made me feel like I had enough bodily autonomy to wonder what a piercing would be like. That was a first. See the trans tuesday on BODILY AUTONOMY aka MY TATTOO for info on how my body never felt like mine.

I think the best one I ever got from FaceApp is this one. I still don’t think it looks like ME, but it was maybe the closest the app ever got and it gave me SO MANY FEELINGS. I can see maybe 10% of Tilly in there, and at the time that was a first.

A moderately strong gender-swapped version of pre-transition me with wavy brown hair and kinda heavy makeup.

And it made me so excited and happy… maybe I could look like that! And then it made me feel crushed and utterly depressed… because I DIDN’T look like that and didn’t know if I ever would. And that’s the double-edged sword of these things.

After this, FaceApp got an update and got “better” at its gender swaps, which just means it leaned WAY more into gendered stereotypes. When I got this one I basically stopped using it, because it felt ludicrous and extra painful.

A very “stereotypical fashion model” AI image of pre-transition me with long blonde hair and makeup like she just stepped out of a fashion magazine cover

I thought there was no way I could ever look like that, and it dug a hole in my heart. To be clear, I don’t WANT to look like that, but at the time… years away from medical transition and not knowing the outcome, it just absolutely crushed me.

And if you’re new to trans tuesday and/or have missed the 4986278 selfies I’ve posted, here’s what I actually look like now, three and a half years into my medical and social transition.

Me with long curly brown hair and curly bangs, in white iridescent glasses and a blue off-the-shoulder top

Why did I save those FaceApps all these years? Especially now that I’m way into transition and I LOVE who I am and how I look now? I actually like how I really look WAY MORE than how I look in anything FaceApp gave me. So why save them, Tilly? Why?

Now we’re getting to the crux of it, because I think I knew they were something I was going to have to confront someday, and this is TRANS GRIEF. And it all took me by surprise because what I wanted to write about was a different AI app that I saw tons of trans people using.

It’s called EPIK, and it takes photos you upload and generates younger yearbook photos of you. And I saw so many people using it that I thought something important was going on, and I wanted to write about it.

And like all AI, I admit this is ethically dicey. What images was this AI trained on? We don’t know. What AI is the app even using? Despite hours of research, I couldn’t find out.

But then there’s also the question of… are yearbook photos art? They’re mostly a cattle drive… one student in, sit, snap, they leave, and rinse and repeat all day long. Nothing changes from photo to photo except the kid who’s sitting there.

And companies that do school photos likely own the copyright to yearbook photos… but do they really? Should they? Because neither I nor my parents ever signed a release saying the photographer got the rights to the photos.

Never once did my wife or I get a form like that for our son, either. But being in LA, we get a release form asking if it’s okay for your kid to be in the background of any movies, tv, etc that might be shooting at the school that day!

And we never signed those, because no, you don’t get to just shoot footage of our son and do whatever you want with it (the schools hated that, btw, because it meant they had to be sure he was NOT in any shot of anyone shooting there. So hard! Poor babies.)

But these AI yearbook photos aren’t using any kid’s likeness, all the faces are your own based on what you upload. And it could let trans people who transition as adults see something they have no other way to see. So is this one of those “good” uses of AI?

I don’t know. It’s really murky. But I have to tell you when I saw others posting these, deep feelings welled up inside of me and that’s when I knew I had to write about it. And it wasn’t until I got the yearbook photos of myself that I figured out this was TRANS GRIEF.

I’m going to ask you to stop reading here, because you need some VITAL context for the rest of this discussion. You really NEED to read these other essays first to truly grasp the depth of what I’m talking about. Start with THE PAST AND WHY IT HAUNTS US.

One important detail that I want to be sure you notice from THE PAST AND WHY IT HAUNTS US is how I have almost literally no connection to my past. Almost no photographs, almost no physical items… just NOTHING.

And then see THE PAST 2: THE NEW PAST, and how the PAPER GIRLS show on Amazon somehow gave me back a piece of the childhood I missed out on.

And here’s a vital quote from THE NEW PAST I want to be sure you notice:

“I have no way to see old photos of myself with the real me in them. It’s a horrible, hurtful fact of my existence that will never ever change. There are no childhood photos of TILLY because she wasn’t allowed to exist when she was a child.”

“Thanks to a highly transphobic society and home life, my true self was KEPT from me without my consent. My truth was forced down, made to stay hidden. I didn’t get to be a little girl, or a pre-teen girl, or a teen girl, or a young adult woman. It was STOLEN from me.”

Of course little Tilly was there when I was little, but she was buried deep inside. She was crushed into submission and silence by a society, a family, that would not tolerate her existence. I missed out on a LIFETIME of experiences, because it wasn’t ME experiencing them.

For more on the severe childhood trauma that almost every trans person experiences in one way or another, please see the essay my very smart friend Zoe wrote on that very topic (it’s a tough but important read).

I guess I should briefly also talk about dissociation, which is something that happens to a lot of trans people. The pain of dysphoria, and existing trying to be someone we’re not… sometimes means the only way you can get through is by disconnecting from everything around you.

You’re apart, you’re alone, you’re buried under the weight of dysphoria and transphobia and self-hate and pain pain pain, just so much pain. See the trans tuesday on GENDER DYSPHORIA for more on that.

There are large portions of my life that I just… can’t remember. Because I had to dissociate so much just to GET THROUGH, and I was so disconnected and miserable that memories just didn’t form or were quickly forgotten because they were too painful.

I remember a few small moments from my wedding to Susan. I remember a few small moments from the birth of our son. Most of it is gone. Most of the intervening years, hell… most of my LIFE before transition is lost. I have so few memories.

So do you understand what this yearbook photo thing represented? It was a chance, however slim, to see what I’d missed. To maybe vicariously live the life I wasn’t allowed to live.

I ran a survey for a couple weeks, asking other trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming folks about the app to get their thoughts. I got 183 responses, and 40% were aware of the app. But only about 7% had tried it.

Now I don’t know who saw this survey and who didn’t. I kept it anonymous because trans people giving out ANY kind of info about ourselves can be super dangerous in this horribly transphobic society of ours, and I didn’t want anyone taking it to worry.

So, like so many things in trans life, this is anecdotal. It felt like I’ve seen way more than 7% of trans people doing these based on how many people I saw posting them, but from the responses I got some people did not like the photos they got.

And it stands to reason that if they didn’t like them they’re not going to post them, so what I was seeing in my social media feeds was confirmation bias… only the people who loved them were posting them (obviously). But it still seemed like way more than 7% of the trans people I follow.

But without knowing more about the people who actually filled out my survey, it’s impossible to dig deeper into that. Maybe those people didn’t see the survey, or forgot to fill it out, or maybe it was actually just my perception of the confirmation bias.

Largely, people who didn’t use it were very wary of AI (rightfully so) or of the app’s privacy policies. And I ABSOLUTELY understand that. The privacy issue didn’t bother ME personally because… I post hundreds of selfies publicly all across social media.

I’m sure every AI that exists has already scraped all of those for some kind of training data. I don’t like it, but it feels like that’s the reality. I likely wasn’t giving it anything it didn’t already have.

I want to share some of the comments people left me (some have been truncated for length, but are otherwise unedited). A LOT of people who hadn’t used the app admitted they were still really tempted to. Here’s some general thoughts about the concept:

“I can see the appeal but you can’t change the past. We have to embrace the present and press on into the future as our true selves“

“Fear of dysphoric sadness, then sadness as people started sharing them and I kept thinking about how we’d never get that experience”

“As someone transitioning as an adult, sounds like a neat way to reclaim a youth I feel was taken from me.”

“It’s perhaps the least harmful use of shitty/sketchy AI there is, but still makes me profoundly queasy.”

“It’s probably useful for trans folks who are very stealth.” This was something I’d never thought of, but for trans people who have to remain stealth (letting people think they’re cis) for safety reasons, these photos could help maintain that.

That’s a really complicated subject all its own tho. See the trans tuesday on MISGENDERING AND PASSING for more.

“I am scared. I don’t think about the past that could have been. The past that almost was.”

“I still hate AI art, but this does sound like an amazing cause. I am surprisingly excited? I wanna see younger, not depressed girl me!”

From the people who HAD used the app, here’s a few responses:

“They were really well done and I LOVED THEM. I shared them with some of my besties from those school years and they all said ‘I totally know that girl without having known that girl’.”

“My first thoughts seeing them was a mix of delight, fulfillment, and grieving.”

“Revelatory. Possibly life-changing. Assisted me in seeing myself as a girl which in turn helped me see myself as a woman in the mirror.” That one hits me like a ton of bricks.

“I was amazed at how much it looked like me but as a teenager. Was also deeply saddened by what could have been. And I am one who *never* has had regret about not transitioning early than I did at age 53.”

“I didn’t feel as sad for the childhood I could’ve had as I thought I would going in. I just found it interesting more than anything.”

“It made me Euphoric (on seeing who I could have been) and regretful that I was not given the chance to transition at an earlier age.”

“There were like 2-3 though, that made me feel things. I recognised myself in them, like i was looking at a parallel universe me.”

To write about this phenomena, I felt I had to get the photos myself, but I have to be completely honest with you. When I saw the ones others had posted, and how good they looked, I felt this… longing. This pull to see if there might be something there.

And when I did it, well. If you were wondering what THIS post was about…

A tweet of mine that reads: I did some preliminary work for an upcoming trans tuesday today and it’s caught up with me and I feel… wrecked and emotionally compromised? But maybe in a good way? This is so weird, I don’t even know how to process it. Stay tuned.

Friends… please, PLEASE come back next week, when we’re going to discuss the yearbook photos I got back, and what they did to me, and why.

It was not at all what I expected.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

PS – Part 2 is here!

PHOTOS 2: THE SELFIE APOCALYPSE!

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we’re talking about a change nearly every trans person hopes for but never knows if it’ll arrive… seeing ourselves in photos. Here comes PHOTOS 2: THE SELFIE APOCALYPSE! 😱

This is, like, a 300-level trans class, so be sure you’ve taken the prerequisite classes like GENDER DYSPHORIA.

And another prerequisite, PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS.

And ANOTHER prerequisite, GENDER EUPHORIA.

Before we get into things, I want to reiterate something I’ve mentioned many times before, both in these threads and just in general: trans people often take a lot of selfies. After a lifetime of not seeing ourselves, we have a lot to catch up on.

And seeing OURSELVES is euphoric. Also, in this society that wants us to not exist, that tries to legislate us out of public life by excluding us from sports and bathrooms, that wants to take our health care away and force-detransition us (see the Trans Tuesdays on TRANS POLITICS 1 and TRANS POLITICS 2 for more on that)…

EVERY SELFIE A TRANS PERSON POSTS IS AN ACT OF RESISTANCE. 

It is us standing up against the system and saying YOU CAN NOT SILENCE ME. 

YOU CAN NOT MAKE ME DISAPPEAR. 

I. EXIST. 

And fuck you if you think I shouldn’t.

Just wanted to be real clear about that.

Okay, now that you’ve done the homework and are prepped, let’s dig in. About two and a half years into my social and medical transition, something happened. 

I don’t know exactly what caused it. I surmise it’s a combo of changes from HRT and VOICE training, see their Trans Tuesdays for more.

I don’t know exactly when it happened, though the rough time frame will become apparent as we go.

But part of my transition… changed.

Actually it wasn’t my transition that changed, but my response to it? I guess? Not on a conscious level, but somewhere deep inside my core my Morpheus was like… hey, this isn’t the same anymore, did you notice that, Tills? DID YOU? 

I dunno how you could have missed it, but if you haven’t seen my super lengthy Matrix trans allegory deep dives and thus do not get my reference, once again I beseech you to check out my book BEGIN TRANSMISSION: THE TRANS ALLEGORIES OF THE MATRIX. (will she ever stop plugging it? all signs point to no).

Photos of me pre-transition used to spike my dysphoria something awful. It was really, really bad. I hated seeing them. I couldn’t find the date the following one was taken, but it’s immaterial because this is EXACTLY what I looked like for all of my adult life.

This is what I looked like in the wedding photos I have with Susan (though I was clean-shaven there), which I talked about in PHOTOS AND REFLECTIONS. It’s what I looked like in all photos from then until I transitioned. It’s what I looked like in all photos I took with our kid, until I transitioned.

It’s still incredibly painful to know I will never have any of those photos with ME in them, but there’s nothing I can do about that since we humans stubbornly refuse to experience time in anything other than a forward linear fashion. We’re the worst.

Well, almost. Because:

For a reminder on all the ways our past forever screws with trans people who transition as adults, see the Trans Tuesday on THE PAST AND WHY IT HAUNTS US.

And then see THE PAST 3 aka TRANS GRIEF when I kinda did get to see photos from the young me that never got to exist and what a wild, amazing, beautiful, sad, complicated, rough situation it was.

But let’s get back to this big change that happened. I have a frame over my desk that I see every day, and in it are 16 different photos of our family life together. Susan gave it to me as a gift pre-transition and I love it dearly… despite the fact that the true me does not appear in any of them.

I mention this only so you understand I have daily, constant reminders of what I used to look like. And in a way I’m glad I do, because otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed that over time… photos of myself from pre-transition spiked my dysphoria less and less.

I didn’t know why that was, but I eventually figured it out and we’ll get there in a bit. Now to be clear, pre-transition photos of me aren’t great. I don’t like them or anything, and I’d be fine if I never saw them again. But they no longer give me dysphoria! And that’s amazing? I never ever thought that could happen.

And it’s because early in my transition, I still saw the person in those photos as ME. But that’s NOT ME, and thus it caused the dysphoria spike. But now? Now I… do not identify with the person in those photos at all.

My brain, my heart, my soul all know that’s not me. I don’t know who that is. It’s just some guy I’m completely disconnected from, standing in for me in photos of MY past, where he does not belong.

And this is why I don’t like them, because those are MY memories and he shouldn’t be there, I should. But the dysphoria they always brought me is gone, because my connection to that person has been severed entirely. That was never me.

A photo of one of my friends who’s a man, or even a photo of a random man, don’t spike my dysphoria, so why would photos of that man who was never who I was? This is what I’m trying to get at. I have apparently gotten far enough into my transition that I’ve completely dissociated from that dude.

Which I guess is on-brand, because when I was forced to live as him all I did was dissociate from my entire life so I didn’t have to deal with the horrible pain. Being trans is wild, yo. If you want to learn a lot more about what dissociating from yourself and not knowing what’s real and time being weird and seemingly losing years of your life, see the Trans Tuesdays on THE INTENTIONAL TRANS ALLEGORY OF I SAW THE TV GLOW.

It is SUCH a joy to find myself disconnected from the false me in old photos. BUT – there’s always a “but” – I encountered a new problem, and a new source of dysphoria I could never have anticipated… photos of me early in transition! 

Photos I LOVED at the time, because they were the first hints of the true me coming to the surface, started to give me dysphoria something awful because they’d become what old pre-transition photos used to be: me-but-not-me.

The absolute worst is the one I posted when I came out publicly on July 5 2020. It’s just… well, I hate it. I HATE IT. I could go back and delete it, but that would feel disingenuous. 

It’s part of my journey, and I also think it’s important for other trans people just starting their transitions to know it’s not necessarily a quick process to seeing yourself. You don’t just decide to transition and POOF, selfies you love, you know?

So whereas pre-transition photos of me used to look like a bad costume of a man, now early transition photos of me look like a bad costume of the real me on top of a bad costume of a man, if that makes any sense?

I always try to be as open and honest as I can in these essays, sharing things that maybe make me uncomfortable, but I do it anyway because it helps people. I know because you’ve told me. And trans folks being open helped ME when I was figuring it out.

That photo became JUST as bad as pre-transition photos were all my life and early on in my transition. Maybe somehow even worse, because it’s the slightest move closer to the real me, yet still SO far away that it hurts (not just emotionally, but physically, because dysphoria sucks).

Just as bad is this next photo, which was the closest I could find to when I started HRT, from July 17 2020, and so I have been using it as the base to track changes over time. See the HRT Trans Tuesday if you need more on that.

If you’d like to see my transition timeline photos, and learn more about the amazing things hormone replacement therapy has done for me over time, see my ONE YEAR, TWO YEARS, THREE YEARS, and FOUR YEARS OUT AND ON HRT retrospectives.

What’s interesting is just a few days after (!) that “Day One HRT” photo, I noticed a significant drop in the dysphoria my photos gave me. Mind you I think this selfie is still bad, but it’s noticeably less so than the previous two. And it’s from July 21 2020.

There’s not much difference in my reaction to any of them after that, until we get to December 11 2020. It was by far the best photo I’d ever had in my life up to that point. Looking back at it a couple of years in it was still dysphoric, though not quite as bad as the previous one. NOW, however, this brings me no dysphoria. I see only Tilly, even though she doesn’t look quite right.

Unfortunately we then hop to May 2 2021, in my first photo wearing the bow from my childhood as talked about in the Trans Tuesday on THE PAST AND WHY IT HAUNTS US. This was a step BACKWARD, for reasons I cannot explain. It causes more dysphoria than the previous pic, but not as bad as my coming-out pic.

But then I got my bangs, and they helped a ton. I discovered I like them longer than they are in these next two photos, but they still helped a lot (and the one where I’m wearing makeup helped even more). These are still mildly dysphoric for me now. From May 23 and June 19 2021, respectively.

Then we get to my one year retrospective check-in from August 7 2021, and it backpedals again. I’m not sure why, but this one’s really dysphoric. Which is weird, because next to the one from the year prior, I can see so much positive change. But it bugs me. I think it’s because I see it getting SO much closer to the real me, but it’s still not quite there and so even though it’s closer it feels miles further away.

On November 20 2021, things got better again. I don’t LOVE this one, but the dysphoria dropped back down to a lower level.

Now here’s where things start to turn. December 11 2021. This pic still gives me a bit of dysphoria, but at the time it was the least amount I’ve EVER experienced in a photo of myself for my entire life. Is it the combo of longer bangs, bow, and makeup? HRT magic? I don’t know.

By the way, if you missed why bows became important to me and are actually tied into my transition, and my sexuality, and extricating the two from each other, see the Trans Tuesday on SEXUALITY IS NOT GENDER.

December 28 2021 is a milestone. It was the first time I was able to wear a unisex-style hoodie and not feel dysphoric. It’s loose and baggy and hides my form, and those are all things that I used to wear all the time to hide the body I never wanted to see and be reminded of.

It caused mild dysphoria at the time of that photo, but that I could wear it, and tolerate a photo of myself in it, was extraordinary. I’ve since progressed even further to where wearing things like that no longer give me any dysphoria at all.

Jumping a little out of sequence to March 6 2022, here’s another selfie in a hoodie with no makeup that causes STILL LESS dysphoria. It was really sticking.

Going back to the linear timeline (because we’re humans and are forced to experience life this way, ugh), January 7, January 14, January 16, January 22, 2022, were four of the best photos I’d seen of myself ever. I was agog. I loved them. All in the span of a couple weeks, all with very minimal dysphoria. I never thought that would be possible.

January 29, February 6, February 9, February 20, 2022, continue the trend. Minimal dysphoria, photos I love a LOT that caused me almost no discomfort. It felt like a gift.

And then April 14 2022. I didn’t know it at the time, but I can now tell you this is the EXACT photo where, for the first time in my entire life, there was NO GENDER DYSPHORIA. NONE. I look at it and all I see, ALL I saw… is me.

The trend somehow continued only two days later on April 16 2022.

And April 19 2022. You can already see me kind of freaking out and not knowing what’s happening to me.

April 23 2022. The confidence is growing. I’m starting to think this might be a real thing.

April 30 2022 and it’s just celebratory at this point.

May 7 2022 is my least favorite of this streak, but it still causes? No?? DYSPHORIA???

May 8 2022, just one day later, no makeup, no effort, taken right after I ripped my heart out writing the first draft of the TRANS PARENTS (Mother’s Day) Trans Tuesday. The trend still marches on.

May 11 2022, a totally spur of the moment, unplanned photo because I liked the lighting in the car, no makeup, hair screwed by the wind… No. Dysphoria.

May 13 2022, the no-dysphoria streak still somehow continues.

Culminating on May 14 2022, the first time I’d ever looked at a photo of myself and not only felt zero dysphoria, but thought I might actually be a… cute/attractive woman? Somehow?? At the time it was my favorite photo in my entire life.

August 12, 2022. New most favorite photo of my entire life. The most ME that’s ever been captured in a photo. In fact, I loved this photo so much that I used it as my author photo on the back of my book.

I liked it so much I was okay with everyone who ever bought my book having this photo of me in their homes!

What the entire damn fuck, fam. Unfathomable.

And then July 30, 2023… my next new favorite photo of me ever. I love it so much.

And then! June 2, 2024! My next new favorite selfie (actually I saved like seven or eight shots from that set, I love them all so much. It’s now my profile pic on every social media account I have, and is on every page of this site with my contact info.

Even in the throes of those ten selfies I loved in a row, I could only hope new favorite-photo-ever selections were to come. I held no illusions that photos would remain non-dysphoric forever. I was sure the streak would end at some point, and there’d be times where I’d struggle to find myself in them again.

Two and a half years later? 

IT STILL HASN’T HAPPENED!!!?!?!

Don’t get me wrong, I have bad photos. Photos I dislike. Photos I hate, even. But it’s only because I think they’re bad photos. They do not give me dysphoria!

That is absolutely WILD. I never never never never never never never thought that was something that would or even could happen.

I couldn’t have ever anticipated this when my transition began, and certainly not at any point pre-transition. It’s got me on the verge of tears, but they’re tears of JOY. And I don’t know how to react.

I barely dared to even hope this day would ever come. That it ever got even a LITTLE better at all felt like a miracle. To be where I am now? It feels unreal. Surreal. Anti-real. An impossibility made possible… because I refused to let my fear stop me.

And very much to my surprise, people have complimented my selfies? A lot? And continually asked me for tips? And even asked if I’d put together a guide on how to get good ones?! It’s wild.

So come back next week when I finally do that in PHOTOS 3: TILLY’S GUIDE TO SELFIES.

I’m sure at some point I’ll have a new favorite photo, because I take new selfies I absolutely love all the time now. And the wildest thing about that is that I am actually, legit SURE it will happen?? Dang.

I hope down to the atoms of my heart every trans person gets to this place. Actually, I wish that for ALL of you, trans or otherwise, wherever you are. 

Everything you want is on the other side of fear. Don’t let that stop you. 

The fight is worth it.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

THE PAST (and why it haunts us)

Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we’re discussing something that can be difficult for some trans people who transition as adults. Hop in your chair and initiate splinter sequence, because it’s time to talk about: THE PAST, AND WHY IT HAUNTS US.

Each person in the world (or frankly, universe, I don’t discriminate), cis or otherwise, has their own unique relationship to the past. That’s frustratingly just how linear time works for us mortals. But for trans people who transition as adults, it’s a little different.

Every memory I have from before I transitioned is tinged with sadness, a longing for things to have been different. It’s really hard to explain to cisgender people. Can you imagine your past, your memories, feeling like they’re not really your own?

Even my happiest memories pre-transition… the day @susanlbridges and I got married, the day our son was born, when we hit amazing moments in our writing career that felt like they’d never arrive… they’re beautiful, happy moments that I cherish.

Buuuuuut they’re not ENTIRELY happy memories. I don’t have a single 100% happy pre-transition memory, because I was never able to be 100% myself before transitioning. When I revisit them, they’re all from behind the wall keeping me out, from underwater as I struggled for breath.

The wall, being underwater… these are metaphors I’ve used before to try and convey what it’s like to have GENDER DYSPHORIA and move through the world, trying to get close to the people you care about.

I’ve had gender dysphoria my entire life, even if I didn’t know what it was or have a name for it for a really long time. And once you can spot it and name it, you see it was always there and all your memories (or mine, anyway) are refocused through that lens.

The most important day of my life was when Susan and I were married, and I just love her so much, she’s my entire world. But I married her in a tux, feeling extra horrible and dysphoric because that’s what suits did to me.

See my essay on CLOTHES, and how terribly gendered (and sexist) they are for more info:

And I also had a buzz cut, which I talked about in my first thread on HAIR and how important it was to me and my sense of identity.

For further reading on the importance of hair, see the follow-up HAIR 2 when I got my first haircut and started to actually find myself through my hair.

To top it off, after the wedding people called me her new “husband” and hoo, what a mixed bag that was. On the one hand, it’s a distinctly male descriptor so I hated it and it made me feel bad. On the other hand, it meant Susan was my wife and that ELATED me.

And of course I have reminders of this everywhere, because of our wedding photos, which I talked about (also specifically mentioning one of our wedding photos) in my first thread on PHOTOS (and reflections).

If you’re curious when/how photos finally changed for me post-transition, see PHOTOS 2: THE SELFIE APOCALYPSE.

Related, you know those memes that ask you to post a photo of yourself as a kid and also now? Or from ten years ago and now? Yeah can be awful and painful for some trans people, myself included. We don’t have that. We never got that. It’s… rough.

I’m now okay posting photos of myself from ten years ago and now, finally, because (as referenced in PHOTOS 2 above) I no longer associate that dude with me anymore. But it’s still rough to NOT have photos of ME from ten years ago, you know?

some scruffy dude in glasses and a Disneyland baseball cap on the left, in poor lighting, looking miserable, and me over on the right, in great lighting and a red halter top and my hair up in a pineapple in blue-framed glasses, dark eyeliner, and red lipstick with a much rounder and less angular face. these do not seem to be the same person!

And there’s no escaping it, there’s no getting around it, there’s no trying to pretend I was fully ME back then. I dunno if cis people can understand what it’s like to have that with EVERY SINGLE THING associated with the best day of your life?

Now just multiply it by EVERY MEMORY FROM YOUR ENTIRE EXISTENCE. The well of melancholy that is my memory is dark and infinitely deep. I didn’t get to be a little girl, or a teen girl, or a young adult woman.

I didn’t get those experiences, I didn’t get those memories, I didn’t even get the memories of things I DID experience from the perspective of my true self. So every single bit of it is just… I don’t know. Sitting there waiting to cast me into the pit of despair if I let it.

So follow me on a little sojourn, a little dalliance, a trip down memory lane that will tie into everything soon, I promise.

Back when I lived with my parents, I had a very difficult relationship with my mom and step-dad. They didn’t know I was trans at the time, because neither did I. But I can tell you if my mother HAD known, it would not have gone well.

Regardless, the result of that difficult relationship is that when I moved out on my own, all I could bring with me is whatever I could fit into the car I booked a one-way rental for, to drive to the first place of my own near where Susan lived, some 400 miles away.

I couldn’t bring much with me, and a lot of what I DID bring I no longer have… guy clothes, shoes, bedding, etc. I’ve spent most of my adult life having absolutely NOTHING from my childhood. Not even photos. It’s almost like it was all wiped from existence.

Just about the only thing I have from my childhood, and it may actually be the ONLY thing I have, is this (I come by my Superman fandom organically, since I was but a wee Tilly).

a small red Matchbox-style truck that has an advertisement for the Daily Planet on the side. it shows the front page of the paper with the headline “Superman Saves the World” with a photo of superman in black and white. but next to that is a color picture of clark kent ripping open his shirt to reveal his superman costume underneath.

Sidebar: yes, as an adult, I wonder why Clark Kent is revealing that he is Superman on the side of a truck selling copies of the newspaper he works for. Seems like a poor choice! I expect better from you, Clark. C’mon, man.

Anyway, if you think I treasure this little truck maybe a bit more than I should, you’re absolutely correct. It’s my only tangible connection to my past. I don’t really remember playing with it, but I remember pulling it out of my toys and saving it as I got older.

I know it’s mine, and was always mine. I know I always loved it. But in this instance my not being able to remember playing with it is weirdly beneficial. Since I don’t have specific memories attached to it (only vague, general ones), they’re not there to be tainted by dysphoria.

It’s clear. Pure. Genuine. Real. It’s a thing I can love and remember always loving, and there’s NO BAD FEELINGS associated with it whatsoever. It’s a red die cast metal unicorn. Or so I thought!

One of the worst things to happen after I moved out, which I only learned about a short while ago, is that my mother basically poisoned all of my siblings with distortions and outright lies about me and things I said, did, and felt.

There’s a big age gap between me and the next oldest, eight years. And the other six of them (yes, there were a lot of us, 8 in total) were all even further from me in age. The youngest and I are sixteen years apart.

So when I moved out, most of them didn’t know me much yet. I loved them all dearly, I took care of them ALL the time. But most of them have not spent much time with me, and had no reason to not believe the things my mother told them about me.

I only learned about these things after reconnecting with my brother @joshuasbridges, the oldest of them. I learned I was so poisoned in their minds that he used to tell people he was the “oldest of seven kids.” To say that’s a knife through my heart is an understatement.

To be clear, I do not blame him. It’s not his fault. No kid thinks their parents would lie to them, especially about their own siblings. And yet.

Reconnecting with him has been a complete joy. I adore him and tell him so every chance I get. He’s tried to tell my other siblings I’m not who they think I am, but most have shown little interest in trying to reconnect with me.

That’s got to be their choice, I can’t force it. But I send them a message here and there, letting them know the door’s open. A couple of my sisters have talked to me a little.

So here’s where this tangent of my messed up childhood and sibling relationships dovetails with the past and all my tainted memories. I guess my step-dad was cleaning some things out, and found a bunch of my old stuff I didn’t take with me when I moved out.

One of my sisters asked if I wanted them to throw it out or would I like her to mail it to me. I had no idea what it was, she said it was mostly papers and some clothes. But for someone with no connection at all to her past, it was a lifeline.

It was agony waiting for the box to arrive. It was all at once filled with hope AND despair. What wondrous, or horrific, things did it hold? I had no way to know.

When it finally arrived, I found some things I remembered from my childhood… a Christmas card holder my grandmother made for me was a particularly nice find.

But even that’s tainted because my deadname is stitched right into it. I could rip it out, but I’ll always know it was there before, so I’m not sure that’s much help.

There were old school papers and art I’d done and… stories! Little Tilly wrote some stories and finding THOSE was just… well I can’t even tell you. One of them is actually going to get further discussion in a thread of its own, so keep your eyes open for that.

Most of it was abstract ephemera and didn’t mean anything to me. Except. EXCEPT. There was one baby outfit my mother had saved for some reason. It was a bright red pair of overalls and a dress shirt, which seems like an odd thing to dress a baby in?

Anyway, included with this outfit was a matching fire engine-red bow tie, meant to clip to the collar of the shirt.

a large, bright red bow sitting in sunlight on the edge of a folding chair

If you don’t understand the potential significance of this, let me direct you to the thread on SEXUALITY IS NOT GENDER (and bows, Bows, BOWS).

Do you… do you understand what happened to me?

This is mine.

It has ALWAYS been mine.

It’s as old as I am.

IT IS A BOW. AND IT IS MINE.

I have NO girly things from my childhood. No connection from the me of now to the me of then. Except now… I do? Because a bow is a bow, buddy. And this one IS MINE.

Out of nowhere, falling in my lap out of the clear blue sky… is a sudden connection from my present to my past. A little sign that says sure, maybe your mom put this on your collar and not in your hair, but it was there. It was with you.

It’s a piece of you, a piece of your past, a tangible connection that says not only do you exist finally as your true self… but you’ve existed that way your entire life, even if all the parts weren’t in the right places.

This instantly became the single most important physical object in my life. And if you think I’m not going to wear it every chance I get, then you’ve not been paying attention (come on, I telegraph my personality in these things).

THIS IS MY BOW! 🥰

Me with long curly brown hair and curly bangs, wearing dark eyeliner and red lipstick, blue-framed glasses, and a light blue dress with rainbows, unicorns, and hearts on it. My childhood red bow is in my hair.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com

PRIVILEGE (time and money)

Welcome to #TransTuesday!  This week we’re talking about one aspect of a very, very large topic: PRIVILEGE. Specifically, we’re talking about a privilege that a lot of trans people don’t have, which makes things so much harder for us: TIME AND MONEY

Privilege manifests in so many ways in our society, and the biggest one that I have is that I’m white. So, so white. Painfully white. You can read about that, and so many other vectors of marginalization, in the trans tuesday on TRANS INTERSECTIONALITY.

I have further privilege, however, even among trans women. It manifests as time, money, and acceptance. Acceptance got its own trans tuesday as well, so check up on WHAT REAL CIS ACCEPTANCE LOOKS LIKE if you missed it.

One way that time manifested as a privilege for me was in all of the exercising I used to change my body, VERY MUCH AS PART OF MY TRANSITION. See the trans tuesday on BODY HACKING.

Guess what exercise takes? Time time time time time. Depending on what I’m doing that day, my push-ups and bicep curls, ab exercises, a run, stretching, showering, etc. the entire process can eat up 1.5 – 2 hours of my day.

And that’s without doing my hair, which takes another hour and a half on its own! (this is why I can only do my hair twice a week, it takes a lot of TIME and the products cost a lot of MONEY).

You can already see how being so very busy recently in terms of my writing career has lessened the amount I can exercise and how that’s affected me somewhat, in my THREE YEAR RETROSPECTIVE.

You know what else takes a lot of time? Trying to find clothing, of any type, that I like and that will also fit (and look good) on my six foot tall body, which… most women’s clothes aren’t exactly made for.

Way back when I first started my transition and hadn’t yet had changes from HRT and hadn’t been able to (and figured out how to) shave so that I’m stubble-free all day, I always had beard shadow on my face.

Makeup helped with that, but I could still see the shadow through it. So I put Hollywood quality beard cover on first. Extensive beard cover – time. Rest of the makeup – time.

On a day when I exercise, shave, deal with body hair, and put makeup on, you’re probably talking four hours of my day. I generally don’t do all of that on the same day for a reason.

And yeah, hormones take time (and require patience). See the trans tuesday on HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY for more info.

It takes YEARS to see the full effects of that, and there’s no telling exactly what those effects will be. See the above linked trans tuesday on my three year retrospective for a visual representation of how slow the changes are.

For people who need surgical procedures, the wait is often YEARS long, and there can be months of prep for the patient beforehand. And months of recovery.

And guess what? Every single thing I’ve mentioned costs money. (I’m not hitting you up for cash, please do not send me anything.)

I needed clothes to exercise in. I wear out a pair of running shoes in about 8-10 weeks, and those can be $60+ a pair. Makeup costs money, and is used up and needs to be replaced. Do you have any idea how much replacing an ENTIRE WARDROBE costs?

Look through your closet and dressers, you’ve probably got a lot more than you think you do (I know I did). Now imagine every piece of it made you feel awful and you needed to replace every. Single. Item. That’s $$$.

And with clothes, you’re not going to really know what is and isn’t your style until you really get to experiment with it. See next week’s trans tuesday about me trying to figure that out… but it can mean replacing even your NEW clothes as you figure stuff out. $$$$$

HRT costs money, and not all insurances cover it. If surgical procedures are needed, those are $$$$$$$$$$$$ and not all insurances cover them. If I can eventually get laser hair removal or electrolysis? Money. Voice therapy? My insurance covered it, but not all do. More money.

And things like voice therapy? They take SO VERY MUCH time. See my three-part series on TRANS VOICES, which begins here.

Now remember all this while I talk for a minute about acceptance, and I’ll tie them all together after. This really IS all about privilege, stick with me here.

When many trans people come out, they risk… well, everything. Family may (and often do) reject us/cut us out of their lives/become actively hostile and sometimes sadly even violent. Friends can, too. Marriages and relationships can change, and often even end.

We risk losing their jobs, which could mean we risk losing our insurance, or finding out our insurance doesn’t remotely cover the help we need.

21% of trans people lived in poverty in 2021, and 35% lived in poverty in 2020. The pandemic and lockdown are mucking with the numbers there, but you’re talking anywhere from a fifth to a third of all trans people.

To get on HRT you ideally need an endocrinologist, hopefully one who’s experienced with it and trans people. In large parts of this country, there are not a ton of endocrinologists, even fewer with the right experience, and some outright refuse to see trans patients.

If you want to see the messes that can lead to, see the trans tuesday on ANECDOTAL TRANS HEALTHCARE.

If you need surgical procedures, there are a very small number of doctors able, willing, and skilled enough to perform those procedures. You may not be able to find one.

You may have to travel across the country ($$) and some people have even traveled across the world ($$$$) to get the care they need.

Now imagine a trans woman who’s maybe a single parent working two jobs in a highly conservative area of the country. She has no extra time, she has no extra money, and telling literally anyone around her could mean blowing up her life and putting herself in danger.

Now go back to the trans tuesday on Trans Intersectionality that I linked earlier, and add in other vectors of marginalization this trans single mom might face that cause her to have even LESS time and money.

Me? I was fully accepted across the board by every person in my friends and family that I told, with one asshole hold out. Susan not only accepted me, but has HELPED me and been there for me every step of the way. Our son was great about it, too.

We’re financially stable. I can afford to replace running shoes when needed, to slowly replace my wardrobe, to get makeup. Our insurance covers everything I’ve needed so far (with copays and the like, but still).

I’ve been able to make the time to do the things I need to do to feel more at home in my own body, and still write and still have time with family and friends. Though I wish those things took LESS time! Maybe eventually.

But so many trans people don’t have all of that. Some don’t have ANY of that. The fact I have any of it, much less ALL of it, means I have SO much more privilege than so many trans people.

And you can see how I recognized that and decided to use it when I announced the website for trans tuesdays, and the podcast, and talked about WHY I DO TRANS TUESDAYS (spoiler: I wanted to USE my privilege to help!).

A lot of it is luck. We were very, very poor for a very long time. I couldn’t have done ANY of what I’m doing now back then. We had no money, and I had no time. Susan was often working 16 hour days and I was a full time stay at home parent. There was literally nothing I could do.

I hope I’ve been able to convey through some previous posts how awful GENDER DYSPHORIA is, how much it hurts, how it can feel like we’re suffocating or drowning. And how isolating it is.

So imagine someone feeling that way and seeing no way out. Not even the chance for incremental things to at least see SOME progress. I’m sure that’s part of the reason mental health issues like depression and anxiety so often occur in trans people before transitioning.

There are presently over EIGHT THOUSAND GoFundMe pages for trans causes and folks who are trying to raise money for needed procedures, for clothes, for housing, to escape violent home situations.

Please spare a moment to think of all the trans people who don’t have all the remarkable privilege I still do. If you’re able, please find a few of those trans folks/causes that could use your help, and give them your support.

And please be aware of the massive privilege EVERY CIS PERSON HAS in that you don’t have to deal with any of this just to try to finally feel like yourself for the first time in your life.

What a magical thing that must be.

Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com