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I remember when I said I wanted to be a hostess.

#ThingsYouCantUnsay #trans

The topic was first jobs. I wasn’t excited about entering capitalism’s labour pool, but I had noticed that hostesses were often high femme in their presentation. So when pressed, I said that seemed like a job I might want.

I was informed that hostesses were predominantly young women.

The clear implication was that I was not, and thus I wouldn’t be eligible for such a job.

I never brought it up again.

My parents tell me times were different, back then.

I don’t care.

Being trans is really easy to accept for folks who believe in bodily autonomy and queer rights. Meeting a new person and discovering they are living their truth is all happy, fuzzy upside.

Yay, trans people, being who they are, we’ve solved discrimination. /sarcastic

Transition is different. Transition isn’t about being. Transition is about unbeing. Transition is about refusing to continue telling people the lies they’re accustomed to. Transition is about showing people that everything they thought they knew about you was a mixture of scar tissue and masking.

Transition is about making it clear that scars come from somewhere, and masks take practice. That you practiced at the dinner table. And in the car. And when you held a plastic participation trophy. And at the holidays. And when you went to weekly music lessons, again and again, for years. And every time they saw you.

They don’t like that. Feeling complicit isn’t all happy, fuzzy upside.

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