Transmissions from Public Space (Part 1)
I’m not really here yet
Trans Junior High
It was just over eight months ago that I, after having grappled with some degree of gender confusion for nearly all of 2021, finally accepted that I was trans. So for all intents and purposes, on that day near the end of August is when I understand Mila to have been born. It was a Friday, my therapist was present, and I imagine that I watched a movie later that night alone in my apartment.
I have spent nearly all of that time in a city of about 85,000 people, a place still fairly new to me. Winter monopolized a good chunk of those eight months, and my fashion choices were dictated by the simple necessity of keeping warm. My choice to move stemmed from a desire to escape the hustle and bustle of a bigger city and to wait out the pandemic in a more quiet and scenic milieu. Thus, I still do not know many people here.
So in many ways, the present state of my transition, during which I have pursued laser hair removal, electrolysis, voice feminization lessons, and hormone replacement therapy, can be likened to the tongue in cheek question posed by Philosophy Tube: “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody’s around to hear it, what are its pronouns?” Actress Jen Richards refers to this common period in early transition as Trans Junior High.
I have experienced the psychological harmony of a richer and more genuine self-understanding. This has enabled me to not just envision a path forward for myself, but to conceive of that future with optimism. I have enjoyed the corporeal levity of feeling at home with myself, and this not infrequently evokes spontaneous dancing. But the social aspect of publicly existing and being recognized in a manner concordant with my identity is still largely theoretical.
And so, during a single day of recent travel that included a Lyft ride, two flights, and an airport shuttle, I was called “sir” three times and used the male restroom three times. My driver’s license still shows a pesky “M” and sadly this is not an M for Mila. This dictates how the state views me as I exercise my freedom of movement. And passersby draw their own conclusions based on my presentation and the social conditioning that has influenced them their whole lives.
I do not yet have the assuredness or self-confidence to proudly inhabit public space as a non-passing trans woman. Despite the internal coherence that now permeates throughout my mind, body, and spirit, I still unfortunately do care a lot about how I am being observed and categorized by others. And my perception is that at this point in my journey I am being perceived as a cis male with long hair and a mildly flamboyant fashion sense.
A Weird Spot
Now a PSA to address and deconstruct my own internalized biases: it is absolutely worth noting that the concept of passing is inherently problematic, intricately entrenched within antiquated misogynistic notions of traditional gender roles as well as imperialist Eurocentric standards of beauty. It is all too often just another cudgel to police free expression, inhibit people’s full humanity, and enforce cisnormativity (or my preferred term, cisfatalism).
My even wanting to pass someday concedes the immutable reality of being gendered at first glance, a practice that completely erases non-binary people and triggers dysphoria in many binary trans people (ahem…like me). And so it is with a great deal of ambivalence that I consciously admit that I do want to pass. I do want to be read as a woman and I do want my documentation to one day say Mila and display a bright shiny “F.”
I believe that this will facilitate congruity between my social experience and my own understanding of my identity. But more broadly, an overarching and long-term goal of mine is to work to help create a society in which the designation of a binary gender is no longer the immediate default response when first interacting with someone. There is so much more to each of us than that, and unshackling ourselves from those arbitrary constraints will allow us to truly see one another as beings of wondrous multiplicity.
And so I’m at a weird spot. I’m out to friends and immediate family but they do not live near me; I wear clothing that I would consider gender neutral or feminine-leaning (although I hesitate to even use such descriptors); but I am read as male in basically every discrete, context-specific encounter with a stranger (e.g. TSA agent checking my ID, barista serving me coffee, etc.) and I do not correct them because, well…still dealing with a lot of internalized transphobia.
The management of this omnipresent tension — between how we understand ourselves and how others perceive us — is an implicit cost of living in a society with other humans. I do think that this is a fundamental reason why communities of affinity (i.e. safe spaces) can play such a vital role for people within marginalized groups to find a sense of camaraderie with one another and enjoy a respite from a world that is dismayingly still in the process of fully accepting them.
One observation I can provide is that real junior high (my first puberty) sucked; and trans junior high (my second puberty) kinda sucks in a much different way, but is also actually amazing and the best I have ever felt before. Wonder and euphoria now pepper my day-to-day vicissitudes, whereas they were decidedly absent prior to my transition. And the outgrowth of that bubbling delight does instill in me a pervasive sentiment of hope.
Actually Winning
I will conclude with the wise words of Jen Richards, one of my many dearly beloved parasocial guides in this strange and beautiful journey: “Just like real junior high, to my mind success is just surviving; just getting through that period means you’re actually winning.”
