The Foundation Mask (Diary of a Trans Man)
As you examined your face in the mirror, you said…
At age 12, I already felt like an imposter standing beside you, a little boy learning your secrets, enthralled by this lesson in dissected feminine mystique that you were offering.
I already knew on at least some subconscious level that I needed to understand this lesson to keep your love.
You were smoothing foundation along the underside of your jaw.
As you examined your face in the mirror without looking at me, you said “Never let them see your mask.”
Your expert fingers blended the color perfectly into your neck; there was no evidence of deception. Your skin looked flawless and uniform. You were perfect and beautiful; everyone knew you were born an angel wearing a glittery blue dress covered in sequins. They could hear it in your chenille voice as you sold them dreams over the phone.
I tried to do the same with foundation that was just a half shade darker than my skin. The foundation was selected for your skin, not mine. The result made my face, jaw, and neck look a little like the desert uniforms the United States military seemed to be favoring at that moment or in those decades of history.
It always looked that way to me, no matter how carefully I imitated your artistry.
Surely anyone who inspected me carefully would know that I was a spy in your feminine space.
In hindsight, I think you knew, but always tried to avoid what you later called “the elephant in the room”.
You betrayed your suspicions with each micro-correction of my masculine mannerisms.
Years later, you would tell me that you felt deceived.
Don’t you know that I never wanted to be a man?
I simply was one. I simply am one. I simply will always be one.
Foundation blended under my jawline won’t fix that.
I didn’t want to be a man; I wanted to be wanted. It took me 35 years to admit that I’m not the person you hoped for me to be. I sometimes wish I was that person because I wanted so badly to be someone you could love. I nearly died over and over from my efforts to be the person you invented.
Even the little boys on the playground recognized as truth what you overlooked and corrected.
Why is that?
Is it that they had no real investment in this idea of me? No itemized bill of the costs of your invention?
I’ve washed my mask off.
This is me.
This is all of me.
I hope someday, you are able to love me exactly as I am.
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