Tying Together the Threads of My Transgender Reality
Tights, Being Defended, and a Bottle of Soda
At five years of age I negotiated a trade with a female playmate who was the same age. I wanted to be a ballerina and she wanted a truck (she had all sisters and I had a brother). We traded a pair of her tights for one of my trucks. We were both happy with the trade but, in 1960, our fathers rapidly reversed the exchange and we never played together ever again.
I always dreamed that someone who truly knew me, who could read my mind, would know that all I have ever wanted was for someone to buy me a pair the most colorful pair of tights. I then saw this scene last week:
It touched my soul and I could feel my heart sing. Louisa’s reaction is exactly how I pictured how mine would be in the same situation. It meant that someone finally got me. Because I have never shared that with those that know me, even the ones that know I am transgender, I will have to live vicariously through replays of Louisa’s joy.
I had a similar reaction to another scene in the series Sense8 that came out in 2015:
The scene shook me to my core before I even knew I was transgender, which I discovered three years later. The reason for this reaction is that all my life I have protected people both physically and emotionally. I never needed protecting myself because I did that “guy” thing. I never showed weakness. I did what guys are supposed to do, protect others.
In this scene Nomi, who is a MTF transgender character, shows her vulnerability when she is verbally attacked by a TERF. Her cis lesbian girlfriend,Amanita, defends her even to the point of being ready to physically battle for her. Amanita was her protector. It literally touched my soul. I had no clue why that scene meant so much to me when I first saw it. I had no clue at that time that I was suppressing my female gender inside a “guy” suit of armor. I felt so connected to Nomi and her willingness to be vulnerable and it touched me in a way that I never felt before.
I was finally being honest with myself.
I guess I have always really wanted someone to protect me from my constant internal and external gender assaults that I have fought throughout my life. Constant combat never allowed me to feel and to allow others to see my vulnerabilities.
I hid them all inside.
Also held inside is this sense of joy and excitement that males are not allowed to express. Sometimes it squeaks out on its own. For example, I love to dance. At all the weddings, parties and bars, wives seek me out to dance while their husbands sit drinking beers and talking sports and I love it. I am entirely Emma on the dance floor. I usually kick off my shoes and dance barefoot. The husbands think I’m crazy.
I have always loved to dance. I was able to sneak in modern dance class in college. If I am working on a project at home, I put on music and dance along as I do my project. Dancing lets me be me. It lets the joy out of my heart and my soul feels such renewal.
And then I have to bottle it up again. I have all the “guy” things I have to do.
I hate it.
At times, I feel like a shaken bottle of soda. I feel this pressure building up inside of me. It is a combination of absolute joy coupled with this intense need to share it with others. I have to keep it bottled up inside this male bottle. I am afraid, if I don’t transition, that all of this joy will sit inside me as I sit on the shelf in the cupboard until it all calms down.
I really should keep an eye on my shelf life. I don’t want to be too “stale” when I finally uncork the bottle.
Emma Holiday
Thank you for reading my work.
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My writing has three specific goals:
1. Writing is my therapy. I have a very limited outlet for my thoughts so I write to find a way to process the most profound experience in my life. I need to understand and I need to accept myself to move forward.
2. Being transgender, for me, is a very lonely existence and if I can share some of the things that I feel and think as I go through the process of transitioning with others who are transgender and, in some way, lessen their pain and sense of loneliness, then all of this public exposure of my personal thoughts is not a waste.
3. I write to help cisgender people understand that all trans people want is to be simply understood, accepted and treated as a normal person. We are.
