A Zillion Little Bits
Coming out in middle age and the joy of transformation
“You HAVE to come play guitar for us… if you don’t come we will find you and drag you in by your pretty pretty hair!”
It’s 1999, I’ve just stumbled through a song at a talent show in my Catholic church’s fellowship hall. I’m stuffing my guitar back in its case and this young woman — cherubic face, pixie haircut, just the fucking cutest girl you’ve ever seen who of course has the equally cute name Rhiannon. She’s gesticulating at me and threatening me with a bruised scalp and pretty significant rug burn should I not join the band that plays at the Life Teen mass. I remember nothing else about that night — not the song I played or who else was there — just Rhiannon practically jumping up and down telling me “we will find you and drag you here!”
That’s not a story, I want to be clear. One thing I’m discovering having come out as trans in middle age, the idea of having “a story” is blown into a zillion little bits. They float around in my brain and recollect into little constellations of seemingly random shit that suddenly make SO MUCH SENSE NOW. Not everyone gets that thing where “oh I’ve known I was supposed to be a girl since I was nine,” some of us just WERE nine years old and FASCINATED by The Little Mermaid to the point that we’d fantasize about dangerous undersea scenarios where Ariel would come to our rescue as we swam around under our bedsheets with all of our stuffed animals. It’s what I completely understand now as gender euphoria (and also maybe some kind of kink that bears some exploration?), but back then as I was delaying sleep into the wee hours of the morning, I only knew it was something I should keep to myself… I’m sorry, this is also not a story.
The story happens decades later, when a trans boy I had just met the previous night pulls me into the back hallways of Underground, pushes me against a wall and kisses me, deep, smearing both of our lipsticks. He calls me “pretty girl,” and I fucking melt and then FUCK… Rhiannon comes flying back into my head and OH YEAH, THAT’S why I’ve carried that weird threat to join a praise band all these years! That was the first time I remember someone calling me “pretty.” Back when I was still cosplaying as a boy, I really disliked being called “handsome.” Ugh. Truly an auntie’s word, a First Communion compliment, get it away from me… but “pretty?” It felt subversive and seductive and it was so much a better fit for my slight stature, my long hair, my soft cheeks. What’s going on? Oh yeah, we’re making out in a dingy backroom with another trans person. Subversion and seduction? Yeah. Bring it on.
My decision to go on hormone replacement therapy sat in my head for a long time before I made it known. But sometime toward the end of 2021 I made a silent deal with myself — ”bitch, get on antidepressants first… THEN we can talk about estrogen (you messy ho)” The moment I had that fun little argument with myself, I kinda knew my path was absolutely headed straight for Ursula’s cavern. And we mustn’t lurk in doorways… it’s rude.
And when I was finally able to wrench that little deal up to the surface and actually talk about it with my therapist, one question she had for me was “what are you hoping to get out of HRT?” And a zillion little stories that aren’t really stories float around my head, still struggling to connect Rhiannon to The Little Mermaid to putting on a dress and makeup for the first time in college to this general feeling that I’ve had my entire life that I Do Not Fit In Anywhere, With Anyone and the deep sadness that comes with that, so pervasive as to be invisible, like water to a mermaid. And so instead of any of that stuff, I burst into giggles and blurt out the next thing that comes to mind… “TITTIES!”
YES TITTIES. THAT’S WHAT THIS ENTIRE PIECE HAS BEEN BUILDING TO. MAY I PRESENT EXHIBITS A AND B, WHICH ARE TERRIBLE NICKNAMES FOR BOOBS, I AM STILL WORKING ON THAT.
BECAUSE LISTEN. I have never been ambitious. When you spend the first 40 years of your life not having any idea who you are, you never really learn how to want things. And so KNOWING that I wanted tits, as silly and juvenile as that seemed, just feeling in my gut that I was so certain of it that I was willing to risk blowing up my entire life… I knew I had to listen to that. I have now been on a cocktail of spironolactone, progesterone… and this tiny thing: estradiol, for almost a year and half. And when I tell you I have never been happier in my fucking life…
Anyone who remembers seeing me take the Write Club stage years ago, you probably remember a lot of anger, a lot of confusion… a lot of drinking. And a frankly TERRIBLE sense of fashion I mean my GOD, checkered oxford shirts and baggy chinos?! A hate crime. And now I catch myself in the mirror and see this face and this smile and THESE TITS, and I’ll just giggle like a maniac. I knew I wanted them but I had NO IDEA how deliriously happy they would make me. I catch myself all the time just walking around my house just absentmindedly holding them. Ariel got her legs and it didn’t cost much, just her voice — and I got these and what did it cost me? A marriage. A house. A sense of security in the world.
Worth it.
The constellations of experiences orbiting around my head are finally FINALLY starting to make sense. To tell a coherent story of who I am and who I have been my entire life. Some people are born with that clarity, some people find their way there through vocation or religion or love…
But girl, if your euphoria has to come in a can or bottle, if your euphoria has to come in a little blue pill… it is just as real as anyone else’s. If you can’t make your own, store bought is fine. And you deserve it just like anyone else. If you want to be a girl, you can just be a girl.
This piece was originally written for and performed at WRITE CLUB Atlanta in November 2023.
