Although I don’t yet know what it is like to be a trans person in Fort Frances (which is a long and complicated tale for another time), I do know what it’s like to live in a place where I don’t always feel accepted.
Sure, many people will feel they can relate to that sentiment. However, the place I’m talking about is in my own body.
From a young age, almost all of my friends were girls. We liked the same TV shows, music and more, at least until I started to let that familiar feeling of not belonging with my peers sink into my bones.
Growing up in the ’90s, I was interested in Sailor Moon. It always struck me as odd that the boys wouldn’t want to pretend to be a sailor scout. Sailor Jupiter, she was so cool! She had strength far superior to that of any other, wielded lightning bolts and had an innate ability to converse with plants.
She was like Thor, but better.
Similarly, the girls didn’t quite understand it when I wanted to play pretend as Sailor Jupiter. So, I was relegated to playing the role of Tuxedo Mask.
I hid the parts of me I learned weren’t traditionally accepted. I started to take part in stereotypically masculine activities to fit in with the narrative that was being woven around me. My father enrolled me in sports I didn’t like, after-school activities I wasn’t interested in, and taught me to be a man, or so he thought.
At this point, Tuxedo Mask had become my mask. Although I wished I could transform myself into a feminine effigy, my wishes were not enough at that time.
I heard about women like Amanda Lepore, who had surgery to align their bodies with their gender identity. My parents would laugh about her in their bedroom as I tried to figure out what the joke was.
I wasn’t even ten years old, yet I was still mourning the loss of a life I felt I was robbed of. I pushed my feelings as far down as they would possibly go, then pushed them down even further. I would mentally berate myself for my degeneracy before I understood what exactly degeneracy is.
Thinking I was a degenerate, I resorted to a host of self-destructive actions and behaviours. I hated myself.
For me, Trans Day of Remembrance is a time of grief, not only because of the remembrance of others who have passed on as a result of transphobia and anti-trans violence, but also the remembrance of what I subjected myself to before becoming comfortable in my own skin. In short, it was Hell.
So, while Trans Day of Remembrance is traditionally about the grief of anti-trans violence, this isn’t the only grief trans people live with.
It’s commonplace for trans people to have loved ones who feel a sense of loss during their transition, or even to feel that sense of loss themselves. Pile on a lifetime of transphobic and/ or homophobic rhetoric, a loss of friends, family and loved ones who distance themselves because they do not or will not agree, and a pervasive feeling that you could be persecuted at any moment simply for living authentically, and it’s clear why trans people hold so much space in their hearts and minds for grief.
I’ve buried friends because of the shame associated with detransitioning; I’ve had teachers laugh at me when I show up to class; I’ve had glass bottles thrown at me from moving vehicles while being called slurs; and I’ve had people whom I thought loved me spit on me and attack me without even the slightest warning.
If this doesn’t seem like a life characterized by grief and remembrance, I don’t think I can do anything more to convince you.
