Teresa Sherlock (Tess)

Last year I thought for the first time "what if I transitioned?"

It wasn't the first time that I had thought "what if I were a girl?" or "what if I'm trans?"

But it was the first time I really thought about transitioning. The first time I gave myself permission to see myself as a girl. In small ways. In insignificant, and private ways.

I didn't tell anyone.

But it felt good. Really damn good.

But I decided not to transition.

I was worried that I didn't meet some imagined idea of what a trans person should be. I didn't know, I didn't ask or do the research. It was easier and safer to just to ignore it. It would go away.

But it didn't go away, it doesn't go away. And some part of me knew that, because it wasn't the first time. It wasn't the first time I grappled with some aspect of queerness, or the first time that I tried to look away from who I really am. To look away from a happier and better version of me.

It didn't work, looking away. The feelings didn't stop existing because I stopped thinking about them for a little while.

It only lasted two months. Someone said something. They probably meant it in an innocuous way. But I knew how they saw me, how so many people saw me. As a man.

It felt wrong. And it felt more wrong every time it happened. Every time it came from someone at the grocery store, from someone online, from a friend. The sound of it just grew louder and louder and I hated it. And it frustrated me and I felt like I couldn't do anything to make it go away, I knew it would happen again.

But then it happened again and it changed me.

It happened and I saw myself clearly for the first time. I didn't need to think about it anymore because I knew exactly who I was. I knew exactly what I wanted.

Watching "I Saw the TV Glow" felt like that.

I wish that the first thing out of their mouth wasn't always an excuse
Actually have you maybe considered that you're not being fair by expecting anything?
I clearly am expecting too much expecting them to actually care
To actually offer support that doesn't include the suggestion that maybe I'm the one who is asking for too much

It's a name That's too much? Could I possibly ask for even less? I don't have anything else and even that feels like it could slip away from me at any moment

Sometimes I say it in my head and it doesn't feel like mine

I hate that

I know who I am and who I want to be but it feels like people keep trying to tear it away from me
It hurts
It hurts knowing that I'm not worth the effort
That this thing that makes me happy and whole is such an inconvenience for them

I wish I didn't care

A take i see occasionally from other trans folks, usually on twitter, is that some trans people make being trans their whole personality. And I think this is kind of unfair mostly because...

The world will never let us forget that we are trans.

Every week day i wake up and clock in to my job and join my morning meeting where pretty much without fail at least one person, if not like 4 or 5 people will either deadname me or misgender me.

I can't really say anything about it either, cause I've read dozens of stories of trans people getting fired for bringing stuff like this up. It's so easy to get labeled "difficult". And nobody wants someone who is difficult.

My feelings don't matter, my identity, my sense of self. They are allowed to casually ignore it or willfully disregard it. But if I speak up I'm the one who gets punished.

So after a day of dealing with that I go talk to my parents. And at least one of them will usually misgender me. But also if I speak up about it I'm apparently not letting them correct themselves. Nobody likes someone who is "difficult".

And so I go to talk to my friends, who are the only people who respect who i am. Who let me be who i am without question. But they're all so far away and that makes it tougher. I had friends here but it turns out that even the good allies, the type that build their entire personalities around being progressive and caring about marginalized people, still don't like when you suggest that maybe something they've said could be hurtful to you. Doesn't matter that they're cishet, they still feel entitled to tell you how trans people should feel, or what is actually harmful to trans people. And asking for consideration? How dare you?! Nobody likes someone who is "difficult".

"How did it get so complicated?" she asks.
Why can't i be easier, simpler, more palatable for her.

"I just can't believe she would be harmful," my friends said.
How dare i feel hurt by her actions.

Nobody likes someone who is "difficult".

So I don't have them to lean on either. So I need something to relax. Turn on tv. God there's so much transphobia on tv.

"it was a different time"
as if we weren't people in the mid 2000s.

It is every where. I can't forget for a second what people think about me.

I love being trans. I really do. My life is so much better since I started transitioning.

But the world makes it pretty damn clear that it isn't happy that I have.

I'm difficult.

For existing.

So sorry if I talk about being trans too much. Sorry if I'm too difficult for you too. Sorry that my personality is too trans for you.

I'm disappointed that cis people don't get it but seeing trans people go after other trans people for this shit is just sad.

it's exhausting.

my friends all live other places.

the friends i had here decided they didn't want to be friends.

my family messes it up enough that i kinda believe that they don't really believe.

i feel alone.

this was even true for the most part when I came out as bi, even before I had tackled any of my gender feelings in any meaningful way. I can think of maybe two people that had any actual enthusiam for me coming out.

it's always this measured response, like they can't just be happy for me. they talk in quieter voice to show me they're taking it seriously, maybe? but I don't want serious, I want someone to feel my joy, I want someone to be excited in the way that I am. instead they just let the fire die. oh that's nice. that's good that you figured that out.

i feel selfish complaining. they're accepting, for the most part.

coming out as trans was harder. when I was bi it was a thing that people learned and then never mentioned again. they could safely ignore it. but being trans is different. i'm going to change and that change is something that is being done to them in their mind. i am changing from the person they knew. this wasn't part of the deal.

even when they're accepting they still make sure i know that it's my responsibility to be patient with them. it's my fault that i feel hurt when they deadname me, when they misgender me. "sorry i did this but also you need to be sorry that you cared that i did it".

i think i've heard the same words from pretty much every cis person i've told, like verbatim.

"you need to be patient with me"

it's not even just defensiveness of their own words, they defend other people's words too. i have to understand that this other person, who they don't personally know, is just dealing with the fact that i changed.

it's always my fault. cis people are fucking cowards. just take responsibility for the thing you said. own the things you say. apologize or don't. change or don't. but don't act like this is a burden. i am not your burden.

"you have your support system, now we have to find ours"

my parents actually said that to me

what the fuck

i'm not your burden

you took something from me that i can't get back

and that still isn't enough

i'm over begging people to see me

i'm not your burden

CW: deadnaming, misgendering, transphobia

“You have to dress nice because they’re going to keep these pictures forever” Dress nice means dress like a man. Forever means I’m going to have to look at this picture on the wall forever. A constant reminder of how I am right at this moment, not in two or five years. Not when I get to be more myself. Now.

Now when I’m only four months into HRT.

Forever.

The pictures will be forever.

My brother is getting married this week. I’m happy for him, his fiancé is great. I already feel like she’s part of the family.

I had to come out to him a couple months ago because he saw a profile on my family’s Netflix account that said Tess and thought it had been hacked. I could have left the profile in my deadname but looking at it every time I logged in felt awful.

The pain of seeing that name every day in so many places was worse than the idea that it might out me.

I’m not out at work yet, at least not fully. I’ve mentioned using they/them pronouns and changed my name in the company database to a nickname. But people still deadname me anyway. They deadname me even when they’re apologizing for deadnaming me. At some point I’m going to have to come out fully because when I legally change my name I’ll have to let work know so I can still get paid. I’ve worked there for six years and I don’t think any of my coworkers really know me.

I don’t think my family really knows me. They don’t ask questions. Not real ones. They ask about work. Or sometimes about friends. At least the ones they remember the names of. But they don’t really ask about me. I don’t think they could name a single person I’ve dated. Or for how long I dated them. They just don’t ask questions like that.

They don’t talk about me being trans, they don’t ask questions. When I try to talk about how difficult it is to see my deadname on all of these accounts I have they say “That’s how it is for now”.

For now.

For now but the pictures will be forever.

It’s never sympathy, it is this is the way things are. Or you have to understand that he’s trying. It’s never about my feelings. I have to understand.

I feel like a burden.

That my existence in proximity to other people requires something of them that they give only reluctantly. I’m allowed to stay only as long as I provide something of value. As soon as I have needs I’m discarded. I’m afraid to be needy. Afraid to ask for consideration. It didn’t start with coming out. Even before that people always found reasons to leave.

They still do.

When I ask for consideration people make me feel like I’ve done something wrong. I asked a friend not to misgender me. She decided she didn’t want to be friends anymore. Years of friendship gone. Was it even ever real? Another friend defended her saying she would never believe the friend could do something harmful like that. We don’t talk anymore either.

Asking for things makes me feel like a burden.

I told my mom that she shouldn’t misgender or deadname me even when she’s talking about me before I started to transition. And she said going forward she wouldn’t but she wasn’t going to change any of the old photo albums.

You’re only allowed to ask so much of people. Because it’s burden on them to have to change the way they think about me. That’s the way most people make me feel. You have to understand that they’re trying. You have to because otherwise you’re just being unreasonable and why should they even try? Why do I always have to be the understanding one? I’m the one going through this. I’m so tired. I put up with all of this day after day after day.

Forever.

I was deadnamed by a friend today.

I was telling a cis friend today about being frustrated that my dad had deadnamed me twice. He didn't show sympathy, his first response was to defend my dad. It's hard for him, he said.

What about for me? Does he think it's not hard for me?

And while defending my dad he dropped my deadname in the conversation, but since he wasn't calling me that but only using my deadname to make a point it didn't count as deadnaming to him. I explained to him that you don't use a person's deadname, ever. He told me he didn't know that and wasn't part of the trans community so he hadn't heard that before. He asked me to be patient with him.

That's the way it is for now. Be patient with him. He needs time to adjust. This is hard for him.

There will always be some excuse. This is the way it is for now but it's always now.

It will never not be now.

I will always be asked to understand. Not asked actually, told that I need to understand.

I am unreasonable for wanting to be viewed as the person I am. The truth is these people don't actually know me. They don't care enough to know. To ask. To anything. I am this one person they have built in their head and can never be anyone else.

The picture isn't the only thing that lasts forever.

This conversation repeats forever. With almost every cis person I know.

My feelings don't matter, they never matter. I have had this conversation with so many people now. Been deadnamed and misgendered by so many people. But my feelings don't matter. It is always about them. They say sorry but they still prioritize their own feelings. Their innocence in all of this. They need me to absolve them of still thinking of me as ****, of still thinking of me as a man.

I'm not even mad at them.

I'm sad that the joy I feel about being trans is being drained away. I'm sad that when I'm actually starting to like myself that they aren't capable of liking that person too. No, instead they see me as the one who took away someone that they liked better.

Forever.