And, finally, “Am I undeniable?”
In other words,do I check off the boxes needed to be a girl in this society?
If transitioning meant feeling more true to myself, then who was I before I left the closet?
And afterward, what stops me from coming back inside?
Universally, transitions apply to everyone.
Before and after losing a family member.
Denny (she/her)
Before and after trying a different haircut.
But for trans and nonbinary people, the rules are different: We cue the curtain.
We shine the spotlight.
Devin-Norelle (ze/zim)
All of a sudden, there is an audience.
“Call me Caitlyn,” reads the now-famousVanity Faircover story.
This cover, this moment, wasloud, and its ring reverberated through the air for a long time.
Devin-Norelle (ze/zim)
I witnessed classmates one-up each other with transphobic jokes about her on Twitter.
To zim, transitioning is more than a solo endeavor trans people must undertake alone.
“They need to adjust to [not gendering] people.”
Nar Angel Rokh (he/they)
When searching trans or nonbinary public figures, autofill suggestions tend to include “[their name] before.
It was a meaningful memory defined by the simple joy of feeling both secure and free.
“How I feel today might be different than how I felt yesterday,” Rokh says.
Nar Angel Rokh (he/they)
Just like moving schools, or grieving, or a haircut.
“Being trans doesnt define me or what I am capable of.
How I feel today might be different than yesterday.”
Oliver Wight (they/she)
For modelOliver Wight(they/she), too, a childhood in the water was their amulet of joy.
“I loved boogie boarding as a kid,” they tell me.
I still do that today.”
Oliver Wight (they/she)
“Theres an assumption that everything has to be explained, as if to a child.”
We cant have cake and eat it, too, unless we create and publicize the recipe ourselves.
Not so much a moment of shift as a sign that something clicked for them.
Mattie Lubchansky (they/them)
“I did so many things gradually.
I took my sweet time figuring out what I wanted and who I was.”
In that fight, couples performedheteronormative, socially constructed etiquettethatyielded privileges to queer couplesotherwise not offered to them.
Mattie Lubchansky (they/them)
Or, ‘Whats the endpoint?'"
“The most unfortunate questions cis people ask: ‘Are they going to end up as X?’
and ‘Whats the endpoint?'”
Maya Mones (she/her)
“I would describe transitioning as a moment of growth in who you are.
When transness is applied to transition, that growth is often met with shame and ire.
We are all always transitioning, trans people are just expected to ‘show their work.'”
Maya Mones (she/her)
“We are all always transitioning, trans people are just expected to ‘show their work.'”
For Lubchansky, transitioning is a process.
“Because this is who you are.”
Denny (she/her)
What is a “before” or an “after,” then?
Before and after society had its ties on us?
Where people are not expected to prove anything changed, nor explain why something hasnt.
Where people are no longer responsible to justify their journeys and, instead, simply get to live them.
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