Don We Now, Our Trans Apparel

I was a mostly normal kid. I was seen as a high-achiever, I was well connected with my peers and had lots of friends, I was involved in sports and other extracurriculars, and I had a mostly positive relationship with my parents and family. I knew I was probably gay queer from a very young age, and while that felt scary, I was okay with it. After all, Will & Grace had been on the air for as long as I could recall, and while the representation wasn’t anywhere near perfect, I had some idea of queer people in the media, which gave me something to model my own life after.

Despite being okay with some level of queerness, for as long as I can remember, there’s always been a constant inner dialogue policing how I present myself to the world.

I’d ask myself, “Am I coming across as too faggy, too femme, too weird? Why does my voice get mistaken for my mom’s on the phone? Why are my wrists so fucking limp?” And most importantly, “Why can’t I stop myself from wearing dresses?” The persistent patrolling of my body and how it was being perceived by others contributed to a noticeable shift in how I carried myself in the world. I went from being a wildly outgoing, inquisitive, confident, and excited kid to slowly becoming more introverted, more anxious, more secretive, and more skeptical of myself and the world around me. And even after more than a decade of therapy, I still find myself processing where that shift started and unpacking how to reconnect with myself.

For as long as I can recall, I’ve always loved womenswear. No – let me rephrase that. For as long as I can recall, I’ve always loved obsessing over myself in the mirror, while being draped in womenswear. Some of my first memories are climbing the stairs up to my parents’ bedroom, going into my mom’s closet to find “my dress” (a pink blouse that became a floor length gown, akin to Billie Burke’s infamous Glinda the good witch dress from 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, as soon as the fabric touched my body – or at least that’s how I saw it), and then seating myself at my mom’s vanity – where I’d stare at my reflection, in awe of my own feminine beauty. If I was really feeling my fantasy, I might even don a string of pearls or fashion myself a wig from a spare bath towel I’d found. And I’d do this again, and again, and again, and again – feeling more like myself each time that dress went onto my body.

Rituals like this one were deemed acceptable, even cute, for a while, but eventually – and I don’t remember exactly when, I’d guess that by the time I was about 3 or 4 years old – I started being given rules: first just one, but slowly and over time, those rules accumulated and became a code of conduct. I wasn’t told why, but I knew. The rules were put in place to protect me, to keep me from getting lost in my rituals, to keep me based in reality – so that I could have a normal life. And so, I did my best to follow them.

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Rule #1: Dresses are to be worn inside the house at all times.

This one was a rule from my father, and it was to protect me from the outside world. Inside my home, seated at my mom’s vanity, no one would hurt me. I wouldn’t have to face ridicule or teasing from anyone about my proclivities for the feminine silhouettes. No one would even have to know about my dress, and I was taught that, that was a good thing. To be certain I followed this rule, my father informed the neighbors of it and asked that they let him know if I was ever outside in my dress (especially if I was dancing or acting out scenes from my favorite movies), and for the most part, I followed the rule; it wasn’t that hard, after all, since mirrors are tough to find outdoors, and what fun is dressing up if you cannot stare at yourself and ogle at your own beauty.

There was one day, though, where I tested the boundaries. I’m not sure why, but I felt like it wasn’t enough for just me to see myself in all my beauty, and so I decided that the world (or at least my neighborhood) needed to see me, too. So, just as I did many times before – I climbed the stairs, put on my dress, checked myself out in the vanity mirror, but this time instead of confining myself to my parent’s bedroom, I walked down the stairs and out the door.

It's hard to recall exact specifics, but I remember snippets from that day. I remember putting a CD into our gray CD player in the garage – probably either Britney Spears’s Oops…I did it again or the Spice Girls’ Spice, my two favorite albums of the time. I remember using a push broom as my microphone stand. And I remember singing, dancing, and twirling, in broad daylight. I remember feeling proud, too. Proud of the way I looked. Proud of the way I felt. And proud that the world finally got to see me, in my dress, in all my beauty. I remember turning to come back inside, feeling proud that I’d gotten away with breaking the rule. I remember thinking that maybe the rule didn’t make sense, that maybe I could explain to my parents that they were mistaken and that I could share my dress with the world. They’d have to understand. But just as I approached our front door, I saw our neighbor pull into our driveway.

“Sean – are you supposed to be wearing your dress outside?” He asked, knowingly.

A quick, no, was all I could muster, as I knew I’d been caught, pink-handed.

I made my way inside, and I remember feeling a sudden pang of anxiety and disappointment and shame in myself when the phone rang, and when I heard my father greet the voice on the other side of the phone: our neighbor. I saw my father turn to look at me, his facial expression shifting from happy to disappointed, as our neighbor informed him.

Rule #2: Nail polish is only to be worn in places where it can easily be hidden.

Around the same time as falling in love with my pink dress, I fell in love with my pink nail polish. I begged, and begged, and begged my mom to paint my nails for me, and occasionally, she gave in. She always had a clear tote full of different color options, and when I got to take my pick, I’d always opt for pink. But not just pink – pussy pink. This ritual happened more frequently during the summers, while my father was at work, and my mom – who was an elementary school teacher – had summers off. We’d lay out a towel on the floor, turn on a movie, and get! down! to! business!

When this ritual first started, my mom would paint my fingernails and toenails, but that quickly changed to just toes (see rule #2 above, for reference). I’m not sure which of my parents came up with the rule, but the idea was that, again, the world just wasn’t ready for a fully visible set of painted nails on my 4-year-old hands, and painting the toes meant we could disguise the polish to protect me from the eyes of my friends, family, and anyone else not privy to my secret girlhood.

The rule was a frustrating one for me because all my favorite people wore nail polish on their fingers and toes – my mom, my nana, my aunties, and my cousin Mackenzie. But what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t paint my own nails if I wanted to, so I followed the rule.

I remember during the first summer that the rule was implemented, my mom forgot to take off my toenail polish before the first day of swim lessons. I remember seating myself on the cold tile floor around the perimeter of the pool, dangling my little feet over the ledge, trying to practice my big kid kicks but then finding myself distracted by the radiance of my tootsies, shimmering with what I think was OPI’s iconic Cha-Ching Cherry shade (possibly just be wishful thinking as I look back on the memory, but you get the point!). I remember feeling momentarily elated, that the world got to see a small glimpse of the girl I was. Almost immediately though, I remember feeling another pang of anxiety, the same one I’d felt when I was caught by my neighbor, but this time it was when my male swim instructor, who I saw as an adult but was realistically probably 16 years old, approached me to grade my flutter kicks.

I remember him saying something like “Wow, Sean! Your nails look beautiful! Oh, and your kicks look good, too!” Suddenly, my anxiety and fear about the outside world not accepting my beauty melted away and transformed into something I couldn’t put into words at the time but now would describe as gender euphoria. I remember leaving swim lessons feeling confident but also confused as to why this rule existed in the first place since the world (and a full-grown teen boy, nonetheless) had just seen my secret girl nails and didn’t seem to care at all. I’m not sure if this was discussed with my parents or if I just learned over time, but I quickly came to realize that just because this one person didn’t have an issue with how I was presenting didn’t mean that the rest of the world would be as kind.

I’ve always wondered where that swim lessons instructor ended up. I’m not sure if they saw themselves represented in four-year-old me or if they were just a cool exception to the small town, late-nineties/early aughts norm of telling children that non-permanent paint on their nails was unacceptable. Either way, I’ve carried that day with me as hope for myself, that one day I could accept myself and my pussy pink nail polish in the same way that they did.

Rule #3: Girlhood is just a phase and should be grown out of well before adolescence.

This rule was less explicit than the first two and didn’t just come from my parents, but from society at large.

I remember the shift from preschool to elementary school, where I was expected to grow out of my phase of playing “house” with my friends, a game that mostly consisted of me being the wife – who always seemed to be an amalgamation of the various complex yet beautiful women I saw on television at the time – while my several friends would act as a revolving door of different husbands for me, depending on who was willing to play on any given day. I remember the shift from early to late elementary school, where it stopped being okay to have a friend group consisting mostly of girls, and where people became more vocal about how weird it was to play with girl toys, to listen to girl music, to have girl role models. I remember the shifts to middle and high school, where I began to witness other people get dealt the exact consequences that my parents tried to protect me from years and years prior.

Slowly but surely, I retreated inward and only presented the parts of myself to the world that would be safe from ridicule: the fact that I liked playing sports, the fact that I liked rap music, the fact that I was good at talking to girls and could easily befriend them (which at that point had fallen back en vogue, since boys were now interested in girls again). I used those qualities to my advantage, and for the most part, I did it well. Aside from the occasional sissy or faggot being hurled my way, I was mostly well-liked. And that worked for me…at least until I got home from school/practice/social gatherings and inevitably felt the urges starting again. The urges to climb the stairs (this time to my own bedroom), lock the door, and drape myself in a dress. By now, I’d had years of girlhood under my belt and could turn any and everything into a dress, but my favorite was the dress I made from my bed sheets, which I tied at the neck and a belted at the waist, to transform the fabric from plain-old sheets into a stunning floor-length halter-neck gown.

Once I’d adorned my body with the garment, I’d remain in my room for hours, where I was safe to live my everyday life as my complete self. I did all the same things I’d normally be doing: completing homework, listening to music, watching TV, texting friends, scrolling through Facebook – only this time I was doing it fully as myself, in my all my femininity. And I did this day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, to keep the urges at bay, and to remind myself of that beautiful girl I saw in the mirror all those years ago, while still keeping her safe from the judgement and ridicule of others. This worked for me until one day, when I forgot the all-important step in my daily ritual of locking my door, and that’s the day my father walked in and saw me, as the daughter he thought was just a phase that I’d grown out of years prior. The specifics of our conversation that day are fuzzy for me, but I distinctly remember him angrily asking if I thought I was a girl and if I’d want my friends to know that I thought that. I responded with a weak, defeated “no” – the same response I gave my neighbor a decade or so prior. That was last time, for a very long time, that I let that girl out in the world.

As I’ve reflected on this day more recently, I’ve tried to recall when I first thought of myself as a girl. I’m not sure when exactly, but I remember, throughout various points of my childhood and adolescence, feelings of distress that the doctor who delivered me must have made a mistake on my birth certificate, and similarly, I remember feeling confused about how anyone could deny the fact that the person they knew, the same person I saw staring back at me in the mirror, was a girl. I remember wanting to tell my parents but ultimately knowing their response would be an angry, disappointed, confused one, and so I kept it to myself and eventually – through suppression and self-loathing – was able to get the little girl in the mirror to go away, to leave my body completely. Or so I thought.

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The next time I wore a dress was for a college drag show, where I performed as my drag persona, Beverly Pills, a middle-aged Valley of the Dolls-coded housewife, not too dissimilar to the character I acted out when playing house in preschool. I remember feeling similar excitement about putting on the makeup and the wig and the dress and the heels, but I also remember feeling intense anxiety that anyone might realize this was more than just a character for a school-sanctioned drag show, and so outside of that drag show each year, I kept Beverly hidden away, too, and when I did let her out, I was sure to remind everyone that she was only a character and nothing more.

After college, I moved in with my then-boyfriend, now-husband, and I spent the next 5ish years being my adult self. Working a real-ass job, buying a house, planning a wedding amidst a global pandemic, raising two puppies, starting the adoption journey with my partner, and continually becoming more comfortable with my queer, masc-presenting self. But then one day, I woke up and realized how unhappy I was. I went back to therapy and started to unpack where my feelings were coming from, eventually settling upon a non-binary identity, which felt alt and post-modern and queer. Most folks were cool about it and quickly assimilated to the only real change I subjected them to – moving away from he/him pronouns and toward they/them pronouns. And that filled a void for me until it didn’t. At some point over the past year, I realized that while everyone is basically genderless, gender carries so much weight in society, and for me, being non-binary doesn’t feel right either. And so, eventually I decided to completely shave my face, throw out all my clothes, and fully face myself. It was time to let that little girl out again.

The only thing stopping me from sharing myself with the world was the fact that I was married to a cis-gender gay man – who for the past 5 years – was under the impression that he, too, was married to another cis-gender queer man. I knew that before I could be honest with the rest of the world, I needed to be honest with him, and I also knew that there was a chance that he might feel like I, in my truest sense, was not actually what he had signed up for. And so, I prepared myself for what I thought might be the toughest conversation I’d have to have in my entire life thus far.

In the moments leading up to the conversation with Kullen, I thought about turning back – pushing that little girl back into the mental cage she’d been locked in for twenty-seven years. I thought to myself, “Is this all really worth it? You’ve never been happier in your marriage, you’re about to become a parent, and you’re already publicly out as non-binary – which allows you to present your gender more fluidly. Are you okay with jeopardizing all of that, with having the person you love most in the entire world, potentially tell you, ‘I’m sorry but this isn’t what I signed up for. You aren’t what I signed up for, and I’m not sure this is going to work for me.’?”

And that thought alone was almost enough to stop me dead in my tracks.

But it wasn’t enough. I knew that even if it meant not being accepted by the person I care most about, that I had to do this, that there wasn’t another option. And so, I put on my big girl panties and asked Kullen if we could talk about something that had been on my mind recently.

The conversation started with us standing in the kitchen, but by the time it ended, we were both seated on the floor, holding each other, and crying. I told Kullen that I intended to go back to therapy (for the third time since our relationship started) but that this time was different. I explained that while being out as non-binary for the past year had felt good in some regards, it still didn’t feel right. I explained that I’d always sort of known, that it’d always been a thought, but that I’d always told myself I didn’t need to share it share her with the world. And I explained that I knew in being completely honest with him, that there was a very real (and very valid) chance that this meant we couldn’t be together.

I waited for his reaction. I waited for his rejection. I waited for the same disappointed look I saw my father give me, every time I was caught wearing my dress.

But instead, I watched his expression ease, as it turned from that of a husband concerned for his partner’s well-being, to something much more content. With a knowing smile, Kullen looked into my eyes, held my hands, and prepared himself to speak.

“Do you think I’m surprised?” He asked, plainly. “I’m your husband. Don’t you think I notice how your face lights up every time you wear a dress, every time you put on a heel, and every time someone tells you that you look beautiful? Don’t you think I’ve always sort of known this was coming?”

He held his gaze.

“I see how you watch yourself in the mirror, how you become more and more alive as you put on the makeup, zip up the dress, and dance along to the music. I see the shift in your posture, your body language. You become yourself.”

I stared back at him, trying to process the words coming out of his mouth.

“Sean, I love you. You are my person. And while neither of us have all the answers right now, I want to take this journey with you. I want to be there every step of the way. We’ll learn as we go.” He continued.

I continued to stare, not knowing how to respond.

This was the first time I – as the little girl, in her little pink dress, with her pink nail polish – felt truly accepted, truly validated, truly seen. It was the first time I’d ever felt completely at ease in my body, knowing I wasn’t alone. I had someone to walk alongside me.

“I love you,” was all I could say.

…

And that brings us to today, thirty-one days since coming out as trans to my husband and a few trusted friends. I start therapy next week, and I am elated to continue uncovering the little girl that’s always been there. I just got back from a bachelorette party where I got to twirl around in the most beautiful dress I’ve ever placed on my body, and even though the dress was bright green instead of pink, I know that little girl is smiling back at me in the mirror, ecstatic to finally share herself with the world.