Processing

Hi. I’m feeling raw today, and the best thing that someone can do when raw is to sit down and actually go and write. Why write, you ask, well, 2024 has already been a big year in the story of Zoë Dahling. You see, as of December 31st, 2023, she is completely, fully and completely out. To family, to the world, to friends, to work. No more boymode, no more secrets, no more hiding. Just Zoë.

Now, this is of course a happy thing, but as with any trans thing, the happy thing comes wrapped in a bundle of miserable awful things. In this case, I was led to this point by a trip back home, as the deadname identity. This entailed a 30 minute daily routine of stuffing my body into an appropriate shape, hiding it in an appropriately baggy outer garment, and arranging hairpins to approximate a masculine haircut. It was dehumanizing, it felt awful, and it was just a gigantic exercise in self-torture in order to express a fundamental lie. Five days of that pretty much left me decided that I just… couldn’t anymore. So I wrote the family text, finalizing with what is the last step for so many people. I cannot tell you what the end result of all of this will be, but I can definitely say that response has… not been positive so far, and has involved what is now more than a week of total silence. It certainly brought out why I hid for so long, but then I realized… did I?

I have, of course, spent a lot of time lately going back over time past, and my story, and how I got to here, and I dug up this photograph, from what is now 14 years ago. This is the parking lot of a hair salon. I had gotten the haircut, and look how happy this person is. Look at the smile and glee. I’ll tell the story about what happened next, but before then, let me say that I was in the late stages of my doctorate, and I was in a very chaotic relationship time. I still had active PTSD producing panic attacks. I was drinking nearly constantly (usually at least 3 beers a day). When you perceive the above person, really do realize that that person was not happy in life at that moment. it wasn’t the darkest days, but that was mostly thanks to having finally figured out how to access distraction. Anyway, seeing a photo of just pure contentment on that face is astounding to me, sitting here today. 

So, what happened? One week after this photo was taken, that haircut and that person went home to St. Louis. That evening, they came to see their mother sobbing over the indignity of seeing their “son” in that haircut, with a scowling father sitting in the other corner, mostly silent. Discussion rolled back and forth for a week. There was crying, there was yelling. I said the word “bisexual”, I also said the word “genderqueer”, all trying to play it down, and make it end. Ultimately, I was semi-forcibly taken to a barber shop, and the above was replaced with a short masculine haircut. I can still remember the sneer from the stylist as they “asked me what I wanted” while my mother looked on like I was 12. I felt humiliated, and I also felt nearly catatonic (again, note the mental health state communicated in the previous paragraph). I didn’t cut my bangs short again until 2023 (btw, if you are a transfemme reading this, bangs are super flattering, and they are very worth considering).

Anyway, I tell this story to give myself some time to reflect a bit on all of this. I tell it to give my anger a place to go. But mostly, I tell it as a way of processing out a thing that I hear, often, from the experiences of cis people who see a loved one transition — that there is a grieving process for the lost deadname persona. That that person has to be said goodbye to in order to welcome the new person that showed up. But I guess, for me, it was never “<DEADNAME> died so Zoë could live.” It was “Zoë was trapped inside of <DEADNAME> pulling the strings, staying alive, keeping herself safe, keeping her emotions in a jar”. I was always here. He was always an act, a shield. I was inside of the mecha, SCREAMING. For years, decades. and now, I’m out, all the way out. I’m driving the ship, there is no mecha. Just me, a girl out there trying to exist, to care for her loved ones, and for her community.

And goddamn it, I am hurt, and I am fucking furious. I am also not able to be gaslit or bullied about who I am anymore. The point of no return was crossed so long ago you can’t even see it from here. My only regret is taking this long. My only desire with this stuff, and why I share so readily, is to help people down this same path. Thank you for reading. May the future be kinder to all of us than the past has been.