Hey, so this is something I wrote at the start of my first transit at the end of 1989. It was published in my university's student magazine, no great feat since I was the editor! I haven't read it or even thought about it for years but it resurfaced in my memory during a session with my shrink a month ago. Last night I gathered the courage to find it and read it with much older, wiser eyes. Hey it's a little melodramatic but wow it sure is raw and really highlights my feelings at the time. In essence it was a coming out letter to the "whole world" or in reality the couple of thousand who might bothered picking up the magazine and reading it. I signed it in my then female name "Juli" (yeah, no "e"... I was a bit pretentious!) and without my last name so no one would have had a clue it was me unless I told them.
Let me know what you think!
In Transit
IPeering between the bars of my prison cell I watch the world as it moves around me. And I move around in my world, for my prison is not immobile. Despite this, I am not free. Prisons are prisons after all. I am trapped. A prisoner: helpless and hopeless. People interact with me,play with me, prey on me; I look out at them from behind the bars. They talk with me. Laugh with me. Laugh at me. I laugh back, hiding my despair,my helplessness. I laugh back from behind the bars.
People treat me differently because of my prison.They judge me because of it. They see the walls and make assumptions: assumptions about my behaviour, my attitude, my personality, my sexuality. Assumptions which, piece by piece by piece, have been constructed and set in place around my prison walls: making escape all that more impossible. Locking me in. Secure in my hopelessness. And so they judge me by their assumptions; relate to me as I don't relate to myself, perceive me as I don't perceive myself. Treating me as someone I am not.
IIPeople do not believe my prison is a prison. They are my jury: "You can't deny the evidence", they say. "We pronounce you guilty." They are right... of course. I look at myself, I see my prison. I move,my prison moves. My body is my prison. Walls of flesh, blood,bone: and I am trapped within. My body is my prison because my body is not me. But because of my body they say "you can't deny the evidence". They say "you are a man". From behind the bars I scream my silent denial.
People ensure that my prison remains my prison. They execute the verdict. Society is my warden. Society constructs the rules for my behaviour, my life. Society polices the perimeters of my prison, watching me with its million eyes; ensuring there is not one moment I break the rules. "You can't do that. You can't say that. You can't think that. You can't wear that. Can't play with that You're not a little girl; you'll grow up to be a big strong man. Start acting like one."
Sometimes, when the warden is not watching,when the million eyes are averted, I shed my prison garbs and dress as I please,paint my face, wear jewellery, play with dolls. Sometimes I stand naked before a mirror, and a man gazes mockingly back...
IIIStaring out between the bars I marvel at the beauty of the world. Silver clouds shimmer in the aqua sky; trees reaching from the ground, emerald arms stretching out and upwards;a carpet of colour spreads out before me, behind me, all around. Light, love, life fills my heart; the prison bars melt away, the walls fall away and I am myself. I am the woman, the person, I know myself to be... not the man they force me to be. Of course, it is all an illusion, the walls are still there: no escape exists. Society dangles the keys far from nose. Building its walls of assumptions, barbed-wired with rules, secured by moral watch dogs, society closes me in. The sun in my heart goes out. Darkness eclipses my light. Hate's cancer corrupts my love. Despair pollutes my life. No escape.
IVReligion praises society's rules; school teaches society's rules; peers and elders enforce society's rules; media celebrates society's rules: black is not white, white is not black, there are no shades of grey. Society
is society's rules.Society executes its verdict: men are not women, women are not men, there are no shades of grey. "Abide by the rules and everything will be right."
So I am treated as a man. Expected to do things men do. Expected to think like men think. Expected to dress like men dress. I try my hardest, adopting my personal definition of what a man should be: caring, loving, understanding, sensitive. I bend their rules, break their rules. It surprises them, disgusts them: "
girlypoofterwhimpgayboy... there are no shades of grey".
My prison dictates that I be treated as a man... a woman trapped inside a man's body. A woman expected to do things men do. A woman expected to think like men think. Expected to dress like men dress. Trapped. Society is my warden.Society is society's rules.
VAs I grow I learn there is a way to escape. A means of change.A means to be treated as I feel I should be treated. A means to do things I want to do, think what I want to think, be who I want to be. A means to be free.
I whisper plans of my gaol brake. Few understand. Society is outraged, sickened, disgusted. It screams "your prison is not a prison" and, in contradiction "you were born a man, be one."
Society does not see my escape as an escape, but as an affront to its rules. An affront to its very existence. A threat to its very existence. I know its rules are wrong, right down to the most basic assumptions. Black can be white. White can be black. There are many shades of grey.
Grace [formerly signed 'Juli (Woman in transit)']
