"Room of Mirrors," or Exploring Femininity Through Mirrors Past and Present
Three years ago yesterday, the world I knew shattered. The trans girl canon “egg cracking” moment happened. I looked into the looking glass and Lily heard the clarion call and jumped out at me. I stood stark looking into a mirror at something I had never seen myself as before. But in that moment, I was face to face with my future, and the soul I thought I had a good grasp on was dead. Lily was here now. And she was just as terrified as I was, but in equal measure she was joyously exuberant. Finally, that little ember in the back of my brain was getting oxygen.
The world simultaneously started to make sense and also become so much more chaotic. I had worn dresses, panties, bras, cheerleader skirts and even lingerie when I thought I was just in a “cross dressing” moment in my life again. But there she was, malformed but present. “I walk the world a blend of the masculine and feminine, a place where my ass is fine but these tits ain’t mine,” a mantra I came up with in the shower one day out of the ether was playing on loop in my head.
In that longing and welcoming glance at the mirror, I thought of all the mirrors of my past. The ones I had burned holes through trying to stare at myself wondering what was missing, despite all of the things that I had in my life I was unhappy and just felt like I was living for others (the former of those came first, the latter came shortly after coming out). But here she was in all her newfound glory, staring back at me, and finally being seen for who she is.
The mirrors we view ourselves through is constantly a reflection of not only how society views us as much as how we see our soul. If I wasn’t a trans soul, that day in the mirror would have been utterly repulsive. Or at the very least something I could just take off at the end of the weekend and go back to work with a beard shadow on Monday. But in this moment it was such a warm inviting hug from someone long forgotten, pushed down in the sake of all of the accolades of an unfulfilling life which only served to further how others viewed me, not how I saw myself.
The mirrors of the past seemed like a funhouse full of harmful distortions of my body image, self-worth, actual identity, and everything I thought I knew shattered in that life-changing moment. The beard that made me look more manly to the outside world simply served to further the repression of the soul I knew was in me but I couldn’t show the outside world for fear of stigmatization and ostracizing from social circles, or so I thought.
Three years on, I look in the mirror and though I can see the things that still remind me of the old life, there’s so much that I look in the mirror and say “hey pretty girl, doing anything after this?” The further I get into transition, the more I simply can’t go back to that life. Not because of the permanent transformations and the ways my system is compromised and to introduce that much T back into my system would throw me into a highly dysphoric menopause, but because I know what this world is like.
Everyone who has met me as a woman has respected that and not once was my femininity in doubt, just “rough around the edges” as one of my friends put it. They saw me as Idgie Threadgood, but more often than not I more identify with Evelyn. A middle aged woman trying to reclaim her inner goddess power. I love myself most when I’m dressed to the nines, makeup on point, hair doing the most amazing job of just drying into a wavy mess of curls, and the accessories accessorizing like no one’s business. It’s just perfect to me. I’m not a 'confused man’ nor ‘mentally ill’ nor ‘a dude in a dress.’ I’ve known this was my identity but I was told so much to the contrary simply based on genitalia, and so many studies and papers comment that it’s a combination of the hormone washes we receive in utero, to possibly even several abnormalities related to sex in the entirety of one person’s genetic code. This is me reclaiming my identity from the ashes.
In some ways I guess that’s my subtle way of saying I’m an X-Man…I’ll wait while you all collectively groan.
The ways others see me now isn’t a direct conflict of my inner sense of self, the one that has held me as I cried as a child, the one that was there my whole life comforting me in my darkest moments. Waiting for her time in the light. Waiting for me to finally acknowledge her, and love her back. Instead of damaging myself by coping with the inner dread by picking up and putting down heavy things, or drinking copious amounts of booze, terrible decisions on people and their motives, or trying so hard to man and failing at it at every turn because the things that men do to prove themselves in an eternal pissing contest that no one can win was so antithetical to my nature. I’m a caring person, I am a loving person, and I’ve really embraced that side of me in so many aspects of life. Were I to be able to perform as a man, I would probably be the one that so many men would be jealous of but that so many women would want. Emotionally stable, firmly rooted in being a nurturer and not just a provider, and sensitive to her needs.
In the pursuit of femininity, and not just the performative variety, but something that feels like the expression of my feminine soul, I have had to let go of so many of the artifices of my shell of a former life. Despite all of that, there’s a few vestiges of that era that still seep into conversation from time to time. “Your mom” jokes, much like farts, are still always funny. Some of my old idioms from those times of trying to perform manhood still creep in from under the woodwork at the most inopportune times. “Jesus fuck my soul” was one that was birthed from an expression of a Texan good ol’ boy from my HVAC class. He was always fond of “Jesus fuckin tits” in an exasperated moment of incredulity at a perplexing situation. When I needed a similar but deeper expression of said exasperation “Jesus fuck my soul” came out of my brain through my mouth one day. It has stuck, which really catches so many people off guard like when Evelyn goes full Tawanda on an unsuspecting Volkswagen.
I wish it was easier to get rid of these specters of who I used to be, but much like learning so much about femininity for me, it’s had to be by trial and error. Think of how awkward your puberty was as a cisgender woman, and then magnify it by ten because you’re doing that in your 40s and crossing over from one side of the gender divide to the other. There is some encouragement that I’m doing my soul a solid by eschewing the crutches that made me seem more manly than most men out there. That encouragement comes from one of the wildest places I didn’t expect. What follows may seem like people pleasing, but it isn't, it’s really “my vibe attracts my tribe” kind of energy even though I hate the appropriative language of that sentiment.
All of the things I see in myself are not encouraged or influenced by, but reflected in my friend group. I have been noting in my journal in the past month or so how much my life actually reflects what my soul needs. All of my friends have their own way of being healers, lovers, poets, musicians, artists, filmmakers, podcasters, teachers, therapists, and so many more aspects of healing and celebrating life and what makes it worth living. So many of my friends would miss me if I were gone. I have never had such a group like this in my life. I have a group of gal pals, and I’ve dubbed us “Sex and the Small Town” because we are a foursome of women similar to the foursome from the HBO show of a similar name. Except in our foursome, Charlotte and Samantha are engaged to be married, Miranda is my trans best friend, and I’m Carrie I guess by process of elimination, though I’ve always identified more with Samantha myself. If it wasn’t for my friend Sam or my grandpa Sam, I would have named myself that. I didn’t want anything tied to my birth family in case that all imploded.
In the four walls with my three girl friends, we’re safe, secure, comforted. It’s an open place to cry and mourn loss, celebrate with joyous laughter at Velocipastor, laugh watching the openly mockumentary Cunk on Life, all while eating delicious pizza with my gal pals. One half of the group never doubts the femininity of the other, and in fact we’ve had some good conversations about how wild it is being trans and the ways that our transformation affects us on the macro as well as micro levels. In this world, all is right, trans women are unequivocally women, and Trump is a fascist pig dog who deserves to be beheaded and put on a pike in front of 1600 Penn all live on national television and YouTube streaming for everyone to see as a warning for fascists and a reminder of what makes America truly great.
After that dark moment, a bright ray of sunshine appears! In the past two weeks, I’ve felt more rooted in who I am than I ever have in my life. I have a banal custodial job at the local university, filled with many students from all walks of life around the globe, and trans and non-binary students are welcomed with open arms in a culture that isn’t just words on a paper but actionable offenses with a chain of command and procedure for excising those offenses from campus. I’ve only ever been seen as Lily. And though I’m sure people are highly aware I’m trans (I tower over all the cis women on my crew and I’m the same height as the other trans woman) but they don’t make it any issue whatsoever. I’m here to work, and they see the effort I put in and I’ve made a name for myself in only two weeks. My ADHD superpower is focusing on things that most others overlook. I’ve pulled out a massive clump of hair from a shower drain (which happened my SECOND DAY and it is still talked about) and more than one person has talked about my go-getter attitude. I’m viewed as a valuable employee. I’ve never had this kind of feeling. It’s lead to me being contented with my life. I enjoy my job and the people I work with. I love the perks of the job. Even my therapist has noticed a dramatic shift compared to where I started with her five weeks ago. She’s noticed how happy I am, a search that started five years ago with the simple question that sent me down a rabbit hole of why I people please: “I have all of these measures of success, but I’m not happy.”
Finally, here I am, knowing myself, what makes me the strongest, and what makes me happy and fulfilled. An important distinction as I’m standing in the hall of mirrors, smiling, exasperated labored breathing, leaning on a baseball bat, shattered glass all around me.
With love and gratitude,
Lily Jayne
