Our first trip to the theatre since before covid and long overdue as we both love theatre. There’s something magical about the willing suspension of disbelief to accept that people you can see moving set and operating puppets aren’t there.
I love theatre, but not nearly as much as my wife loves theatre. She is so totally absorbed in the moment and magic of it all, it is joyous to see.
There was a trans person in the theatre three rows in front. Maybe non binary. They were male and mostly dressed male apart from strappy block heel sandals and painted toenails. They were sixty ish and had a long grey ponytail. With a woman, presumably partner who I guess was ok with this. I’ve been quite shocked by my feelings about this. As a fellow member of the gender non-conforming community I ought to be supportive but I was more embarrassed. Maybe I was worried about how my wife would perceive him, as a freak who looked ridiculous probably. From which I then leap to her thinking this is what it would be like if I try to transition. If she thinks I will look like that, then she will reject me.
Or is it internalised transphobia? All that stuff that has kept me in the closet, the ridiculing of cross dressers, being taught that transvestites are very sad and tragic men with mental problems, perhaps I have absorbed that to the point of being transphobic myself, even though I am trans. Let’s not forget that I was wearing female underwear at the time so am I that different?
Or is it that he/they threatened my imagined idealisation of who I am? I really don’t want to see myself as a middle aged man playing a part and dressing up. By contrast, sitting behind this trans person was a young teen, probably experiencing the changes of puberty and beginner bras and all that stuff. In my head, that is what I will be, a girl turning into a woman, something natural and innocent. But this trans person was so far from that, he was obviously and old man wearing some women’s clothes, and he didn’t look natural nor innocent. Which is where reality confronts my imaginary world. I am a whole lot closer to sixty than I am to twelve. I am not starting with a small female body, I’m starting from a large middle aged male body. So which of these two am I more likely to resemble? Pretty obviously a tragic old guy. Which means I’ll be what? A freak? An embarrassment to all around me?
Is this just that I am confronting my idealism, or is it that I am realising that passing is really important to me? I don’t know, but something to explore and figure out.
I do want to be a girl, but I think in my head, I see myself as a girl in a rather idealised way. I see myself becoming a woman and having the female experience in a pure and innocent way, like a girl growing up and I see transitioning as a grown man as not that, it’s something else. Obviously I know that being an actual girl and having natural puberty is and always has been an impossibility for me and that the grown man ship sailed a long time ago, so my idealisation is entirely unrealistic. Seeing someone like this person is a big hit of realism: I’m not a young woman (neither of those things in fact) and never can be now, so maybe my reality will be closer to his than my ideal. I don’t want to look like that. I think I may have learned from this how important it is to me to be able to pass and be accepted as a woman. Perhaps I already knew that and it goes with my idealisation of Nicola, but the chance of not looking sufficiently feminine to pass is something that I fear more than I thought.
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