Limits of trans identities
Walking out onto the stage of life has always been a daunting prospect for trans folk, that moment when your internal voice cheering you on turns to trepidation, and coming out swallows your words wholesale. A lump forms, words rehearsed and practiced clump and choke, and suddenly its as if the world is indeed a stage and the spotlight is squarely on you. Boundaries unforeseen, crisis unimagined, and hurdles once short now mountain high rush to greet you; yet, as you summon all your courage the words “I am trans” escape, and nothing will ever be the same.
Some things are easy to square away, bounded and limited by their very nature. Yet, trans identities are so intimately personal that any boundary can feel suffocating. Like gaols of old, in the dark closeted places of the past you walk silently on treadmills, emotional labour churning shame and fear into knots of anxiety. Unlike ropewalks spinning from flax, the only way forward is to unbind, unspin, and see yourself as your unlimited self. Otherwise, the mirror is that gaol, and anxiety the warder.
Dickensian lives may appear quaint and charming, yet society still limits trans folk to seemingly be Miss Haversham forever decked in faded white. No Pip or Estella wait in the wings, our mashes deep quagmires sugging us down. Like escaped prisoners we run with all our might in the direction of sanctuary, hoping that whatever…
