Being perceived is probably my least favorite thing I have to deal with as a human. It’s not that I am afraid of being visible, however allowing someone to create a perception of your identity based on what makes them feel comfortable, frankly, makes me incredibly uncomfortable — trans panic. Panic that makes being trans extremely difficult, and prompts the discussion of passing, making it hard to leave the house with a bit of beard shadow, even though you’re tired of shaving every. single. day. Am I feminine enough? I question this as I melt my form in a cocoon of transness and restructure my body and mind with a magical concoction of oil and estrogen injected into my meaty thigh. That cocoon destroyed with the dismantling of my gender identity based on how others perceive me.
“Thanks, man,” rattles through my body. What was it exactly that prompted you to assume I was a man? Was it my a-cup breasts that sit painfully growing on my chest, even though they peak through my shirt like pyramids expanding with fullness? Is it the soft, poreless skin that sits under my blush, stretching across my high resting cheekbones? Was it my name? As I say my name to you, you assume it’s spelled with a -y. You ask me if my full name is William, to which I respond that it’s just Billie — Billie with an -ie. The suffix being my talisman, my weapon, my shield providing a euphoria that you refuse to understand. The same euphoria that you decimated on arrival. You don't need the disclosure of it being a chosen name, I’ve always been Billie.
Being able to escape the constructs of the cis-gendered mind is delusional at best, but that’s where I tend to rest. I choose delusion for many reasons, but the main reason being that I am the lesser of two delusions. Cis delusion is much more detrimental than my own, being that a lot of people don’t want trans people to exist, let alone use the correct pronouns, or (dare I say) make someone feel comfortable just for existing. So therefore, I live in the Land of Dolls. Trans people are president, I’m the prettiest girl to walk down the street at all times, and it doesn’t matter if my facial hair is a little overgrown because I'm still intrinsically a woman. However, before I came to terms with my transness, I found solace in the between.
“Mom, I’m non-binary.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
Using they/them pronouns, I was an enigma that penetrated through the bounds of what is possible with gender. I encapsulated both male and female, yet I was neither. Maybe I was trying to escape the ‘gay best friend’ allegations, which meant I was a commodity to women, never an equal. Maybe all I wanted was to be one of the girls. Despite the change in pronouns, I was still the cis-gay presenting friend of the group, negating the very euphoria that I received from rejecting ‘he’. It was all progress, yet the void grew in size. A missing puzzle piece to my transness that unlocked everything. Until the missing piece was found I remained useless in this earthly body.
That day, I remember, just wanting to feel something, anything. I got used to consuming substances alone in my room (mostly molly), almost like a ritual that allowed me to become more comfortable with myself. Being that we were knee deep in Covid, I passed the time the best way I knew how. I had taken mushrooms a few times before, but never past a dose that just made me feel really really good. I wanted to trip. I wanted to see and experience it like all of the people I rolled my eyes at when they spoke about how psychedelics changed their lives. I laid the mushrooms on my tongue as if they were always a part of me, an extension of myself that somehow was lost and found its way back to me.
“Hello old friend, we are one again.”
I consumed them, feeling them move through my body. Traveling down my esophagus, taking a journey through the slimy depths of my inner workings, landing in exactly the right place for magic to unfold. Laying in bed, I waited. I begged for any sensation to hit me and when it did I would relinquish all control. How long would it take? My impatience manifested in new forms as I wondered if the dose I took was too much or too little. Having consumed the entirety of my stash, I would have been disappointed to not have felt something — no backup to replenish my high.
With my mounting anxiety making time feel constricting, I had distracted myself enough to not realize that a small tingle developed on the back of my neck, my stomach gurgling with the anger of having started the digestion of those dried, shriveled fungi.
It’s hard to say when I actually left the reality I had been used to before, as a kaleidoscope of colors flooded my vision. The air became a spectrum of light and playful shapes that I don’t believe exist here on earth, or at least to my knowledge since I failed geometry. My body arched with pleasure, these shapes my new lover. I writhed in bed with so much energy flowing through my body, encrypting my mind with visions and pulsating sound, fucking me gently.
Suddenly, as if through 20/20 vision, my ceiling expanded rapidly moving the length of a football field allowing me to experience its space. With a quickness, all of my tangerine colored walls sprinted towards me, hugging my body and constricting me in place. They were breathing long and deep like the tides of an ocean constantly inhaling, exhaling. One moment I could reach the ceiling with just a single warm fingertip, and then next I was drowning in the expanse the room presented me. Had these moments lasted longer, I could have floated up from my bed and swam through the air of my room holding my breath trying to touch the ceiling moving further and further away.
Through large open windows I watched the trees with a childlike wonder. They performed for me, dancing as if to reenact the most delicate ballet. Roots en pointe, reaching its branches to the heavens. I close my eyes to understand the validity of my experience, but when I open them the trees are still dancing. A standing ovation was in order, but really I remain laying still in bed. It’s funny how you can leave your body, floating away from it like an abandoned balloon and still have a place to come back to when you’re done exploring, gently resting back into place.
That was daylight.
When dusk hit, I thought it was over. I felt settled back into my (still) vibrating body as I accounted for everything I had just experienced, like trying to remember a dream quickly before it all fades to black. With the grogginess of needing to sleep, a tsunami hits my brain, round two.
“Again?,” I thought.
Brace yourself. However, this time felt more alive expanding with an atomic urgency. Feeling the clenching of my jaw and shocks of energy flowing through my earthly existence I sat there unprepared. I was suddenly and vividly in my body. Having spent a good portion of time hating the presence of my body, this was exciting. Trying to gaze out the window, it was too dark to see, but the moonlight spilled through the windows like a waterfall. I hurried to manufacture the most appropriate atmosphere for this second shift. I turned on a colored light I had stashed away for photography, using a regular light felt sinister in that moment.
Red? No, too harsh. Blue! Ahh, yes that’s it.
With the deep blue light illuminating the shape of my body, I turned to face my floor to ceiling mirrors that sat on either side of my closet and stripped. Naked, I sat there admiring every part of my body. A ritual I very rarely indulged in. I hated my body naked, like an exposed entry from my journal sitting out for a stranger to read. Even with past lovers, being naked made me feel weak and vulnerable. But suddenly it was my power. I was whole to be in this body. I danced and danced and danced and felt the soft skin of every part of this vessel like I was exploring someone else's, but it was mine. All mine.
An intimacy arrived that night that I’ve never been able to recreate. I was both giving and receiving. Continuing to dance and sway in the mirror, my reflection began to morph. My male body grew hips, my hair lengthened, my chest ripened with a pair of breasts. I was a woman. I saw it for the first time. It was actualized, visualized, concrete in its ability to be seen and understood. I continued to move in the mirror allowing femininity to take control. I settled into this image of myself. Having always wanted to be one of the girls but not realizing that I wanted to be a girl.
With every touch a sensation of electricity, I felt my body. It’s divine magic radiating like an aura of colors. Was this all a mirage? Was this feeling just a fleeting moment induced by psilocybin? Trying to understand this sudden anxiety, I slowly felt up my thigh and reached for a body part that I never assigned worth. I gripped it firmly and tried to conjure an emotion for it, feeling suddenly aware of the body I was born with — trans panic. With no success, I stroked myself and cried. Begging to feel like this body was correct. Why do I wish to have a body that feels so unattainable? The pain weakening my grip that so badly wanted to induce pleasure.
Releasing my grip, I sat on the floor looking at myself through the portal I unwillingly opened. My body was male, unshapely, dripping with the sweat of disdain. This was hell. Having just witnessed the death of this body, it’s back. Haunting me, terrorizing me in new ways. To have seen the greener grass, I now saw the dead wilting grass that I accepted as my fate. Putting my clothes back on, I sauntered back to the bed I was previously fucked in, unable to process what just happened, but knowing that this sadness would stay. I closed my eyes and drifted into a dreamless sleep.
The next day feeling the weight of a truck sitting on my brain, I sat on the floor of my room with my housemates. I looked around at the daylight spill through the erogenous zones of the space, a discovery made the previous night. My body still vibrating and sore. As my friends spoke, my anxiety built leaving my participation mute and distant. Seeing visions of that blue light cradling my feminine figure, the distance only grew between my body and mind. Unable to focus on what was being discussed with my friends, I abruptly interrupted the conversation.
“I think I’m trans.”
“I live in the Land of Dolls. Trans people are president, I’m the prettiest girl to walk down the street at all times, and it doesn’t matter if my facial hair is a little overgrown because I'm still intrinsically a woman.” Wowowow so proud of you Billie this is amazing
Nice essay, so raw. Keep it up ❤️🏳️⚧️