My first trans memory
One of the first questions trans or nonbinary folks get when coming out is how long have they known. This is a challenging question, because there are a number of components to that: the first time you knew something was different, the feeling that you identified with a different gender, the feeling of knowing you can't continue living as you are, the feeling that you have to figure out what is wrong, the feeling like you have to stop running away and actually examine who you are, and when you finally realize your actual gender. My answer to that question as I've been asked it is now "sometime between two and forty-nine". Forty-nine is when I realized I had to come out. Age two was my first memory that, on reflection, I knew I was different, even if I wasn't close to being ready to admit it to myself.
It's 1976, and my family is sitting around the dinner table. Seated are my parents, my two brothers, and me. I'm two years old, but I'm fully talking and participating in the conversation. We're talking about our earliest memories, and other members of my family tell what their earliest memories are.
It comes to me, and I say: "I remember being born"
My mother, clearly thinking I was full of childhood imagination, replies with incredulity "What do you remember?"
"My neck hurt."
I was born with the umbilical cord around my neck. I'm pretty sure there was no incredulity after I said that.
My mother wades back in "Do you remember anything else?"
"I remember my past life."
Now, I need to pause, because I need to acknowledge two things here. The first is that I have no idea if this was actually from a past life. It could have been, and with how often my mother spoke about things like past lives in the 1970s, it was not an unfamiliar concept to me. There are two additional options here. The first is that I was recalling a dream. The second is that this was something I imagined in something like a daydream. It could have been any of these three options. The second thing I need to acknowledge is that memory is a funny thing. Each time you remember something, you aren't actually remembering the actual event. What you are remembering is the last time you recalled the event. My mother told this story dozens of times, and I remember this event partially because of how many times it was told. I don't have a direct memory of this dinner table conversation playing out from when I was two. I know it happened because of how often my mom told the story. But what I absolutely remember and can picture strongly even today, is what I remembered of this alleged past life.
It was a warm day, but not hot. I looked down. I saw and felt my long, flowing dress blow against me in the breeze. I was on a hillside on wild grass, and I was content. Down in the distance was a house, something like a cabin, with a man outside. How old was I? Seventeen? Twenty-Two? Something like that. It's something like the 1880s. Perhaps the 1870s. I think I knew the year at the time, but I no longer remember the specific year. I could see my dark hair around me.
"Well, what do you remember about your life?" my mom asks.
"It was the 1880s" I reply.
"That can't be all you remember, what else?"
Well, if I knew what swearing was in my two year old mind, I'm sure I would have been swearing now. How can I possibly say anything else here? I can't talk about what I remember, because I'm very clearly a young woman in this scene. I felt the sun on me and the dress brushing against my legs in my memory, and it was absolutely amazing. Oh how I wanted to be that woman. It felt so absolutely right. But how could I possibly say that I'm female in this memory. It would be so embarrassing to admit that I was a girl, even if only in a fever dream. There is no chance that I could possibly admit to anyone (or even myself despite how I longed to be her) what this memory was. So what could I possibly say?
"I was married…to him." and pointed at my brother who was the middle child.
Crap, that was not exactly the way to get out of being feminine. But I had nothing else to say! I just remembered there was a man in the dream and globbed on to that. Why did I have to say that I remembered my past life? Now everyone is going to know that I was a girl and they will never look at me the same way again. I am never going to live this down and it can't be found out, ever, that I ever thought I was this girl in this past life. What would happen to me if I admit this? I'm scared out of my mind.
"Who was the woman?"
I don't remember who asked that, but thank goodness someone did. There is only one possible answer that I would say.
"Him", as I point at my brother.
Now think about that. Despite having this strong remembered experience of being this girl, there was something stopping me. It was the outward pressure. What exactly had I learned? By age two I had already internalized that men and boys were seen as being superior than girls. I had internalized not to align myself with an inferior group.
Today, the anti-trans lobby talks about how people are trying to indoctrinate kids. It's pretty clear that I was the one that was indoctrinated. In 1976, no one knew better. I could not admit to myself or anyone else anything about this memory, or being feminine. But it is incredible that because of this childhood story, repeated over and over again by my mother, that I remembered what I was thinking at age two. It's part of the breadcrumbs that that allowed me to realize just how much I avoided who I was always created to be as a kid. We have access to science today that shows how overwhelmingly successful gender affirming care is. Icons like Kim Petras show how successful people can be when they are allowed to grow up as they actually are. My hope is that we can live in a world where kids stop having cisgender norms pushed on them.