PERSONAL STORY | MY TRANS TRIP TO MEET A FELLOW MEDIUM MEMBER PART I

You’ll Never Walk Alone — My Trans Trip to Meet a Fellow Medium Member

Prologue — Part One Of A Serial

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Booked.

A nervy click the night before confirms the hotel I will stay in — no flexibility, no cancellations. No breakfast either as I’m sure I’ll be too anxiety riddled to eat.

I will make my way to the hotel as him, and I plan to emerge as myself in the morning — a budget hotel chain acting as a chrysalis for me. I’m excited and nervous because I’m meeting fellow editor Kay Luna, and we’re celebrating the launch of our new publication by meeting up. In real life.

Sure, I’ve been out as myself in broad daylight mingling with the general population before, but that was sans wig and with my sister.

This time I am meeting someone who didn’t know me before, and Kay is going to find out if the woman can back up the words.

The room I do most of my writing in suddenly feels a lot hotter.

From The Internet She Came! (Movie Poster via www.imdb.com)

There was a time when meeting someone from the internet was framed like a 1950s horror movie — anyone using the internet was some kind of monster waiting to snatch your body, pretending to be civil online to lure you in.

That time has passed, because everybody is now on the internet, like it or not.

I like it — I’m a closeted trans woman, I do most of my best work online.

But I don’t want to live solely online, alone in my study.

After all, trans-experience analogy movie The Matrix (1999) was about escaping the titular cosy matrix and embracing a more stark reality. Stark, but true.

I won’t be walking through a crowded street drawing attention like “the girl in the red dress” in the film. Instead we’ve picked a picturesque hike in a remote area of outstanding natural beauty approximately half-way between us.

If it’s hot in my study as I make the hotel booking, it’s going to be just shy of a scorcher on our walk — 26 (80 Fahrenheit) degrees and pure sun. I have a duffel bag stuffed to the zipper with six combinations of running shorts and vests, three different bras, one sensible yoga pants and t-shirt outfit, plus a Converse zip-up hoodie.

The biggest anxiety isn’t what to wear, it’s checking out of the hotel wearing it. The hotel is on a busy section of the motorway at a service station. I will want to drop the key in a box and keep on walking. My backup plan is leaving my wig off and wearing my baggy zip-up on, so I’m a little more inconspicuous until I get to my car and hit the road.

I keep envisioning me in oversized glasses walking calmly like a heist movie, dropping the key in a box and striding out the lobby confidently without looking at a single person. I wish I’d have gone to support group recently; I remember the oversized glasses tip, but not any advice in the way of “checking in as him and leaving as her.”

The temperature inside my body is rising again, but it isn’t the heatwave alone as my mind starts to race.

Suss out the checkout procedure when you arrive, make your decision based on that. It’s slipping your wig on and coming it in the car mirror before you put your hat back on. You’ve done this in dingy car parks outside support group several times before. It’s put on wig, quick brush, cap on, sunglasses on, hoodie off. You can do it. You can do it. You want to do this. You are scared. You’ve been tired and depressed recently, you’ll feel worse if you let this moment slip away. How can you look yourself in the mirror again if you do? How can you ever be you, if you can’t be you on a remote hike at a time most of the country will be hungover? You will be hundreds of miles from anyone who will recognise you…

Everyone will be hungover. Everyone will be hungover. It will be quiet.

My mind works out the probability there will be angry bigots walking a remote hike early Sunday morning and my racing thoughts slow back down to a crawl again.

OK. OK. OK. Millions of British transgender and LGBTQ people live their lives daily — it’s time to be more overtly one of them again.

The timing of our adventure is fortuitous and fantastic — while I am driving to my accommodation on Saturday night, most of the mono-culture country will be glued to TVs watching England play in the World Cup. When we start our trek Sunday morning, most of the country will be glued to their beds, hungover and swearing never again until the next match.

It is serendipitous that the football and the foothills aligned this weekend. One was a path I used to walk, one is a path I’m choosing to. Women, of course, watch men’s soccer and get whipped up into the “Superbowl crossed with the Moon Landing” World Cup feeling that dominates the national psyche.

For me, it was something I threw myself into to fit in. But as I choose to leave it behind to walk my own path, I’m reminded of the anthem of Liverpool F.C. :

Walk on through the wind Walk on through the rain For your dreams be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on With hope in your heart And you’ll never walk alone

You’ll never walk alone — Gerry and the Pacemakers, You’ll Never Walk Alone (1963)

The weather is due to be hot and sunny. There will be no rain or wind to walk on through.

As a middle-aged closeted trans woman, it is still hard not to feel that my dreams have been tossed and blown.

I am sure I’ll experience all the emotions on Sunday. I hope in my heart it goes well.

But whatever happens, hundreds of miles away from my house, I won’t be walking alone.

This is part one of a series. You can read all the instalments and my prior adventures below:

[embed]List: Rachel's Adventures | Curated by Rachel Addison | Medium Rachel's Adventures · 5 stories on Mediummedium.com