Kay & Rachel: Mirrored Lives – A Transgender Diary

Lives at either end of the transgender experience

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Kay and Rachel Addison are two transgender women in the UK. Kay lives fully as herself and has to deal with the constant scrutiny of being “outed”, while Rachel lives closeted, pushing the boundaries of gender expression. Here are a collection of encounters from our daily lives, while we dance on the razor’s edge of gender.

RACHEL

“Oh my gawd, I’m so sorry! I thought you were one of the mums for a moment!”

I’ve known this person since we were at school together; now our kids attend the same one. Her hand is drawn to the mouth not too theatrically, but still in that universal gesture of embarrassment.

I’m not embarrassed, but should I be? Isn’t that what most “red blooded” men would do? Get angry that their masculinity has been questioned?

I am deliberately opening myself up to questioning, though.

Lightly spritzed in a quality dupe for Coco Mademoiselle, I am wearing fitted women’s leisurewear for the school run, coupled with a raspberry knit hat that looks like something a 1920’s flapper would wear. My bag is over one shoulder, and I’m wearing foundation and concealer. With a padded bra, and fitted clothes, I do have a frame comparable to my CrossFit/Hyrox loving sister.

I laugh while looking her in the eye. “Honestly, it’s more than fine.” Because it is — it means I am giving off a feminine aura, and I haven’t noticed any of the looks that linger this morning. I have pushed my daily expression to a level where someone I know feels comfortable enough to remark on it.

A split second of intuition flagged me as feminine, and they felt comfortable to say because they had twigged it was I — the person they’d known all these years. I was pushing up against the gender expression line, and bending it to my will, but I had not broken through. If they sensed a mirage, the eyes didn’t behold it for very long.

Last month my nails were painted black, and I was turning up to school in black lycra running leggings with white and pink accents. Sure, maybe I was a huge “Bret Hart” fan, but 1990s pro-wrestling champions are a niche reference for the 2020s school-run-set for sure.

Knowing small town gossip as I do, I suspect I might soon start being spoken about by some of the mums in a sense like, ‘Have you seen (child)’s dad?’, if I haven’t already. They’ll remark how feminine I am, until I declare myself a woman, and then the talk with turn to how masculine I am instead.

90’s WWE Champ, Bret Hart

KAY

“Hey, I’m sure I know your face from somewhere?”

“I really hope you don’t”, I think to myself. I smile and feign casual, uncaring confusion instead of showing the sudden fear the woman’s question sent through me, like a slap out of the blue.

I’m inexplicably in my home town, where I haven’t lived for nearly two decades, for work. I work all over the country, going where staff are needed. The question comes from a colleague I’ve only met for the first time that day. At least I think this is the first time I’ve met her. She’s about the same age as me, so it’s possible we were at school together or met through acquaintances years ago.

I came out as trans and transitioned five years ago. For the most part I “pass”, or I’m perceived as making “enough” of an effort, from the perspective of our cisnormative (and by extension, transnormative) culture at least, that most cis people are polite enough not to say anything. I’m never quite sure which it is.

I don’t hate my hometown, it’s a nice enough place, but I avoid it because I worry about people recognising me. Partly because I don’t like the idea that I’m still too much like my past self in appearance or otherwise. I used a lot of drink and drugs to deal with mental health issues and being in the closet about both my sexuality and my gender identity when I lived there. But also partly because recognition would ‘out’ me as being transgender.

That can be dangerous enough for any trans person, but I work in a profession where trans people like me have been made an example of, just for trying to do our jobs. Being recognised at work could be disastrous for me and for my ability to keep working in a profession that I love – the only profession I’ve ever really cared about beyond having to work to pay bills.

“Oh, maybe you’ve just got one of those faces”, my colleague for the day says.

I laugh, a little too nervously. The moment passes, we get caught back up in the immediate demands of the job. I wasn’t recognised this time, but I’ll think twice about working in my home town again. It’s a risk I don’t think I can take, and the anxiety of worrying about being recognised can just be overwhelming.

RACHEL

“Excuse me there, love…you’ve dropped your phone!”

My hand was already nervously in my pocket searching for a red phone case that wasn’t there. In similar attire to the one that briefly gave me the “mum mirage” earlier, but with an oversized wooly fleece that billows out like a jumper skirt, I have stopped dead leaving the supermarket in that moment of horror. That heart-sinking panic when you realise something important is missing; this new affirming fleece is warm and shapes me well, but I can’t trust the pockets, clearly.

I am relieved that a gentleman has let me know immediately, that’s really nice. But, as I spin around to take my cherry-red faux leather covered phone back, I see his eyes widen. There is an, “Oh fudge, I just called a man ‘love’” kind of nervous-yet-amused expression on his face. Then there’s an abnormally long pause between us which highlights the ‘what’s going to happen next?’ question hanging in the air. I flash a full-beam grin like a cheshire cat who got a double helping of double-cream and reply, “Why, thank you…” in a femme lilt, very deliberately.

The man radiated pensive nerves that suggested I’d be offended, because of that confusion that his internal masculine/feminine calculation had ‘got it wrong’ based on my appearance from behind.

But he hadn’t got it wrong, it was exactly the vibe I want to give off to feel better about myself.

I wonder if he’d have still been smiling if I was wearing my wig and a full face of make-up?

KAY

“I have to ask a straight man if he’s pregnant or I get a disciplinary, it’s ridiculous!”

A colleague in casual conversation with a client as we perform our work. Unprompted. The conversation had originally been about something else only tangentially related to gender, not specifically about trans people.

My colleague will likely barely remember this conversation, but I’ll still be thinking about it weeks later. That colleague is also a member of the LGBTQ+ community, clearly happy to throw trans members of that community under the bus. They probably don’t even realise that’s what they’re doing.

I hate that trans existence and efforts, even the most minimal efforts like asking a simple screening question to ensure our fair and safe treatment, have become a topic for throwaway anecdotes. I hate that transphobia has become so normalised, such a standard part of our everyday lexicon, and trans people have become part of our repertoire of “acceptable” things to moan about in such a casually offhand way.

I hate that I didn’t say anything.

I hate how cowardly it makes me feel.

I hate that the fear overwhelms the guilt.

I should have stood up for the trans men that this comment was about.

I should have taken the chance to educate my colleague that trans men can get pregnant, and that asking this question ensures their safety and potentially the safety of their unborn child (and causes no harm if the man is indeed cisgender).

I should have pointed out that the hypothetical man in this scenario could easily have been trans, that you wouldn’t know just to look at him — that you “can’t always tell”.

But that last point…

Would it cause them to wonder if this was the case with the apparently cisgender woman making an issue of there offhand comment? Would it lead them to confirm existing suspicions that I was trans? Speaking up is another chance for me to be accidentally ‘outed’. If so, how would the colleague react? Maybe this is a deliberate attempt to bait me into self-disclosure?

Maybe even thinking like this is evidence of main character syndrome, paranoia, or an effect of the siege mentality many of us in the queer community are feeling after years of trans rights being chipped away at.

But what happens if this conversation did out me? My colleague would likely tell everyone else – the existence of a previously unknown trans colleague is exactly the kind of salacious gossip some of my colleagues would revel in. There are some who would probably try to use it against me, just for their own amusement. Some people are just like that, whether their target is trans or not.

All of this runs through my head in a couple of seconds.

I decide not to speak up. I sit there, feeling complicit in my silence.

The same colleague then goes on to say how things have “gone too far”, and then brings up the “kids identifying as cats” trope, as if it were real and not a silly myth made up by anti-trans groups to mock and discredit trans people.

I find an excuse to leave the room so they can’t see my involuntary eye roll, as they faithfully regurgitate, offhand, more of the transphobic bullshit they’ve been fed by our politicians and media, in the same casual way they might discuss some bad weather.

RACHEL

“Love your running leggings, girlfriend! You better sweat, girl! Yasssss…Slay, Queen!

A pre-teen on a trampoline is bouncing up and down yelling at me, in what I assume was an impish attempt to heckle me, but giving me accidental affirmation instead.

As I run past her garden, I feel like I’ve got my own hype-woman.

I am wearing a woman’s fitted running tracksuit, but I am clearly perceived as a very fancy man, rather than a suspect woman. This is a thing which happens to me now — homophobia, but this is the first time it has felt strangely good? The intention is bad, the affirmation accidental, but the outcome is outstanding. Thank you very much, sassy little nine year old with the sour mouth — I’m getting trim for summer, and I am sweating my arse off here. Why don’t you come down off that trampoline and give me a tiara and sash while you’re at it?

Under the bemusement, should I be upset? I mean, it was homophobia with a packet of sweeties and a cheeky smile.

But I was amused, because she only made me feel good about myself — I resolve to run past her garden on the way back to see if she can give me a boost to take me home.

She’s not there when I return, past her bedtime now clearly.

I feel somewhat sad.