They Will Keep on Speaking Her Name, Volume 9 - Magic in a Young Girl's Heart

Side A: Barbie Girl // Side B: Do You Believe in Magic?

They Will Keep on Speaking Her Name — Miranda’s Mixtape Memoir

This post is Volume 9 in my memoir project They Will Keep on Speaking Her Name. Basically, I’m using my transition mixtape as a framework to write memoir pieces about my life as a transgender woman. If you’d like to know more about the project, thumb through the Liner Notes here:

They Will Keep on Speaking Her Name - Liner Notes

A lot of my original poems lean toward the confessional mode, so they’ll tell you a lot about my life, too.

Miranda's Original Poems

Side A: Barbie Girl

Imagination, life is your creation -from “Barbie Girl” by Aqua

My sister had a dollhouse for her Barbies. I don’t know if it was the exact model as this one I found for sale on eBay, but I think it did have three floors and columns.

1980s Barbie Dreamhouse

Like most kids, our toys were divided into the expected gender categories. The Barbies and other dolls were hers, and I had G.I. Joe action figures. Prior to the doll/action figure development stage, we had Raggedy Ann and Andy, which I mentioned in this poem:

"Selfies in a Rearview Mirror" an original poem by thepoetmiranda

I clearly remember asking my mom why my sister got to have Raggedy Ann while I had to have Raggedy Andy, which would’ve been around age 2-4.

One day, her dollhouse was out in the family room, on the floor just in front of my dad’s pool table, so I sat down and started playing with her dolls. I might’ve mixed in some G.I. Joes, too, but my focus was her Barbies—dressing them up, playing house, enjoying play that’s typically more associated with girls.

I disappeared into Barbie’s world and forgot about all the expectations of being a boy. I forgot about the boys in the neighborhood who seemed to come much more naturally to boyhood than I did. I forgot about trying to act tough. I forgot about what I was or wasn’t supposed to like. In that moment, I didn’t worry about how, even at that young age, I emulated other boys’ behavior to fit in socially.

Then the laughter.

Looking back, it’s easy to know that my parents noticing me playing with my sister’s dolls and having a little laugh was just parents being amused by their child. They didn’t have a problem with how I was playing. They weren’t laughing at me. But I felt like their amusement at their son playing with their daughter’s dolls was ridicule.

So I quit. I sulked back to my room. I isolated myself. I had done it again, failed to act like a boy.

Then more laughter.

Barbie and her things were moved back to my sister’s and my shared bedroom as part of cleanup for a party my parents were hosting. That evening, I listened to my parents tell their friends that story of their son playing with their daughter’s dolls. No malice. They were just parents telling their friends about this amusing and/or cute thing that happened. All I could hear, though, was the laughter.

I knew that more people knowing what I did would bring in even more laughter, and I knew that the boys in the neighborhood finding out would be the worst thing. I became so angry. I doubled down on my attempts to emulate the boys, especially my childhood best friend who would grow up to be a natural athlete and masculine guy.

There had been times before (and there would be times after) when he caught me “acting girly” in different ways, those small, insignificant ways that most people never think about. I knew I couldn’t let him know about my preference for dolls. To avoid the consequences of being perceived, I acted like an angry boy who hated Barbie. My anger eventually drove me to destroy her dollhouse (with encouragement from my friend).

I still miss slipping away into Barbie’s world.

Side B: Do You Believe in Magic?

Do you believe in magic in a young girl's heart? / How the music can free her, whenever it starts / And it's magic, if the music is groovy / It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie / I'll tell you about the magic, and it'll free your soul / But it's like trying to tell a stranger 'bout rock and roll -from “Do You Believe in Magic” by The Lovin’ Spoonful

A lot of movies in the family VHS collection were ones that were purchased with my sister in mind (she’s only a year and change older than I am), which was fine with me because I wanted more than anything to be her little sister instead of little brother. I loved watching her movies, so I just didn’t request my own.

Sometimes, she and I would watch these movies, but, for the most part, I was the one who wanted to watch my comfort movies repeatedly. I wore out the tape on a couple of them. Below I have a list of a few movies I watched as a child and early teen. On repeat. Dreaming that I could escape. Wishing I could be a daughter, a sister, a girl.

I could probably ramble about each of these movies until the end of Substack’s word count limit, but I’m just gonna give each one a brief blurb and link. Feel free to ask me questions about any of them in the comments.

• Barbie and the Rockers: Out of This World
  This movie is where I first heard “Do You Believe in Magic?” The rest of the movie didn’t matter to me nearly as much as Barbie and her band performing the song at their space station concert. I wanted magic. I wanted to be cast a spell or drink a potion or take a pill or wake up from a dream and be the girl I was supposed to be. Someone ripped the movie and put it on YouTube, so check it out:

• Cinderella
  Again with the magical transformations. Fairy Godmother, are you there?

• The Little Mermaid
  Ariel was one of the first characters I remember experiencing the tension between having a crush on her and wanting to be her. A lot of bi/pan and transbian (that’s a portmanteau of trans and lesbian) trans women have crushes like that during our formative years—as if figuring out our transness isn’t difficult enough!

• Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
  Surely all the boys wanna be Betty Boop, right?

  

  I don’t know if gifs play on Substack, so I guess the above image is an experiment. Here’s the entire club scene with Betty’s cameo:

• Dirty Dancing
  I spent most of my life being baby in the corner and not knowing how to break free—until I was almost 40. Becoming Miranda saved my life.

• Fried Green Tomatoes
  I had no clue what sapphic love was then (I turned 8 the year the year this movie came out), but something in me knew that Idgie’s and Ruth’s love for each other was the ideal I wanted to chase.
  I think I’m pretty close to that ideal. My wife and I celebrated our 18th anniversary earlier this year (I came out as trans 16 years in), and we are madly in love, and she’s supported my transition in every way, and she sees and affirms my womanhood, and I’m able to love her better as myself than I ever could when I was still [Deadname].
  Someone made an Idgie and Ruth compilation. Because I needed a 1 a.m. cry.

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