They Will Keep on Speaking Her Name, Volume 1 - Your Woman

Side A: Your Woman // Side B: Your Woman 1917

Volume 1 - Your Woman

This post is Volume 1 in my They Will Keep on Speaking Her Name memoir project. Read the Liner Notes here. My trans femme transition playlist is on Spotify.

Side A - “Your Woman” by White Town

Well, I guess what they is true / I could never be the right kind of girl for you / I could never be your woman // I could never be your woman (x4) -from “Your Woman” by White Town

When I was 13, I was desperate for puberty to fix me. I know that sounds insane. Maybe it was. Yes, the constant barrage of dysphoria within my psyche did drive me crazy—if only I could grow a beard, if only my muscles bulked up, if only my voice got deeper, if only I became taller than my bullies, if only I grew chest hair, if only, if only.

I knew at 13 that I had feelings of wanting to be a girl because those feelings started when I was 3. I knew that what I felt was considered aberrant. By that point, there were stories that would circulate occasionally about someone’s cousin going away for a while because they were having a “sex change” (now I know transition is more complicated than that).

Who could I tell these feelings to? No one. No one would understand. That still feels true some days. Despite the current moral panic, we’re still a rare lot, so very few people truly understand.

I spent my childhood emulating other boys but never understanding why they were the way they were. Very few aspects of masculinity seemed to come naturally to me, but I tried. I tried hard to play the part, but it was always a performance, an emulation, an illusion.

I was 13 and hoping that puberty would take care of making me masculine in a way that my social performance never had. Because that would fix the broken child, right? Then this song came out and wrecked me.

I must’ve listened to this song thousands of times between it coming out in January 1997 and me coming out in October 2023. Sometimes—often even—while crying myself to sleep.

And the manly beard I thought would make me a man? I tried that. And sideburns. And a soul patch. And a goatee. And a mustache. I tried them all multiple times. My facial hair style was usually a good clue as to which brand of masculinity I was performing.

And the chest hair? A rug. Incidentally, laser hair removal on growing breasts is a unique pain.

Side B - “Your Woman 1917” by White Town

I’ve been waiting for so long to hear the truth / It comes as no surprise at all, you see -from “Your Woman” by White Town

A reprise? I’m always down for that musical experience. And he added stylized violin. Musically I might like this version better than the original.

If I was so sure at 13, why didn’t I come out after there seemed to be some progress on normalizing the trans experience? I ended up coming out in 2023—just three weeks and a couple days before my 40th birthday.

I came out to my wife and children only a few weeks before that. That’s a much faster coming out at home to coming out publicly speedrun than most people do. You can do a much better job communicating your sense of self and desperate need to transition to your partner than I did, I assure you. There was a poem, though.

Sometimes when you get all the locks picked on your gender identity closet, the door falls open and sends you out in a lurch.

Communicating emotional needs is still difficult for me, but I think my wife would agree that I’ve improved as I’ve come into myself as Miranda. I’m also trying a lot harder. I actually try at things now. I try to become a better person, a better partner, a better parent.

When people ask me why I waited so long to come out—if I’ve really felt this way since my earliest formative memories and if I’ve really been certain since I was 13—I tell them parts of the truth. Right now, I’ll tell you part of the truth. Growing up Baptist, and then sending myself on a wild charismatic evangelical path for years, sent me down a road of hating myself for my original sin.

My curse. The thorn in my side. My test from G-d. My temptation. An attack by the enemy.

Now Christians call me an ideology or possessed or just straight up a demon. People I used to break bread and pray with now spread lies about the entire trans community, try to pass laws making our personhood null, and threatening me. I knew that a lot of my more pious friends and family wouldn’t understand and wouldn’t want to continue our association. I didn’t know so many would actively ignore me—the soul they should’ve known—and instead embrace lies about my character from the sleeziest politicians.

People with whom I broke bread and prayed now wish me harm. Some promise to deliver it themselves. Meanwhile I—a trans woman—feel more than ever like I am made in imago Dei (G-d’s image).

I didn’t think I would ever come out. I thought I would take my secret self to the grave. But I had to come out. Otherwise, my dysphoria was on track to kill me.

And now that violin…

Thank you for joining this listening party.

💜Miranda📚

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