Willow, Venus Pirate 🏳️‍⚧️ @Willow@chaosfem.tw
Public

Remedial Ally School Tutoring, First Lesson

*I didn’t get an instruction manual.*

My co-parent suggested to me that my father might make substantially faster progress if I explained the lessons I hope he will learn from following my social media account, from interacting with people in my community, from my writing, from other writings I point him to.

*I got gaslit about who I am. By everyone, in every interaction.*

On an extremely basic level, the lesson is the totality. I’ll explore a single short post to explain it. Recently I replied to a post about baristas in a socialist utopia by saying I would look cute in an apron. This communicates my identity on myriad levels, and importantly, it would mean something slightly different from anyone else - the full content can be understood only in the context of who I am, conveyed by how I talk about myself, whom I speak with, and what I choose to say and not say.

*I learned to lie, constantly, smoothly, and convincingly about who I am.*

The barista comment connects to my socialism, and my concerns about the corrosive effect of my job on society. It expresses how my transition required it’s own golden handcuffs, pursuing career choices because of their stability, financial reward, their suitability in which to transition, the way they would not be negatively impacted by my stunted social and relational skills from existing in the closet. It nods to my femininity, my appreciation of fashion, my personal style. It calls back to public conversations with friends about how we would appreciate simpler work in a world that valued connection and working together and eschewed capitalism and billionaires. By directing it to another trans femme I know from my time on my social media account, it gestures to the web of connections I’m growing and living happily within. It conveyed such a rich set of messages about me in a handful of words.

*I existed in that darkness for 37 years. Living is vibrant and joyous - the closet was a death of self abnegation.*

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Willow, Venus Pirate 🏳️‍⚧️ @Willow@chaosfem.tw
Public

I adore who I’m becoming. I’m outgoing and flirtatious, I help people feel seen, my body feels fantastic to live in. I want this for everyone. I want everyone to be as fully themselves as they can be. The dark things I talk about are an important part of this. I, and people like me, have to pass through some soul-rendingly dark places to be ourselves. That horror gives context to the joy. I write about the dark parts because the dark was portrayed as too much. Even being aware that it was there was considered eldritch knowledge that might damage me, might unsettle others.

*I found my own way out of the dark, and I learned how to be a person, and I learned how to be in community.*

I know people who don’t say these things where their parents can read, some who wait until their parents die before they let themselves know their own truths. I would normally let that stand on its own, as its meaning is clear in the context of <gestures to everything else I’ve written>, but I’ll elaborate here. I’m privileged that I both have the means, sort of, to risk my parents’ opinions, and that it might be the case that being open with them will produce change and growth in them. More likely my father than my mother, but even so. But beyond that, I’ve chosen a course of living out loud, and while that’s clearly atrophying many connections, the new ones that sprout and the old ones it nurtures more than make up for the losses, for me. I used to think this was me being harsh, but it’s me being gentle and nurturing with myself. Not everyone I know will benefit from me being myself, but I benefit both by valuing myself and by connecting in positive ways with those who are compatible with who I am.

*It was unrelentingly hard, especially the unlearning, and doing it the hard way taught me about how important community is.*

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