Reconnecting the Past and the Present as a Person of Trans Experience.

Community contributor piece by Bin Userkaf

Please note: our website won't let us change the author tag, but this piece is by Bin, not Finnegan Shepard. 

Having been out as trans since 2017, I thought I'd moved past the realisations and the dilemmas related to gender; I thought I'd always feel solid in who I am now while being able to shelve who I was, focusing only on the parts that didn't match up. So you can imagine my shock when I began to feel the person that I was clawing and scratching to let her voice be heard and even after that, when it became hard to recall why I'd ever made the life-saving decision to transition at all. This year has helped me connect my two selves and to realize that transitioning – like life – is a journey that can only continue by acknowledging all I've ever been. This is my transition journey so far and some lessons learned along the way.

As a newly out trans person, I always logged my 'firsts'; first time being seen as a boy in high school, first time being called my new name; first time getting my haircut. There are lists and lists of moments that exist as core memories connected to my transition, and initially I treated them the way Joy treats Sadness in Inside Out #1; these firsts were to be untouched by anything 'girl' related. If it even breathed like something similar to my life before it was shoved away to the recesses of my mind, meant to dissolve along with all the embarrassing memories attached to living a life by other people's rules. Instead, each time I thought I was replacing my core memories with shiny new 'trans' ones, they were actually joining together in the shape of my old self, biding time to make their escape.

As the journey continued, I often spoke of my transition as waking up and seeing things with new eyes and I meant every word. I finally felt like the true ME was going through life and I was able to touch and smell and taste and LIVE like I'd never lived before, because I'd never lived before realizing who I was...right? I was convinced of this. The weight of those who took longer to redefine and respect my new identity made the nostalgic lens gray with dust. All I could see was the person who wore dresses to dances even when it made me want to peel my skin off and wore red lipstick to the 7th grade graduation because she wanted someone to look and say 'hey, look at you, being exactly who we want you to be, good job.' No, those memories were too much to beareable, so I shoved them away as I continued to thrive in my new life. I tackled things that used to seem so scary– wearing things that used to be forbidden, seeing me in the mirror when before I'd only seen the labels placed on me by people who never had my best interest at heart.

Fast forward 7 years and life is good, good being a gross understatement. My self love journey has never been stronger as the growing sticky note population of affirmations in my room reminds me every day. I'm comfortable in just about any outfit and have tailored my closet to the real, adult, he/him me that is thriving. My entire immediate family and 99% of my extended family respect and support me not only in my transition, but in the film career I have been building, a dream I've had since...Before? Here before was again, a picture of myself with braids and barrettes, 5th grade me declaring that when I grew up I wanted to be a film director, because 'making videos makes me happy'. Sure, I posted the picture on my Instagram in 2023 as a way to be more vulnerable and because I definitely was crying at that first film premiere seeing my name under: Director. But still I could not acknowledge the girl in the picture.

Turns out, this non-acknowledgment is exactly the motivation she needed to start screaming from within. Reminders of the things I love now that she loved first popping up everywhere; strong feelings of kinship towards tween girl characters that – I was unaware at the time – remind me of her fiery, compassionate spirit; and at last, a moment on my 22nd birthday, watching my 12 year old self dance her heart out in my grandma's dining room after a hard day at school that I still remember vividly. So clearly I could see her resilience, her joy, her dreams. This was the birthday I received the journal that I would go on to plan my debut novel in, where I'd jot down writing tips from my favorite authors and sketch cover ideas. And here I was sitting at my desk ten years later, watching this video and sobbing.

At last it made sense; why the nostalgia for middle school and childhood tug at my heart regardless of the bad memories; why I recorded (in a journal and on video) every moment I could in the 2010s and would watch the moments back on video as if I hadn't just lived through them; and even why I can look through baby albums and see the same wide, gum-showing smile I have today in pictures of her.

I'd been living since the day I was born. Were those moments spent with me truly nothing simply because we were all in the dark about who I was? Did every 'I love you' shared and every apology given mean nothing now that I was talking with a new tongue? Every word, every laugh, every conversation, those things were real and so were any feelings behind them, for everyone involved. Those things, I can't regret those things, and I won't. What would life be without those lessons, and embarrassments? Who would I be? I have no interest in finding out.

And that is why, the day at the desk, I let the tears from my current self mix with the ones from her, coloring all the moments I'd tried to make exclusively mine both of ours. For the first time I allowed her to touch them. Suddenly my entire life felt fuller, like I took a breath after being underwater for years. In letting her breathe, I got my oxygen back as well and am now able to be wholly grateful for every moment I've been given on this earth, no matter how I was expressing my gender at the time. It has opened up my receptors to all of the things that connect us - like the way we encourage people or hate when people lick their fingers - and no matter how much we keep changing, I look forward to discovering new bridges between us.