When Elliot Page came out as trans this week, I took a deep breath before I opened up the comment sections under posts about his announcement. It’s something I consider a moment of grace, because there is so much magic when a person comes into their true selves. As a trans person who also happens to be the parent of a trans child, I also know all too well how prone to ignorance people can be. Ah yes, there they were, hundreds of comments both deadnaming (using his former name) and misgendering him.
Make no mistake, the people who were deadnaming and misgendering were using these words as weapons of violence to cause harm. Even if Elliot never comes across any particular individual comment, other trans people likely do. None of those were moments of grace.
The author of this essay has chosen to remain anonymous.
But a moment exists, between a trans parent and a trans child, that can’t be imagined by those who wish us harm.
This moment is delicate and precious; I can share it only if not under my name, otherwise I couldn’t share it at all. When I was reading through all the awful comments, this is the moment that hovered in my mind, as the antidote, and why even amidst that kind of cruelty, I have hope.
The beauty and magic of trans existence is fiercely bright in trans kids, who most trans adults wish to protect at all costs. For the blessed child who is surrounded by support, like this child, moments like this are possible.
Being a trans adult caring for a trans child, I don’t bring transness up all that much.
In a "too much of a good thing" type situation, many other supportive adults are so supportive I think it can at times feel suffocating. So I’m always conscious of that, and follow the kids' lead. I treat this as sacrosanct, as though it is the space that holds the air she needs to breathe. She deserves space to just be.
My transness has come up only once, about a year ago.
She glanced down at the homescreen on my phone, and saw the app Refuge. She asked, "What's that?" I explained that it is a resource for gender-accessible public restrooms. I spoke carefully because she listened so closely it was as if my words were being etched into stone.
She asked very detailed questions and I answered them as carefully as possible. She said nothing more. Until tonight. Tonight we're in the middle of homework.
Her homework assignment involves official government identification, one of my recurring Achilles' heels. I explain that my ID, under my current legal name, is different than my real name.
She looks at me with a delicateness and a gentleness. She asks, "What is the old name?"
For the very first time in my entire life of being asked that question, I want to answer.
I know if I share that pain with her, I can acknowledge the shared pain, the one that feels like a shard of glass that burrows deeply under our dominant hand's thumb nail, so deeply it connects to the bone. If hers ever hurts and she wants someone who knows the familiarity of that kind of pain, written into our body in a language we recognize but don't yet speak, I am here for her, if she wants.
I say, "It is something I don't usually share with people. I wouldn't mind never hearing it again." I tell her what it is.
She nods with a solemnness that cradles the name as though it both weighs nothing and is the entire world, gently placed deep in a locked vault where, because she won't ever think of me as it. What she will always remember is that I trusted her to forget it.
She says, "That's how I feel too. I feel the exact same way."
Her eyes burn into mine. She whispers, "Mine is [Redacted]. I never tell anyone either."
Together we created the space she needed to breathe.
Magic moments like this exist in the same world where people intentionally deadname and misgender; they’re precious beyond value and at risk of being poisoned.
In Elliot Page’s announcement he named current solvable problems: The harassment and discrimination that cost trans lives. Black and brown trans women and trans feminine people are targeted for physical violence at sickening frequency. We are not done making the world safer. In this larger environment where trans existence is under threat, each and every anti-trans action contributes t what can be devastating cumulative impact.
Even something as simple as using our old names is a violence to us.
It invalidates the existence we so desperately fought to inhabit. I know I don't ever want to hear repeated to me something I wish had never existed. And for a child, it can be extremely painful in a world that already too often dismisses their feelings.
Many people who otherwise wouldn’t have thought about Elliot Page at all that day had he not come out as trans, spent time intentionally deadnaming and misgendering him. It’s a needless cruelty.
All that outside needless cruelty did not prevent our moment of grace. We know. Transness is magic and power.
Elliot Page spoke to that euphoria. And every time we witness a person with a platform come forward, that “normalization” overshadows so much of that hate. However, misgendering and deadnaming are poison that sap our capacity for moments of real connection in our community. We owe nothing to the people who would be the thieves of our joy, so we’ll go on celebrating. But just remember to anyone who chooses to deadname; it costs nothing to be kind.
