Her Journey to Now
on life as a transgender woman
The first time they realized they were different than people were expecting them to be was in the back of a movie theater, sat beside a family who had, and would continue to have no idea of the revelations of heart happening beside them. They were living in a world that would have no place for, or offer any explanation to help them understand the knowings of soul pouring into their body and mind. This moment—a remembrance out of time. A realization blooming like a sun from within their heart; this ‘little boy’ with so many false expectations thrust upon them was to be a mother someday. That this was, in fact, one of their heart’s greatest callings. And that within this calling was a truth that would prove holistic throughout their entire experience of living. Her entire experience of living.
She was to hide in a skin created by and for the very forces suppressing her authentic existence. Haunted at every turn by what she denied within herself. Hopeless, for so long, in a world that consistently proved her right. She was not safe. And so she had to play along. She had to hide in spaces that required her to observe and participate in behaviors that sickened her very soul. Those she truly wished to be her peers could not see her. The best she could hope for were fleeting moments of confused recognition in the faces of the select few who had space for more than what was expected—who managed to see her shining through the boy; the lie.
It would take the world changing around her to allow just a liminal space for her existence as a respectable and non-sexualized member of society. It would take hundreds of sleepless nights in prayer, thousands of powerful reflections of the heart. A great healing love. Finding community with women who saw her heart and allowed her the space to unwind the coils of her soul. To finally love herself for who she was.
Only then, could she finally admit this was not something she could outrun. And that she was done running. And that whatever it meant, whatever dreams had to fade, whatever demons must be faced—her freedom as a woman’s spirit in a male body, who felt called from the very fabric of her being to embody that truth to the fullest, and allow herself to be seen and exist in the world authentically—was not only something she deserved, but something that was destined to be.
She saw that every moment spent in bondage was divine. Every hardship a lesson that would forge her into the person she was always to become. She saw and knew that she would have planned it this way herself. Even with all the pain. Because it brought her to a place of healing and joy that could not have been reached otherwise. It allowed her to help create the child she would have otherwise not been able to. Gifting her with the blessing a lifetime; the chance to be the mother she had once, in a distant and forgotten moment of remembrance, known she would be.
She is proud of the lie. It kept her safe when she otherwise would not have been. There is grief in her heart for the people in her life whom which her lie betrayed. But there is also knowing that those who are here in love and support will understand. They will see the truth of how even their own attitudes may have taken part in this culture-wide suppression of a portion of our peoples—which has scarred us all.
Now, she finds herself a walking and talking social alchemist. A reluctant healing force moving through the world. Not by choice. By the very nature of her existence.
Existing authentically in a society that is only beginning to come to grips with the bone-deep suppression it emplaced upon an entire segment of the collective human body—especially when so many are resisting this healing with blind hatred, fear, judgement, projection, and openly trying to push it back into places of obscurity and sexualization for their own comforts and projected sicknesses of heart, mind, and soul—proves to be a daily challenge. A reminder of the work to be done. But also, a constant reflection of the progress being made.
Seeing her presence in any space first surprise and trigger, then often initiate a grieving in those still clinging to a world without her that never actually existed, before eventually transforming into an energy of acceptance and peaceful healing of hearts on all sides. Is a daily experience that affirms the positive direction of this entire process which is unfolding around the world. An empowering opportunity not only for transgender people, but all people, to be free of the paradigms and definitions placed upon them unjustly. To shed their own false skins. So we may exist, finally and together, as we truly are.
-Daphne Garrido
