Can a person transition without even knowing it?

Before I begin, I'd like to dedicate this blog entry to my friend and Comedian Gina Brillon, because it was something she said tonight during her performance at the San Jose Improve, along with a comment she made on a post I made several years ago that inspired this post. Also, she's an amazing comic, friend, and ally, and I think everyone who loves a good laugh should check her out! 

It was a cold late October evening/early November morning (depending on how you look at it... Halloween night... it was Halloween night!) in 2020 (yes... THAT 2020... you know... the one with COVID and all), and I'd been up in the living room watching some TV, and admittedly, drinking beer (like in the "drink to feel it" kind of way). Earlier in the night, my wife and I had gone to a Halloween party at a taproom all the way down in Hollister (so I didn't drink a whole lot there because I had to drive and don't want to ruin my life with a DUI). I was dressed as a horribly attempted Audrey Hepburn (in my defense, I'd cut my lip earlier while shaving... still, holy crap I looked awful!) while my wife was dressed as a 50's Housewife (in the most stereotypical way)... here's a picture:

Twas the night my egg broke...

 

So after we had come home, Jamie had gone to lay down, but I decided to stay up, watch some TV, and drink a crowler (a 32ounce can) of a 14%+ stout from Modern Times. Once I was done, I admitted defeat, and went to take off my wig, pull out my breastforms, take off my makeup, and slip into bed with Jamie... she could tell something was wrong and asked me "couldn't sleep?" And I told her "yeah... I couldn't take my costume off... and I don't mean not being able to unzip the dress." She knew exactly where I was going with it and she said "I kind of guessed..." and I just blurted out "I'm so sorry... I need to transition!!!! I don't think I can stay Terrence anymore... I'm so sorry!" And she put her arm around me and very calmly and comfortingly said "I know... I've been seeing this coming for a while... and I love you, and have no plans on going anywhere... but I think it's time to make this happen." We stayed up talking about it for a little while (what exactly we talked about was fuzzy, you know, having 32 ounces of a 14% beer coursing through my veins and all, but I do remember a big part of it was coming up with a plan for how to handle the inevitable of losing people we cared about). Before we wrapped up, she asked me "are you tipsy?" and I admitted it, and she said "I really do hope you remember this in the morning though... I know it took a lot for you to finally say it." 

And that was it... my egg was broken! For those who don't know, the term "breaking your egg" is a common term in transgender circles... it basically means what you'd think it means... to come out of your shell... to finally push aside what was holding you back. At this moment, it was finally solidified... I wasn't a man named Terrence... nor was I bigender (I'll write about that a little more below)... I was a transgender woman (and Trans Women ARE Women!!!) named Alicia! This wasn't some kind of thing that I could hold back anymore, nor did I want to. I was tired, but I was also eager. 

I usually point to this day as the day that I began transitioning... 

But was it? Was it REALLY? Was everything that lead up to that moment just some kind of warmup act? Just a prelude? 

I think I'm framing these more like questions, but I honestly know what the answer is... No! So let me explain why...

This was absolutely the day that I finally admitted to myself (and to Jamie) that there wasn't some kind of middle ground I had been hoping for. This was absolutely the day that I acknowledged that, for my sake, transitioning into Alicia full time was what needed to happen. But to say that it was the first day that I'd actually begun transitioning would be incorrect... the truth is, that I'd already begun transitioning, but I didn't even realize it. 

So, I've said before that everybody's transition is different, so I can only speak for mine, but I also know that if someone claims that "All Horses are Brown," all you have to do to disprove them is to show them a black (or green... or pink... or any color than brown) horse, so I submit my story as evidence that a person's transition can begin long before they admit that they are transitioning... that faithful night was the night I finally admitted it, but look at what I was doing literally the night before... 

I took Jamie out to dinner... like this!

Oh, and the weekend before, I had just experienced my first full day out en femme... I went shopping, out to lunch, and out for drinks by myself en femme...

Me after a full day as Alicia... I was in pure bliss!

 

Oh, but that wasn't the first time I'd gone out... This was! 

Jamie and I had decided to go for a drive... that lead to us getting dinner at a restaurant... during COVID Outdoor Dining... with me like this!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, so maybe it was COVID (I know people who try to use moments of crisis like COVID to rationalize the sudden increase in Transgender people)... but how does that explain this???

This was from February of 2020, during a Social Club Gathering... the only times I ever left the house as Alicia under any circumstance... and many times involved changing at the social club.

 

Or this... 

Same Social Club... but in January of 2020

Okay, so I get the point... certainly the first time you saw yourself truly done up was when you began transitioning... That'd be this: 

This is what I'd call the Day I "met" Alicia...

While I call the image above from the day I "met" Alicia, the truth is that before I finally saw "her" in the mirror, I'd made some completely un-trained attempts... like this

This was the very first time I'd done a full attempt at a female look... it was February of 2019. Though to admit, I'd been crossdressing off and on for at least 15 years before this. 

Okay, so what the hell am I trying to say... the truth is, I don't know what I would actually consider the beginning of my transition... but what does it actually mean to transition in the first place??? 

Welp, if we were to go from the Oxford Dictionary's first definition, it would be "

the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another." So by that definition, I'd define the beginning of my transition as the moment that I stopped being Terrence 100% of the time. What's interesting is that the very next definition from Oxford is specific to transgender folx: "

the process by which a transgender person permanently adopts the outward or physical characteristics that match their gender identity, as opposed to those associated with the sex registered for them at birth. The process may or may not involve measures such as hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery." 

I actually think both definitions are useful to me in trying to unpack the beginning of my transition... I'm not sure I would say that the very first time I tried on a dress (that would be sometime in 2001) as the beginning of my transition... nor would I say that the times I began experimenting with crossdressing from 2001-2018 to be beginnings of my transition. The first time I ever used the "transgender" label to describe myself was in early 2019 (I actually felt comfortable with using it, even though I didn't intend on fully transitioning to Alicia at the time), but I would say that sometime in that chaotic period in 2019 would be an exact pinpoint if I had to come up with one. 

You see, at that point, something had fundamentally changed with me... I was no longer "just" Terrence anymore. If nothing else, I'd finally acknowledged that Alicia was, at the very least, a part of who I was, and deserved to come up for air. I was at a point where, for some reason, there was an itch that life as Terrence wasn't able to scratch... and wasn't meant to scratch. For a while, I was following a path that many transwomen had taken, including some of my biggest role models. I was making space for Alicia. Making it a priority. But, to be frank, I was also in a very "I want to have my cake and eat it too" place... To be honest, I wanted to be Alicia... full time! I wanted to hear her heels click as I walked into a classroom... I wanted to begin wearing cute boots and coats during Fall... I wanted to look, feel, and smell like a woman. Not just for the looks either, but I also wanted to be "one of the girls." I wanted to go to afternoon tea, wine weekend, get a mani-pedi, go shopping, take in shows, and talk about stuff (except boys... ewww!!) with other ladies. To be honest, I drew closer to women than to men... I always have. I have always felt more in my element in a room with ladies than one with guys. But I also didn't want to give up the things that were so good about being Terrence... I had good friends, an amazing wife, a great job, went to a great church, and got to do lots of awesome things! I didn't want to risk any of that. And the truth is that I'd seen other people do it... and do it well! My favorite example of this was a role model turned friend of mine, Hannah. Hannah has an amazing, fulfilling life as her male self, but she also has am incredible life as Hannah... read her blog at https://hannahmcknight.org/ to read more about it. For the longest time, I thought of Hannah as who I wanted to be... holy crap, I don't know how she does it, but she's found that perfect balance between her life as a man and as a woman... I marvel at that, and I tried so hard to strive for that. I followed many bloggers, influencers, and others who worked to straddle that line between maintaining a life as their assigned gender while still making space for their "alter ego" I'll say. If I could be frank, I considered giving in to transitioning as failing at this point. What's funny is that, by this point, I was transitioning and didn't even know it. 

Why do I say that? Welp, practically all of the pictures from above were in that era... I could post just as many pictures of my male self taking Jamie out on dates, going to work, traveling, and living a pretty meaningful life as Terrence during this time. But as I was doing those things, the thing that hit me was that, more and more, I felt like I wasn't doing them as my true self. I felt like I was just phoning them in. This was back at a time where I could get up 15 minutes before I needed to leave the house, and still leave sharp/put together/ready to take on the world. But every time, I wish that I was meticulously laying out a cute outfit for the next morning... I wish that I was getting my makeup all together... I was wishing that people would say "hi Alicia!" or "hi Miss Mullens" when addressing me. I also wanted to share Alicia with people... people I knew... it was during this time I actually started doing what I'd call coming out to people... the very first person I came out to was my school's professional development Faculty member Dawn Lee back in 2019... a few weeks later, a comic that I'd started following/sort of befriended had posted something vehemently in support of the LGBTQ+ community, and for whatever reason, I decided to respond to it with a private message telling her that, as a closeted trans person, it meant a lot to me... for whatever reason, that triggered a huge back and forth with her that was glorious!

A few weeks later, I felt urged to come out to a friend I'd met a few months earlier, and while I was having a beer with her and another mutual friend of ours, I came out to both of them... instantly, they were both my "our sister!!!" 

Over the next few months, I began coming out to people... while I can't pinpoint exactly when my transition began, at this point, it was going full throttle... and I didn't even realize it... I mean, why come out to people in the first place? You come out to people because you want/need to share who you really are with them... because you want them to begin seeing you as a new person... your true person. 

And that brings me to this... in Mid-2020, I was having a conversation with my mom about something I was feeling ashamed about, and she was imploring upon me that she'd love me NO MATTER WHAT... I damn near decided to put that to the test and come out to her at that very moment... only to chicken out. I decided to make a post on my Alicia Instagram (at the time, my only social media as Alicia) pleading to "Please talk me out of coming out to my Mom!" Welp, my comic friend Gina... the one I dedicated this blog post to, wrote this...

I mean... holy crap! I almost starting bawling when I saw that. She was the very first person (besides Jamie) to explicitly say that she'd be there for me when I did. Tonight, while I was at her show, she talked about being an ally to the LGBTQ+ community, and if it had not been in the middle of a comedy show, I would have stood up and said "and I'm living proof of her allyship!" I did make it a point to tell her during the meet-and-greet how much that meant to me though.

Jamie and I with Gina Brillon... a phenomenal comedian... and friend!

Okay, so why did I just take two hours of my Friday night to write this... welp, we are in late July of 2024, and one of my top goals for the year was to start determining a "finish line" for my transition. But if I'm being honest, realizing how "blurry" the starting point for my transition was is making me think if having some kind of hard "finish point" is sorta missing the point of my transition... the truth is that, at least for me, this whole processes has been very much building the plane as I'm flying it. Yes, there have been some amazing milestones, but also some things kind of just happened organically. Many things didn't go according to plan, and others happened so suddenly (my original plan was to transition at work in Fall of 2022...thanks to an email with the administrative person in the department at my part time job, and a sudden conversation with my interim dean at my full time job, I began working as Alicia a full nine months earlier than planned). The truth is, I don't think there's going to be some point where I definitively say I've completed my transition... by many metrics, I've already completed it (I mean, I AM Alicia full time now... both figuratively and LEGALLY!!!!), but by others, I'm not even close (I'm still several years away from getting the full benefits of HRT, I need to discuss and consider what kind of surgeries, if any I plan to have... other than being pretty sure I don't want a vaginoplasty or facial feminization surgery, everything else is still very much on the table, though I'd need to lose an elephant's worth of weight to get any of them, and what other transition milestones I still need to meet). What I think I need to accept in this next phase is that my transition is going to end when it ends... and while I have the control over so many aspects of it, there are things I have no control over, and at the end of the day, the best thing for me to do is to point my sails where they need to be, but trust that the wind is going to carry me there, as it has so far. 

I guess what I'm saying is that, chances are I'll probably acknowledge the end of my transition LONG after it actually ends... just like I acknowledged the beginning of my transition long after it actually begun. And that's okay... that's actually great! 

One other brief acknowledgement (because I could probably write a while novel on this) I'll make before I wrap this up is that I have seen, without a doubt, the role that God has played in this! I don't share my faith as explicitly as I used to (not because I'm afraid to, but because I understand the harm that religion has done and because of the ridiculous amount of bullcrap that has been peddled "in God's name" lately... *cough, cough* Project 2025), but I will say that the steps I've taken have clearly been set before me by God! Whether it's been a friend, a mentor, an ally, a colleague, or even an enemy, God has put the exact right person in front of me at the exact right time. There have been times where my plans called for a gradual change, only for God to say "nope... I'm going to put this person in place to help you start life as Alicia now!" Whether it was a wife who has been outstanding with all of this, or a friend from my old church who I accidentally left off the "share with friends except" list when I posted my "Yellow Tier" coming out post who has actually become one of my biggest allies, or a comic, turned friend, turned the exact voice I needed at the moment I needed it, or an administrative professional who said "may I start putting you down as Alicia on our department poster?" and a friend of mine that served as my dean at my full time job for just 12 weeks... but the 12 weeks I just so happened to be going through that process at my part time job... or the people who stumbled onto my "Alicia" stuff before I intended anyone to, only to meet me with words of encouragement. OR the person who felt convicted to tell me to "remember what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah... they were doing the exact same thing" at a moment that I had actually sent out a number of messages to knowingly unsupportive people in the hopes of at least reconciling (thus prompting me to unsend those messages and completely walk away from those relationships rather than open Jamie and I up to that trauma). I've seen God's hand in all of this... both in helping me take the steps I needed to take, but also helping me avoid the steps that would have led me in harms way. I will say that I vehemently see this as God going before me, and I vehemently believe that God has been with Jamie and I during my transition. My heart breaks when I see so much evil being done/said in God's name, and I'm downright infuriated by how many people have been driven to reject God because of the words of people who thought they were being "righteous." I can get myself into a lot of trouble with the things I want to say about all of that, but I will say that I KNOW that God is for us... and that God has absolutely been a part of my transition journey. And I praise God for that! And while I don't believe in shoving God down people's throats, I do genuinely believe that God has a place of compassion for those who have been harmed by the words and actions of people who have claimed their harmful actions to be "in God's name," and so other than sharing how I believe God has blessed my journey, I don't think it helps to try to preach at my friends who have been hurt by people claiming to be from God. That may/may not go over well with many who read this, but I do owe it to an amazing God who has been sooooooooooooooooo good to me to share that God is for you! 

My heart is full! 

Hugs!

-Alicia