Archie, Darling. A Queer Romance

A note to the reader.

A note from the Author

Dear Archie, I didn't plan to write your story. My original plan was to write a collection of short ones, with many different characters, but you leapt from my pages. As your story unfolded in front of me, I saw mine laid out beside it. I saw you turn left in all the places I turned right; I saw you stand tall, in all the places I felt small. I saw you rise when I fell. You are the sum of my better parts; you are everything I hope to be, all I aspire to. You have helped me rewrite my own story; you have guided me through a journey that you know all too well. Through your journey, I have found my way. I have my family, and friends, much like you do, but I have felt a loneliness in this journey. At times, I have felt like nobody could understand it. It is so personal, so unique and entirely mine. Only you could understand it. Thankyou. Thank you for coming to me, for appearing so complete in my mind and for giving me your story to tell.

A note to the reader

I came out as trans, barely a month ago, I am currently writing this on the 6/11/23, I am 28. I've been many things in my life but it wasn't until two years ago I considered that I might be trans. I've realised why it has taken me this long to see who I am. From the outside, people think "If you were trans, you would have known since birth", and a few months ago, I would have believed that. I would have agreed then, that it would be impossible to go through 28 years of life, oblivious to this essential part of who I am. Now I know differently, now I know I was raised in a religion which was so strict and controlling, it robbed me of the ability to see who I was.

I went to world youth day in Sydney in 2007. It is an event which takes place every four years. Catholics from around the world get together for a week-long religious festival. In 2007, my family and I went along to Sydney together. I often reflect on this trip when thinking about how much I have changed. One day, the thousands of Catholics attending world youth day went on a walk, through Sydney to the final mass. It was a massive event, a parade of Catholics. We turned a corner and there was a peaceful protest of LGBT+ and Women's rights groups. They were protesting the Church's stance on abortion, contraception and gay rights. It was a peaceful protest but, in my mind, these were angry, scary, evil people, who were trying to corrupt and hurt us. I remember feeling so afraid and so panicked. The LGBT+ rights groups threw condoms into the air so that they rained down on the crowd. I look back and laugh at this now, but I remember being young and hearing someone shouting "The gays are throwing condoms at the nuns". I was terrified. I believed whole heartedly that being gay was a sin, that people who didn't repent and reject the lifestyle, were going to hell. I believed that those protesters were doing the devil's work. I was so hateful of gay people, when a friend from school came out, I avoided him. I told my parents about him and we prayed for his soul, knowing he would go to hell. When Anthony Callea came out after being on Australian idol, I refused to listen to him sing. When Missy Higgins said "I believe sexuality is fluid" I remember hating her, she had ruined all of her songs for me.

I am attracted to women; I always have been. I remember in my teen years, as I began to experience sexual attraction, I felt that my attraction to women was different to the boys around me, but I didn't fully understand this. In hindsight I know it was because my attraction was sapphic; I loved women as women love women. At the time though, I didn't believe women could be attracted to other women. Women who said they were, were evil. So naturally, the possibility that I could be a woman, never occurred to me. That would make me a lesbian, and that would make me evil. I knew I wasn't evil because I was faithful to God, therefore: I'm attracted to women = I must be a man. The possibility of being trans was so far from my mind. When you grow up in a religion that says you will go to hell if you sin, your mind becomes incredibly good at shutting down any sinful thoughts before they even appear.

As I went to uni and outgrew my beliefs, I learned that homosexuality is normal, it's not sinful and it's not an illness. When I accepted this, when I accepted that women could love women and not be evil; I was instantly disappointed that I was born a boy. At the time, I didn't process this as evidence of being trans, I simply thought "If I was born a woman, then the way I am attracted to women would make more sense than it currently does". It is only recently that I have realised what that really meant.

Another reason for my delayed realisation, is the fact that I consider myself a tom-boy. Some trans women like dresses and dolls from a young age, society sees the way they express their gender and categorizes it as being similar to the stereotypes of women, because of this, they receive a lot of judgement in their childhood for acting like a girl. As a child, I didn't have this experience; I enjoyed stereotypically "Boyish" things. I loved the outdoors, I loved bugs and animals and climbing trees. I enjoyed fishing and camping and getting dirty. We all know these things are enjoyed equally by men, women and non-binary folks, but society has decided they are "boy things". If a young girl acted the way I acted, she would be told to stop acting like a boy, she would be told to be more girly. Consequently, boys who "Act like girls" and girls who "Act like boys" have their behaviour corrected by society. But what about a young trans girl who is assigned male, looks "like a boy", and acts "like a boy"? She has a sort of privilege, (and I use the term, fully acknowledging that this is as much of a curse as it is a blessing). A privilege that "girly" trans girls (and "boyish" girls) do not have; she is able to do a lot of the things she wants to do, without being told to stop "acting like a boy," you see? As a trans girl who enjoys traditionally male hobbies, I didn't experience social dysphoria in the same way other trans girls do. Sure, I still experienced it, but it wasn't as readily apparent to me as it may have been to a trans girl who wanted to wear dresses, but was always told she couldn't. I was raised being allowed to enjoy the hobbies I wanted to enjoy. It was only later in life, when other social expectations were enforced on me, that I began to really experience a strong social dysphoria. Part of me wishes I had known from a younger age and transitioned early, but I know I wouldn't have been able to come to this realisation any sooner than I did. I also know that my childhood was close to being one of the best childhoods a tom-boy trans girl like myself could have had; I may not have been allowed to be a girl, but in many ways, I was allowed to be exactly the kind of girl I wanted to be. The issues only arose when I grew up to look different to other girls and was told to be a man.

I don't want to be bitter or sad about losing a girlhood. I can't say I wish I was born a girl: because I was born a girl. I just looked different to what society thought girls looked like. Yes, that meant I was treated as a boy, and yes some of that really sucked, but some of it was also pretty rad. As I grew into manhood, that balance tipped for me and a lot of it started to suck.

There are a multitude of things we can do to make life easier for trans kids, and a lot of those things will help all children. We can allow kids to have whatever hobbies they want, we can allow girls to climb trees and boys to wear dresses, that doesn't stop kids being trans and that isn't the point. The point is to listen to people when they tell you who they are, and to trust that they will always know themselves better than you ever could. Understanding doesn't come from telling people what to do and telling them why they're wrong. It comes from listening. This isn't some radical trans ideology; this is common sense and it helps us all. If we just listened, rather than judging, we would find out a lot more about each other and ourselves.

I don't know if I will have kids, but I am hopeful that the children of my friends will grow up in a world where we have worked towards acceptance rather than just tolerance. Kids don't care about gender, that's some weird shit adults are obsessed with, kids care about fun, and games, and playing together. Ask kids "who is your best friend?" and they will respond with a list of ten people. Kids don't ask which toilet you use, they ask what dinosaur is your favourite or what super power you want to have. The kids in my life have accepted that I am a woman more readily than any adult, because those kids haven't been taught the rules that we have allowed ourselves to believe. When I asked my niece "Am I a woman?" she said "Of course you are, you're a type of woman" and that's what I am, I am a trans woman, I am a type of woman. I am a woman.

P.S. sorry Missy Higgins, and Anthony Callea, I now love and adore you.