Sorted: Growing Up, Coming Out, and Finding My Place (A Transgender Memoir)

by Jackson Bird

On one memorable occasion, I placidly told my mom that I wished God didn’t exist so I wouldn’t have to wear dresses to church. She was, understandably, shocked to hear her three-year-old sharing such aggressive atheist convictions,

The trouble is, many people haven’t even met one transgender person.

Or you don’t know that you have, because the trans person is performing their assigned gender well enough that you don’t notice, or they don’t feel like telling you something that personal. (Jack knows all this, of course.)

I went straight up to him at recess and said, “Hey, just so you know, I play with the boys. Not the girls. I’m one of you.” He said, “Cool,” and that’s how it was for the rest of second grade.

I don’t want to deny anyone their right to wear what they want or tear someone down for wanting to show off their body. I will, however, judge someone who appropriates part of another group’s culture or makes light of a tragedy with their costume. Give me a sexy ladybug over an “Indian Princess” any day.

How could she think being mistaken for a boy was such a bad thing? Didn’t she realize that was, at least partially, my goal in dressing like this?

I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that I’m an advocate of self-sorting Hogwarts houses, seeing as I believe in self-sorting ourselves when it comes to gender too, and just about everything else for that matter. I didn’t stick to the gender I was sorted as at birth and, if one day some quiz does come along and says I’m not a Gryffindor, I won’t believe it either.

Even when asked explicitly for a particular short haircut, the stylist would only cut it to about the ears, if that. Worse still, for transmasculine people especially, was going to a hairdresser to get a solidly masculine short haircut and leaving looking like a soccer mom who just asked to speak to the manager.

JIMMY CARTER GENDERED ME CORRECTLY! What’s even wilder is that a few years later, a trans woman friend of mine who wasn’t totally out yet happened to meet President Carter at an event and he gendered her correctly too! Man’s got a sixth sense for correctly gendering trans people.

Bless.

my coming-out plan was to take place over the course of four months, with a precise timeline of when I would tell people close to me, when I would start hormones, and when I would post a video to tell everyone else. I had a spreadsheet listing each person who deserved to hear the news straight from me before the YouTube video was public, denoting how, when, and where I would be telling them.

He had a few concerns about my physically transitioning and the consequences it might have on my career—which I partially assuaged by explaining that once I was read by society as a man, I would have better career opportunities than I ever had as a woman. (Thanks, patriarchy. Even if I benefit from it now, I still hate it.)

“He” meaning his dad.

The thing about being trans is that you don’t get a letter on your eleventh birthday from Dumbledore welcoming you to the Hogwarts School of Queerness and Transsexuality. Hagrid doesn’t knock down your front door at midnight to confirm all the strange things that have always happened in your life and tell you, “Yer transgender, Harry.”

So many US states keep yo-yoing on whether transgender people are allowed to use the restroom that matches their gender that I literally have to google my pee rights anytime I travel to another state or simply have a layover.

If you start seeing particularly dark bruising or your nipple turning black, call your doctor right away (really, call your doctor about anything alarming. Don’t just trust some guy’s memoir!).

As my top surgery approached with just a few days left, I tried to stay calm and prepare for all possible outcomes, but it was difficult. All I felt was pure, unadulterated excitement. You could even say I was feeling titillated.

Jackson no

It’s ironic, considering how much it’s drilled into our heads not to bind with compression bandages, that, when your breasts are removed, it’s the first thing that happens to you.

I made an anatomical heart using a gelatin mold and pretended to waffle my own heart. I kept up the charade of it being my own heart for the whole video, including showing off one of my surgical scars at the beginning when I claimed to have removed my heart from my body myself. After I posted the video, I got one comment that said, “That’s the fakest scar I’ve ever seen.”

There was one guy I made out with in high school who I knew knew I was trans, and he was fine with it. We were good friends, and the few times we had made out were total flukes. It turned out he was gay but wasn’t ready to come out while we were in high school together. He texted me on the day I posted my coming-out video and said, “Turns out you were the first guy I ever kissed!” It was one of the best coming-out responses I’ve ever received.