Charlotte's Blog
Thinking About Time Travel
I recently picked up a copy of Gendertrash From Hell, a new release from Little Puss. Gendertrash From Hell was a zine published in the early-to-mid-1990s "Mirha Soleil-Ross and Xanthra Phillippa MacKay, fed up with a gay scene that rejected trans people and a trans scene that saw no alternative to going 'stealth'," that was collected and remastered for publication.
Aside from the collection being so very resonant today, when browsing through its pagesSince I am working on Emily Zhou's Girlfriends, it was just a little browse. I will be reading it in earnest once I'm finished :), I was very much transported back to the mid-90s, when my own trans consciousness was growing.
Trying to imagine how I would react, had I come across such a zine as a teen, has been an interesting thing to contemplateIn this imagined alternative universe, there was a book store in South Porcupine or Timmins that carried it (lolno) and/or, I would have (a) known about Glad Day Books; and (b) visited somehow on a family vacation, and/or (c) found out about Gendertrash and had the confidence to order it through the mail without my parents knowing. Instead, I ended up with the comphet and tradwife world of transsexual-dot-org and the trans fiction of varying quality available at places like the Trans section at nifty.org, Crystal's StorySite or Sapphire's Place, or eventually Fictionmania.. While I'd like to say that it might have changed things for me, I know that I would likely have dropped it like a hot potato and been afraid of the world it was presenting. At that point, I couldn't even say the words to myself.
Still, at the risk of indulging a little retcon, it's already feeding into my own need to find ways to go back and find little Charlotte, buried deep in the closet, and draw her a line to a future where she is out and proud.
I am reminded of a trip to Toronto in - I think - 1997.It must have been 1997, because I was excited to visit the Sam's and HMV on Yonge and I walked out with Sneaker Pimps' Becoming X and Radiohead's OK Computer. It was before Christmas and Toronto's weather Toronto'd well: it was rainy and gloomy. I was wearing my standard least-uncomfortable clothes of baggy jeans, a band t-shirt (probably Nine Inch Nails), and my blue check bush jacket. I was carrying a canvas crossbody bag, which to me internally was a purse, but to keep up appearances (or at least keep people on their toes), it was an "like an ammo bag" if it ever came up.
In other words, it was a perfect uniform to wear for a 1990s eggWhile I am not entirely wild about the egg metaphor, it has undergone a frame extension since being coined to encompass those who do not realize they are trans and those who have not come out, making it well-enough understood. Although I didn't always have the language or frame, I am one of those who "always" knew. to long for the things she'd prefer to wear. She probably fogged a window or two outside Le Chateau.
At one point after returning to the hotel we were staying at on Carlton, I decided to go out for a little walk on by myself to listen to my new CDs. I turned up Church and walked through the Village. I didn't stop anywhere (or even dare to lingerI will never not feel bad in the end about (probably) making other trans women feel awkward in public before I was out. My penance, I suppose, is being that trans woman who sometimes feels awkward when she catches the same eyes from someone who may not be out.), but I remember being both amazed and scared at what I saw. Like, people could just kinda be there in their own way. Maybe ...someday ...I coul -.
No. That was too close to touching the element. Plus, I wasn't like them. I don't even like men! I quickly turned left back toward Yonge and looped back to the hotel. Yes! Good walk. Could use the exercise. Love these albums. Glad I could get them.
As a life event, it was a complete nothing, but is one of those things that remained positively burned into my memory and helped keep a flicker of "what if?" in the back of my head that kept me coming back to the closet door.
Of course, I only opened the door in 2019 and came out fully in 2022, it took decades.
