Happy Girl
"Let the axis twirl"
Note: This is meandering and is really just more thoughts at this particular point in time. I hope it makes sense to you and hangs together.
“Celeste. Why.”
I’m getting Facial Feminization Surgery on Wednesday (tomorrow, for most of you reading this). And while I wrote about it before, I wrote mostly about the what, and I wanted another chance to share about the why.
This is a major surgery. It’d be impossible to truly undo, and recovery will be measured in weeks, not days, with final results a year away. It will be hard physically and psychologically.
And you know what the wildest part of it is? I don’t actually know what I’ll look like.
I can kind of imagine it, I know what the doctor is going to do, but in my mind it’s hard to get a full picture of who I’ll see in the mirror.
So WHY would I do this?
Yes, this procedure is medically necessary. The weight my face places on my mental health is just too heavy to carry forever. For many, they consider this surgery life-saving, and I fully understand that. I don’t know if I would literally die of gender dysphoria, but as Nimona1 says, if I didn’t address it, “I sure wouldn’t be livin’.”
In fact, the Christian author Mark Yarhouse has voiced views that gender transition can be ok for a Christian if it’s needed to avoid death by suicide. But forgive me if that goal for life seems far too weak. We deserve far more than survival, and I think God wants far more for us.
And on that, I want to talk about Trans Joy, and the potential for a happy girl.
Trans Joy
Transgender people like me are just trying to live. And in fact, we have lived. Above and beyond all ridicule, harassment, and violence, we have always lived. We continue to live today. We always will live. Nothing will stop that2.
We work, we play, we date, we party, we befriend, we marry, we build, we create, we parent, we connect, we dance, we wonder, we desire, we learn, we marvel, we laugh, we teach, we rest, we love.
In short: we do all the things you do.
But beyond living, one thing I see so consistently about the trans community is that we are a people who take joy seriously. We, more than many, know the cost of being ourselves. A cost so great that many of us avoided paying it for years or decades. But to so many of us, that cost is a bargain at twice the price.
Country singer Martina McBride popularized the song “Happy Girl” in 1997, with the lyrics:
Oh, watch me go
I'm a happy girl
Everybody knows
That the sweetest thing that you'll ever see
In the whole wide world
Is a happy girlSongwriters: Annie Leslie Roboff, Beth Nielsen Chapman; Source: Bing
That song came out when I was fifteen.
A quarter century later, this happened:
You probably have same reaction to that photo that I do3. Objectively, I looked kind of ridiculous. Probably even cringe4. There was no delusion - I knew I could never go out of the house looking like that5. But I want you to look at the eyes, at the smile. Fun fact: Cisgender men typically don’t smile like that when they try on women’s clothes. You know how a glass bottle will make a tone if you blow over the top at just the right speed? That’s called a resonant frequency, and it’s the closest metaphor I have to what this felt like. The feeling made me want to sing.
That night, I FaceTime’d my partner, Kat. And I giggled and cried for an hour just looking at the little one-inch self-view I could see on my screen. I couldn’t stop looking at her. Me. Kat said she had not seen me that happy since we got engaged. Friends: we got married and had two kids after we got engaged. And still, she was right. And to be more accurate, it’s not even like I saw Celeste. I saw the chance of Celeste.
Beautiful Scars
National Parks like Yosemite or the Grand Canyon protect areas that were transformed by the forces of nature over thousands or millions of years. Millions of visitors go and marvel at beautifully scarred land.
You might stand in awe at the Sistine Chapel or Notre-Dame de Paris. The transformation of bare materials into one-of-a-kind creations captivates our attention and we do everything needed to keep them pristine.
Albert Einstein transformed the entire world of physics - in fact the entire world - with just six syllables: “E=mc²”
And for the Christian, Jesus is the master of transformation: we worship a God who became a baby who became a man who became a teacher who became a “criminal” who became dead who became alive. Now we marvel at a beautifully scarred savior.
Beautifully Trans
Trans people have an experience in this world that many don’t understand. Like the wood carver, the gem cutter, or the LEGO master builder, we see a vision of what could be, well before others can see it. And then… we make it. We say “This body that looked like one thing? That’s not who I am! Now witness as I craft a truer form.”
Yes, many of us6 end up with scars, but they’re marks of the work we put in to finally be seen, to finally be truly alive.
In the largest US survey ever done of transgender people, the 2022 US Transgender Survey, 94% of trans people report greater life satisfaction after transition, against only 3% who report less life satisfaction after transition. The total “less satisfied” drops to less than 1% among those who have started hormone replacement therapy.
I really don’t know how to capture it fully. Trans lives are beautiful. If you meet a trans person, they’ll have stories of hardship and pain, yes - but also of joy many of us never imagined before transitioning. I was lucky enough to spend time with a group of trans people a couple months ago, and each of them was delightful.
Ask them to talk about an early transition experience, or maybe they have a story of choosing their name. Watch them light up and sparkle.
I’ve experienced the joy of hair that touches my neck, a skirt that spins, sparkling nails, and the deep deep contentedness that Hormone Replacement Therapy has brought in my life. And I want every bit of that joy I can get. All of it.
And I’ve experienced the profound joy of finding someone to whom I can say, quoting Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, “You’re like me.”
Beyond the Reef
And, in the end, it always comes back to Moana. She knew her island was dying. She couldn’t know why, but in the end it ended up being because someone was trying to be someone they were not. Once that person was able to find their identity, the destruction stopped, and joy literally blossomed.
But to accomplish that, Moana had to find herself first. And to do that, she had to do the unthinkable: go beyond the reef. Beyond the horizon. To places she couldn’t possibly know how to find, across an ocean bigger than she could know.
And that’s transition. The act of saying: this is not working for me. This is not who I am. Who I am is out there, somewhere. Moana even voices a wish that she could just be satisfied in her role. But deep down, she knows that won’t happen. Grandma knows it, too, and encourages Moana to be herself.
So we take the chance, we venture beyond the reef, on rafts powered by hope and the love of dear friends. And through the waves we cling to every single joy we can find, joys we couldn’t dream of before.
And if we get where we hope we’ll go, you’ll get to see the sweetest thing in the whole wide world: a happy girl. That. That is why we do this.
See me soon
And with that, I’m off. Surgery is on Wednesday, and I’ll get word out through social media and such that things went well, but it will be weeks before I am ready to share photos - possibly not until June (happy Pride!). It will just depend on the recovery.
But on Wednesday, my surgeon is going to uncover the face of Celeste, and I can’t wait to finally see me in the mirror, and I can’t wait for you to all get to see my true face.
Love you all, and I really mean that. Hundreds or maybe even thousands of you have supported me on this adventure. Your prayers, love, good vibes, thoughts, encouragements, and even just sharing my excitement, have meant more than I could possibly say.
Sending love,
-Celeste
Nimona is an absolutely brilliant animated movie on Netflix. If you’re trans or queer generally, go watch it, and expect to cry. The titular character is a trans allegory and I identify with nearly every single line of dialogue she says in the movie.
Hat tip to Billie who regularly posts, in response to efforts to target LGBTQIA+ people, “They want us to not exist. And despite their hate and cruelty we will exist.”
I never planned to share this photo with anyone. But you need to see how simply seeing the chance at truly being myself made me elated.
For an irreverent but insightful take on the concept of “Cringe”, see ContraPoints episode “Cringe”. Importantly, it discusses how both cis and trans people can feel a kind of second-hand embarrassment at the sight of (particularly) early-transition trans people trying to live as their gender identity. While the emotion is real, we need to push past it and recognize that those people typically *know* that they are struggling to be perceived the way they want.
Absolutely no judgement to those who are bolder than me!
But by no means all of us - less than half of trans people pursue surgery.
I’m so excited for you! Hope tomorrow goes well, and recovery too!
All the good prayers for you tomorrow and ongoing, Celeste. My partner is just now finding their femme self. We don't know yet if they will experience surgery at any point, but you and your spouse are helping me as I follow you here and on Social Media. All the best to you and yours always.