Touch
Pride on the Page Day #15
Each of the mini-essays I’m publishing for the month of June are part of a creative challenge to share joy during Pride. You can find out more in the link below. You can even participate, if you’d like!
Wild Lion*esses Pride from Jay
15. Touch
When I was a girl
(does it bother you to hear me say this? was I ever really a girl? I mean, I know I wasn’t, but also… I was… which means it’s difficult for my brain not to categorize time in this way.)
As I was saying, when I was a girl, I hated body hair. I didn’t really hate it, I just despised the look or feel of it. It was offensive. It was hairy. It was messy and out of control and I wanted it and I knew it was important to me and how dare I let myself feel those things and no one can know that this is inside of me and if I let this out what will happen?
So much happened.
I stopped shaving. Everything. Anything. No, I did not expect to have better ear and nose hair than anything else, and thanks, T, you sassy hormone you. But you get what you get, and you don’t throw a fit, and you don’t shave it. Not ever. Not for any reason.
But chest hair? Did you know this would happen? Even in the places where my scars stretch from ocean to ocean, even where my skin changed neighborhoods, even where the softness of then meets the softness of now, even where my kids hug me tight, even where a thin t-shirt brushes against me in the warm summer breeze, even down this belly that housed feet poking ribs and heads jabbing bladders.
When I was a boy
(does that soothe you like it soothes me? is it a correction? a revision? a scar of its own that is beautiful in its ugliness, in its untidiness?)
As I was saying, when I was a boy, I grew chest hair.
Your trans friend,
Robin
Your first lines touch my heart so deeply. Often times when I reference my girl years, especially talking about childbirth and menopause - people around me are uncomfortable even folks who have known me both pre and post transition. Thank you for making it normal
Robin— you got me right there—“even where my skin changed neighborhoods.” The way you moved through girl and boy without asking for permission or clarity, just offering both, changed how I read every line after. I don’t have your story. I carry a different map, yet the body truths—those I know. Where presence lands in the smallest, most unexpected places. Where a breeze knows more than any mirror ever did. Touch, exactly like that. Thank you.