Published March 1, 2025
(Note: This story is long and a big mess and needs an editor. This note to tell you that is also long and a mess and needs an editor. Sorry, not gonna happen. This is what comes out when a person is hanging on for dear life and needs the sense of accomplishment you get from successfully putting nouns in front of verbs. Maybe someday I’ll be able to do better. For now, this is all I have to offer.)
These days, I take my joy where I can find it. Sometimes it takes me to unexpected places. Between seven-hour sleeps, I pieced together a story for you about one such time.
The week before the last week of February was a shitshow from start to finish. Let’s skip over as much of it as we can. Appointments had to be rescheduled. One of them, for major dental work, would now be on the last Monday of the month. So I squeezed in hair care the day before to try to lift my spirits.
I was down, down, down.
The appointment was rescheduled from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. and back to 3 p.m., and by the time I got in the chair, it was between 3:30 and 4. I was in the same chair and spot as in the 2024 photo above, but I looked like a shell of the person you see in it.
I was wearing a plain, too-small mask, my hair was dirty and tangled, I had no arm warmers or jewelry on, and I had zero energy. Yeah, I was down, down, down, feeling disconnected.
While my stylist gathered his supplies, I noticed a young person getting a wet haircut on the other side of the mirrors. They had beautiful straight black hair and a serious, expressionless face as their stylist cut away. The child was surrounded by what I gathered were friends or family, or both. The conversations were not in English.
I felt seen
Not surprisingly, giantess that I am, I attracted attention. It’s probably safe to say they don’t often see someone like me. Tall and wide, long hair, with big boobs. I caught a lot of looks, which I was fine with. For me, every day that I’m out in the world, which is not often, is trans day of visibility.
The young person in the chair looked my way, and I waved gently, moving only the fingers on my left hand as I raised it as high as my low energy level would allow. It wasn’t planned, it just happened, and I hoped it conveyed a warm hello from a weary traveler.
I saw a smile and what appeared to be movement under their Ulta cape, perhaps a tiny hand waving back. It felt like I had made a friend in this big, scary world.
An hour or so later, when they all began to leave, I waved again, the same way, and got a smile and a wave back. I didn’t know if I’d been an amusing oddity, a cartoonish part of the afternoon’s entertainment, but I felt like I had made a connection with someone who is unlike me in almost every outward way. Our hair, eyes and skin are different colors, as are our cultural roots. We were born in different centuries. The child could hide behind me and never be spotted. They could wear my leggings as a bodysuit and have room for their bestie.
I never heard this child speak, and I don’t know if they even can, but I was glad I waved.
And then I thought about what may have made me do that.
Childhood
When I was a child, I was often searching for a handle on the moment. What were adults up to? How does any of this make sense? This was before I figured out that adults are just kids who got older, and many of them are full of shit.
Unlike the child in the chair near me, in public I was almost never quiet, chattering away on the baseball field, reciting entire comedy albums by memory (without any idea what I was actually saying in front of adults!), and asking a million questions.
But when I was quiet, I was deep in thought, worrying, frightened. I felt like a mistake, and there was nobody around who thought to tell me I wasn’t.
Any connection in those moments could lift me out of the pit of despair. Some of the most memorable came because of an adult taking the time to acknowledge me. That stayed with me from childhood until well into adulthood. So I am sure that’s what moved my hand to give the tired but sincere wave to a Small Someone I didn’t know.
i know I’m not alone in remembering such adults decades later. Here’s something I read this week from a writer friend who knitted me a trans-pride scarf early in the pandemic.
I’ve heard similar stories from friends and strangers.
Hanging up my clothes hours after my hair appointment, I thought, “Oh, it’s like that movie where Jackie Gleason is on the beach interacting with a child who’s looking at him.” But then I realized I was thinking about a scene near the end of “Harry and Tonto,” which Art Carney won an Academy Award for.
Then I laughed out loud when I put together that, of course, I first knew of the two actors from their comedic teamwork on “The Honeymooners,” which I saw in reruns.
For the record, Jackie Gleason’s last movie, “Nothing in Common,” does have a scene like that, shot just off Lake Michigan. What a coincidence, huh?
None of this needed to be written
The actual events in this post took about 15 seconds of my life. They took five days to simmer and cook, then took me three hours to write about. You didn’t need to know any of this.
Welcome to whatever stage of life this is for me.
Each thought I had after this encounter took me to dozens of memories and places — to the moon, even. I had the good sense to tell you only what I’m telling you. I did not have “The Honeymooners” on my bingo card, and it amused me how my foggy brain took me there.
I’m roughly halfway between Carney’s age when he made “Harry and Tonto” and Gleason’s age when he made “Nothing in Common.” Inside, I’m one of the children they interacted with onscreen, but staring in disbelief at what I see in the mirror. I’m like Leonard in “Awakenings,” but with gender dysphoria and a disquieting, confusing feeling about this old face.
(As I’ve written before, I mention movies a lot in my writing because they are one of the last forms of a shared reality we have left in this world. As a bonus, it gives you something to add to your watch list if you need that.)
The child I waved at Sunday probably forgot me before leaving the salon. It’s doubtful they even knew I was smiling. With a mask on, my eyes look mostly dead (one of them is legally blind, so it doesn’t know where to look or even how to react and focus). For all I know, I cut a frightening figure in my extra-largeness and oddity. I’ve spent most of adulthood conditioned to think I’m scary, invisible or someone to laugh at.
Anyway, I hope the child has a good life with lots of friendly waves and kindnesses. This is a hard, mean world, and there are snakes in the grass everywhere.
I hope the child learns that adults are just jerks that got older, and that they (the child) live to a good age surrounded by adults who’ve kept the best parts of childhood inside them along the way, to enjoy for themselves and to share with others.
Since testosterone and estrogen traded places in the front seat of the car for me, I feel more childlike than in my first time around. What still works in my writer/editor brain recognized a circuitous, Young Carly thought process in all of the above. Finally, almost a week later, I saw myself as equally the child during the encounter at the salon. I wrote this for you because there’s no teacher I can hand it in to like an assignment, saying, “Here’s what I wrote!”
One-on-one is how we will fix this world, if that’s even possible. Conversation is not always necessary. Say hello any way you can.
Image of ‘Honeymooners’ postage stamp by catwalker via Shutterstock.
♥
Thank you for reading
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While I have you here
The fact that the USA has banned visas for trans people but welcomed rapist Andrew Tate shows how all this “defending women” stuff is total bullshit
— Katy Montgomerie 🦗 (@katymontgomerie.com) February 27, 2025 at 6:43 AM
Be ungovernable.
— Delaney King (She/Her/Whomst) (@delaneyking.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 1:10 AM
Just now: Iowa lawmakers voted to remove gender identity as a protected class from the Iowa Civil Rights Act, which has prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity since 2007.
Demonstrators flooded the statehouse to protest the move.
thehill.com/homenews/lgb…
— Brooke Migdon (@bmigdon.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 2:25 PM
bsky.app/profile/bmig…
— Brooke Migdon (@bmigdon.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signs a bill that strikes gender identity from Iowa civil rights law, making the state the first to remove civil rights from a previously protected class.
— NBC News (@nbcnews.com) February 28, 2025 at 2:10 PM
When they lay out their plan – believe them
transsafety.network/posts/joyce-…
— She Guevara (@sheg7.bsky.social) March 1, 2025 at 9:20 AM
And more garbage from The New York Times:
NEARLY 3M PEOPLE – inconsequential
1% of the population of the US is native american. 1% of the population of the US is Muslim. 1% of the population have a household income of over $500,000/yr
would any of those other groups, be considered inconsequential if explicitly targeted for removal?
— She Guevara (@sheg7.bsky.social) March 1, 2025 at 7:42 PM
“I can’t say it’s exactly consequential … ”
Are you fucking kidding me, Megan Stack?
it’s fairly easy to remind someone making Stack’s argument here that there are like 3-4x as many trans people in america today as there were jews in germany before WWII. getting tired from screaming that this is nazi stuff but this is so obviously nazi stuff!!!!
— mattie lubchansky (@mattielubchansky.com) March 2, 2025 at 5:42 AM
GLENN: Why don’t you wear a suit? You’re at the highest level in this country’s office & you refuse to wear a suit. A lot of Americans have problems with you not respecting the office.
ZELENSKYY: I will wear a costume after this war will finish. Maybe something like yours. Maybe something better.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) February 28, 2025 at 10:22 AM
Brian Glenn is the “reporter” who asked the question.
Oh the guy asking Zelenskyy “why aren’t you wearing a suit!?” is Marjorie Taylor Greene’s boyfriend hahahaha. What a stupid country.
— Sooz Kempner (@soozuk.bsky.social) March 1, 2025 at 1:52 AM
Yesterday, I saw one real man in that room, one man who looked and acted presidential, and he wasn’t wearing a suit. He’s been at war (an ongoing one), unlike our draft-dodging president, and professionally he already knew how to handle hecklers before defending his country against bullies.
Zelensky is a wartime leader watching his people suffer and die under Russian attacks every day. To be lectured and lied to by Trump and Vance, as they defend the war criminal dictator committing these atrocities, is unimaginable agony. An everlasting shame for America.
— Garry Kasparov (@garrykasparov.bsky.social) February 28, 2025 at 11:15 AM
A nation afraid of pronouns, of science, of empathy, a nation that will turn against and shake down its allies for someone like Putin, is not capable of global leadership. We are a sick joke.
Zelenskyy stayed in Kyiv while Russia was bombing the city and sending in hit squads to kill him. J.D. Vance fled to an undisclosed location because some peaceful protesters yelled at him while he was on vacation. This is why I believe victory over these people is still possible.
There’s a fake transcript of the Oval Office meeting today going around. Here’s a real one.
foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/28/t…
— Peter Sagal (@petersagal.bsky.social) February 28, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Evergreen and timely at the same time
The surface of everything is thinner than we know. A person can fall right through, without any warning at all.
– Leif Enger
— MHenderson (@mhenderson33.bsky.social) March 1, 2025 at 7:16 PM
This post may be updated as my rage escalates.
Nicole
I am presently sick, feverish, and incapable of coherent thought, but this post resonates with me. The waves are key. Because even us adults are just scared kids in need of a friend. ❤️