Had a friend (let’s call her Maddie) who didn’t exactly try to pass, whose parents weren’t supportive, and didn’t really have other irl friends. Claimed to “not care about her name or pronouns, so I should just call her by her ‘real name’ (birth name). And I did. For a long time, I did, because she never told me she used anything else. One day she asked for my insta and I added her, and I noticed her displayname on there was “Maddie”. I asked her about it, and she said it was just a “silly online name”.
Later that day we went to the movies to watch that new Captain America film. I cringed the whole way through, while she waffled on in my ear about “comic-accuracy” (I love her, but she’s a nerd.)
‘Maddie, I’d love to hear this after it’s over but please let me listen to the dialogue.’
She looked like she was about to cry, and I thought I’d made her sad by essentially telling her to shut up, but then she smiled and I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much joy come out of a single person from such a simple thing to say.
Later I dragged her to the makeup store and essentially role-played as a straight couple with an apathetic boyfriend so she could pretend not to want to be there while I explained what everything did, dropping the man voice I’d been trying to hold in public for years just to yap about different lipstick shades like a valley girl.
And I went up to the register with her, and she was practically shaking when she handed one stick of eyeliner to the woman behind the register and she commented on how nice it was for “him” to be buying me something.
And we played it off, until we walked out the store and made a dash for the family-bathroom where I did her eyeliner while she cried and giggled and took a million pictures of herself and wiped it off and tried to do it herself over and over until it looked decent and then she hugged me so hard I nearly cracked a rib.
I can’t really explain what that afternoon meant to either of us. She and I drifted apart after a few months because meeting up became really hard, but still I remember that day like it was yesterday. I think I’ll remember it forever.
Spread trans joy. It’s the purest thing in the world.
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