Identités trans: Au-delà de l'image

Self - Actress: I had to be okay with my mom saying, "I will never call you Jen because Jen murdered my son." I had to- I had to be okay with that in order to survive myself, you know? In order to deal with not being able to see my grandma before she died because I could only come home if I dressed as a boy. You know. I had to deal with the fact that one of my best friends, who, like, I stood up at his wedding, won't let me meet his children. I have to deal with those things. Like, I have to live with those things. And I have to make that okay. I have to understand their position and be okay with it. And when I saw that father go so much further than I thought was even possible, it hurt, I couldn't bear it, because then, all of a sudden, all those people who couldn't accept me... When I knew it was possible to go beyond acceptance... Why couldn't my mom have been like him? That's the question I never asked until that moment. Why couldn't my mom have been like him? Why couldn't my friends have been like him and seen the value in my experience? But the person who's most responsible for failing to have that kind of vision is me. I have never seen myself the way that father saw his own child. I'd never seen myself that way, I'd never looked at myself with the kind of love and respect and awe that that father had for his own child. No one's looked at me that way, how could I look at me that way? I had to see it. And now that I have, I want that.