(Not to be confused with The Great Chain Of Being or The Great Chain as envisaged by Bioshock antagonist Andrew Ryan; or even Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain (although that is pretty great)!)
The start of my transition was... furtive. I imagine this is a fairly common phenomenon - trans individuals trying to build up a head of steam, as it were, before actually coming out.
In my case, I let my hair down; replaced my wardrobe with somewhat androgynous items from the women‘s section; began the process of facial laser hair removal; and painted my nails.
And it worked! These were all major milestones for me; but ones that went relatively unnoticed. (The one exception were my nails, which ended up breaking the ice with three particularly attentive colleagues.)
The first person to put all the pieces together was a barista at Starbucks. It was fascinating to experience: he had just taken our order, and was most of the way through the sentence “Have a good day-” before his eyes locked on to the crystal bracelet I was wearing and smoothly segued into “-ladies!” without missing a beat.
Later on I discovered that one of his fellow baristas was trans. At the time I really struggling with summoning the confidence to be out; and it was this particular barista that, by example, lead me to the solution: stop caring what other people think.
(Placing too much emphasis on the expectations of others is how I got into this mess in the first place!)
I make a point of thanking the people that help and inspire me (whether they are aware of it or not); and was both surprised and delighted to discover that I was now the fourth trans individual that this girl had aided.
Now that I am quite out to the world, I’m trying to pay this kindness forwards. There are trans girls I’ve run into in the wild, and I always compliment them; trans guys that have picked just the most awesome names and deserve to hear it!
There’s a young trans girl that I’ve taken under my wing, and I try to pass to her and her friends the knowledge that I’ve accumulated so far in my own journey.
I spoke with my friend Abigail about this (another individual that has done so much to help me personally); and she made the observation that one of the beautiful things about the trans community is its close-knit nature; how those that have already walked the path offer guidance to those behind them, and so on, and so on.
This is the great chain I speak of: stretching from past to future; each link a trans individual, clasped hand in hand with those before and those after them. I am so appreciative of those that paved the way ahead of me; and could not be more pleased to do my part and shepherd those that follow.