FA+
Shop
My Egg Cracking
2 years ago
To those invested in the plot of my novels or my development as a person,
Today is an important day: two years ago today, my egg cracked. For those who might be unfamiliar with that phrase, it's when someone accepts they're transgender (coming out of their "personal comfort shell" in terms of gender). What that means for everyone is different but, for me, I accept I was a woman all my life but, because I was raised as a boy/man (with familial/societal pressures to remain that way), I didn't realize I wasn’t male until two years ago today, a little after I turned 29, when I finally said the right thing in the right company. Though, when I came out to my spouse (they/them), I didn’t realize that’s what I did when I said, “I sometimes wish I was a woman,” until a few minutes later.
My exploration was explosive after that; my spouse was far more knowledgeable than I was about LGBTQIA+ at the time, so (that combined with my own research skills) I quickly realized how much of a woman I really was. I still had a lot of exploring to do, but two years ago today, I knew I wasn’t a man anymore (my journey from demigirl (she/they) to transgender woman (she/her) lasted less than a week).
That journey became reflected in one of my characters, Saoirse, whose pressures to remain “masc” for nearly 1300 years were based upon my own, even though she had a few more outwardly/openly accepting figures in her life: that, however, became based upon a “tenet of LGBTIA+”: “don’t break an egg, let it hatch”. This comes back to the phrase: “you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet”. If you break an egg to make an omelet, the creature inside is dead (if it was alive/fertilized). You have to let an egg develop and let the chick break out of its shell on its own (with minimal assistance); only then will it hatch and grow into a healthy chicken with the right care.
Sometimes a transgender person isn’t ready to accept they’re not cisgender, and it’s not up to anyone else to decide when that person is ready to accept they’re not what they think they are (however close they are to them). For me, I had very few people who were willing to accept me as anything other than what I was born as. Though that number did grow as I came out, I still don’t want to know how some people that were previously important to me think of how I accept myself.
This also became reflected in Saoirse with the rejection of her father, as my sister (N, she/her) was the first and most vocal person to reject me (not to mention I haven’t gotten explicit acceptance from a single family member yet). N was the first family member I came out to, but she was also been the only one to outwardly reject me (Saoirse’s father is both the only and most vocal person to reject her, so the influence is pretty clear there, despite how loud/outwardly hateful other members of my immediate family have been towards our community and ideologies in the past).
I don’t have much to say beyond how my own past influences my characters. I just hope, like with all my writing, I’m able to positively influence how people think about members of the LGBTQIA+ community and those who’ve suffered abuse/have PTSD (however it presents), among other topics within BDSM/kink that I hope people approach with sensitivity and acceptance.
With love,
Alexandria
Today is an important day: two years ago today, my egg cracked. For those who might be unfamiliar with that phrase, it's when someone accepts they're transgender (coming out of their "personal comfort shell" in terms of gender). What that means for everyone is different but, for me, I accept I was a woman all my life but, because I was raised as a boy/man (with familial/societal pressures to remain that way), I didn't realize I wasn’t male until two years ago today, a little after I turned 29, when I finally said the right thing in the right company. Though, when I came out to my spouse (they/them), I didn’t realize that’s what I did when I said, “I sometimes wish I was a woman,” until a few minutes later.
My exploration was explosive after that; my spouse was far more knowledgeable than I was about LGBTQIA+ at the time, so (that combined with my own research skills) I quickly realized how much of a woman I really was. I still had a lot of exploring to do, but two years ago today, I knew I wasn’t a man anymore (my journey from demigirl (she/they) to transgender woman (she/her) lasted less than a week).
That journey became reflected in one of my characters, Saoirse, whose pressures to remain “masc” for nearly 1300 years were based upon my own, even though she had a few more outwardly/openly accepting figures in her life: that, however, became based upon a “tenet of LGBTIA+”: “don’t break an egg, let it hatch”. This comes back to the phrase: “you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet”. If you break an egg to make an omelet, the creature inside is dead (if it was alive/fertilized). You have to let an egg develop and let the chick break out of its shell on its own (with minimal assistance); only then will it hatch and grow into a healthy chicken with the right care.
Sometimes a transgender person isn’t ready to accept they’re not cisgender, and it’s not up to anyone else to decide when that person is ready to accept they’re not what they think they are (however close they are to them). For me, I had very few people who were willing to accept me as anything other than what I was born as. Though that number did grow as I came out, I still don’t want to know how some people that were previously important to me think of how I accept myself.
This also became reflected in Saoirse with the rejection of her father, as my sister (N, she/her) was the first and most vocal person to reject me (not to mention I haven’t gotten explicit acceptance from a single family member yet). N was the first family member I came out to, but she was also been the only one to outwardly reject me (Saoirse’s father is both the only and most vocal person to reject her, so the influence is pretty clear there, despite how loud/outwardly hateful other members of my immediate family have been towards our community and ideologies in the past).
I don’t have much to say beyond how my own past influences my characters. I just hope, like with all my writing, I’m able to positively influence how people think about members of the LGBTQIA+ community and those who’ve suffered abuse/have PTSD (however it presents), among other topics within BDSM/kink that I hope people approach with sensitivity and acceptance.
With love,
Alexandria
