“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”
A coming out story, to share an anecdote about what it is like to be Transgender.
I stumbled across this famous quote from George Orwell’s 1984,
“If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”
George Orwell, 1984, 1949
and in the novel’s context, it seemingly means something radically different from what I experienced the quote like myself, but the more I process the quote, the more I realise they may be the same.
In order for no one being able to find out I was in fact Laura, I had to hide Laura so well, that I even kept her a secret from myself. Wear such convincing camouflage that Laura seemed to not exist.
For a little over 3 decades (yes, I know, I am 28 just the same).
And every aspect of Laura and her persona; the brilliance (unapologetically so, sometimes. SorryNotSorry), the taking up space, instinct over ratio, hopeful, empathy, radically trusting, and kindness…
I had to hide it all…
And pretend I was simply an introverted, aloof, emotionally unavailable, mockingly passive aggressive, dejected, intellectually boorish, but zen robot.
Think Marvin, Hitchhiker’s paranoid android (but without the sighs – as they were signs of emotion, and I had stripped myself of them, and them from me).
It took all of those innate qualities that were within me to violently boil over, before Laura could come to the surface in 2016. That’s only 7 years ago now, but it’s also an impossible eternity away.
To all the people who only knew me when I was at my bleakest, my worst, I hope we get to go for first impressions again, if we haven’t yet.
I am hopeful. Again
