A Letter Coming Out as a Transgender Woman
My name is Nancy Colwell, and I am a transgender woman. I use she/her pronouns. The purpose of this letter is to come out publicly, beyond my immediate friends and family.
This means (in relation to me) that, while I appeared “male” at birth and this led others and myself to assume as much, this does not accurately reflect my internal sense of self and the way it informs and influences my relation to others and the world. In short, I am a woman who has been erroneously perceived as male.
I have known that I am a trans woman consciously and with certainty for many years. Before that, (including before I had heard the term “transgender”) I had suspicions which I avoided looking in the eye at all costs. Before that are my childhood memories, like beautiful gems, of the concept-less self-understanding and peace that can only come in a brief window of naivety.
It is a profound relief to relate to myself in a way not defined by suffering. I have been strangled for so long that I can’t believe this is what it’s like to breathe freely.
WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS?
I am coming out publicly in this manner for multiple reasons, two of which I will share here. First, I want people to know me. I have lived almost all my life performing in an inauthentic and painful costume, and now I am free. I want to run outside and be myself with people who had only been able to see me through mangled glass. Being in the closet feels like your bones are soaked in mercury, and I want people to have the real me as their conception of me. Second, my identity as a trans woman informs my work as an artist. To not know I’m trans and to be unaware of the trans themes in Theseus, or Sunrise, or Post-Hope is to have (in my opinion) an incomplete reading of the work. Transness and the experience of being trans isn’t the only theme in my work, but it is present to some degree in most things I make, somewhere.
I HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT TRANSNESS
Transness is a complex and heavily politicized topic that intersects with many other complex and heavily politicized topics—about which I have difficult life-experiences, strong feelings, meticulous opinions, and sensitive nerves rubbed raw. Beyond this, the trans community has a wide diversity of conflicting perspectives, ideas, and opinions on all of this. To discuss further about transness and its socio-ontological-political intricacies is beyond the scope of this letter. If you need fundamental information on this topic, I will direct you to the National Center for Transgender Equality “FAQ” or the Unitarian Universalist Association article “Transgender 101.” More complex ideas about transness can be found in books like “Whipping Girl” by Julia Serano or “Trans Liberation” by Leslie Feinberg.
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FROM ME?
Very little. It pretty much comes down to three things.
(1) Treat me with common respect. This means honoring my privacy, seeing me as a full person rather than a sub-human object, and generally treating me with the dignity afforded to cisgender (not-trans) people.
(2) Don’t use my deadname (the name I used before transitioning) or “he/him” to refer to me. You should use my real name/pronouns: Nancy Colwell, she/her. If you make mistakes when acting in good faith, I will always try my best to be understanding and gracious. At the same time, if you can say and conceptualize Max Malini instead of Max Katz Breit, Dell O’Dell instead of Nell Newton, or John Scarne instead of Orlando Carmelo Scarnecchia, you can get my name right.
(3) If you wish to cite my work—including my pre-public-transition work—you should use my real name/pronouns: Nancy Colwell, she/her. Again, if you can cite Ed Marlo instead of Edward Malkowski, you can do this. If you cannot bring yourself to do this with my pre-public-transition work, I will insist that you at least cite N. Colwell—which is correct, cites my full body of work, and remains respectful of my wishes by avoiding my deadname.
These three things are my expectations. There is nothing I can do to make anyone do any of this, in the same way that no one can force anyone to treat them with respect. However, this decency is a necessary condition for social cohesion between us and anyone else who supports trans rights. If someone treats me with cruelty, it won't surprising if that makes me not like them; it's not surprising to think badly of someone you see mistreating someone else. Transphobic behavior splinters the possibility for us to have a shared social space. I am maintaining hope that people will choose not to be deliberately cruel.
I WANT TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT THIS
My partner Lars is going to screen messages before I see them for a while. As I said, my nerves are pretty shot at this point. I have tried to primarily express queer and trans joy in this letter because that is important and a significant part of my life, but now is a bleak time to be trans. A myriad of personal experiences and the socio-political landscape have made me bitter and hostile and paranoid. Additionally, the publishing of this letter has put me more on edge than usual. I am not currently able to be as understanding, patient, and gracious with cisgender (not-trans) people as I would like. As such, please understand if I do not reply to you for a while.
Thank you for reading through this whole thing. I am scared and excited and apprehensive and I don’t know what to expect. I guess that’s all I have to say.
--Nancy Colwell
June 2023