This post was originally published to my Substack blog on September 7, 2023.

This is the story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside-down
So if you’d like to take a minute, just sit right there,
And I’ll tell you how I became a princess with purple hair

The egg came first

I’ve told parts of my hatching story in my other entries, but in response to something a friend posted on Mastodon, I’m going to tell the whole thing. This could be longer than average for my articles, so grab a drink and a comfy chair.

It was August 2, 2023. I was sitting at work with not much to do. I’m a safety coordinator at a shop where injuries are rare, so I’m kind of like the Maytag repairman(1). I was scrolling through Mastodon when I came upon an article by doc_impossible, who I had recently started following. I clicked the link and started reading her blog. The first article I read was Part One: A Webcomic. Take a minute to follow the link and read through the comics in that article. 

The first comic was the key. I love how Mae Dean drew it. The static panels imply that Mae’s former persona was having a routine, ho-hum day sitting at the computer until, a couple of minutes after reading that Facebook post… Yeah. I was just like the last panel. “Oh…” I thought. “I think I’d better keep reading.”

By the end of the day, I had read seven of Zoe’s articles and had talked back and forth with her on Mastodon and in the comments on her blog. If you know Zoe, you’ll agree that she is a wonderful person who has a knack for knowing exactly what to say when you’re feeling anxious or uncertain. She was my guiding light for the week that followed, until I finally allowed the shattered pieces of my egg to fall away, revealing the cool purple chick inside.

Stained Glass Woman provided me with most of the information I needed to discover myself. If you haven’t read How to Figure Out if You’re Trans, go read it now. I mean it. There are spoilers ahead. I loved that article. I loved how Zoe described her methodology for designing the questions(2). And the questions themselves…

I’m serious. Click the link if you haven’t read the article already. If you’re just starting to question yourself, you might want to take a break and attend to the egg you’ve just been given.

On Day One of Hatching Week, my answer to the first question was that I’d think about pressing the button, but would put it away and spend another day as my new self. The next day I’d think about pressing the button again, but probably wouldn’t. As time went by, I’d think about the button every day, but my desire to press it would fade until I was comfortable with my new reality.

My Day One answer to the second question… Hybrid, baby! I had fun figuring out the best combinations to create the perfect body.

Question three… That one was heavy. But by the time I reached it, I knew I was going to explore this path and keep digging until I had the answer I needed, so I wasn’t overwhelmed by potential future regret.

A novel discovery

That heading is literal. I’ve been working on a story for a novel for twelve years now. Not steadily, by any means. I wrote the first couple of chapters in 2011, then put the story away because I didn’t know where it was going. I returned to it a couple of times, but never found a central conflict or a strong path for my protagonist. 

The novel was originally about an accountant, a skilled auditor, who lives a life of routine. Her insistence on her routine is compulsive bordering on obsessive. The tiniest change in her day is a major catastrophe. So obviously, the story starts with a small but inexplicable change in her world, which totally freaks her out. As the story progresses, the changes get more dramatic, more shocking, until…

In twelve years, I could not figure out “until what.” In late July I had pulled the story out to start writing again, having downloaded some character templates that seemed to be useful. I was looking at my story notes on Monday (August long weekend in Canada), when I wrote down, in bold letters: “Could Mavis’ story be about transitioning?”

Suddenly, it all clicked into place. I rewrote my character interviews, bios, and the existing chapters of the story with my new protagonist: Don Nystrom, forensic auditor. The changes that happen to him keep adding up until…he wakes up with a feminine body. My fingers flew as I wrote the transformation scene, then sketched out Dawn Nystrom’s path as she self-actualized in her new identity. I put a lot of myself into both aspects of Don/Dawn’s character.

Then I wrote a second transformation scene. It’s a very short scene that I wrote in about three minutes. I was crying as I wrote the cathartic twist. I cried again when I proofread it. Then again every time I went over it to mentally place it in my protagonist’s journey(3).

I cried a lot that week. I cried more than I had in the two years before, and that included a painful marital separation. I never anticipated that. Obviously hormone treatment was still far in my future, but I was crying every day as I peeled away the layers I had built up over the years. 

Introducing…

That Saturday I knew that, whether I was trans or nonbinary, everything had changed. On one social website, my username started with “Mr.” which no longer fit who I am. I thought about what I would use for my new handle. It had to be something to do with purple because, well, reasons. Mr. Purple? No! That doesn’t get rid of the problematic honorific. PurpleGuy? No, still too male. PurplePeopleNeeder? Better…but no. 

Then it hit me: Violet. It was purple, and I loved it as soon as I said it. I know some people spend a lot of time choosing their new name, finding underlying etymological meaning, symbolism, or family significance. But when I came up with Violet, I knew it wouldn’t just be a website moniker; it was my new name. I am Violet.

It was afterward that I thought of Violet Parr from The Incredibles. Violet is the invisible girl. Throughout her life, she hid in plain sight, never showing herself to the world. But when she realized the full extent of her super powers, she became stronger, more confident, and eager to help and protect others. And she has great hair.

A manner of speaking

During the weekend, my speech changed. I went out for dinner with a group of friends that weekend, and I stopped controlling my voice. I let myself talk the way it was most comfortable for me to talk. It wasn’t a huge difference, but I was talking to everyone the way I normally talked to women. 

We all change the way we talk when we’re speaking to different people. Usually it’s such a slight difference you don’t notice it(4). For a long time I’ve been conscious of the fact that I talked differently to men than I did to women. When I talked to men, my voice was bigger, my diction was sloppier, and I always felt guarded. When I talked to women, I was much more comfortable, so my speech just flowed, and I let my emotions show. 

Back to life, back to reality

That Monday evening, I pondered the next morning at work. At seven AM I would stand in front of thirty welders and fitters to present the weekly safety meeting. Would I revert to my old speech pattern? No! I wasn’t going back into that closet! 

Luckily, I kind of paved the way for that four months previously when I dyed my hair bright purple. That was another act of symbolic defiance, a refusal to go back into the closet about my orientation, which I had finally defined in a way that made sense to me and I could describe to others(5). 

So on Tuesday morning, I gave the safety meeting with my slightly altered voice. My voice was bigger than I speak in normal conversation, of course, because I was addressing a large group in a very large space. But if anyone noticed the change, they didn’t say anything. That was enough to tear down my vocal shields for good. Now everyone gets my comfortable, natural voice. I’ll work on raising my pitch little by little, but the underlying speech pattern probably won’t change much. It’s me.

All the king’s horses

The final event that pushed the egg out of my grip happened that Thursday evening. I was on my way home from work, thinking about the fact that I was actually a girl, and was definitely going to girlify myself(6). As I walked in my back door, I realized that I was thinking of my old persona in the third person–and in the past tense. I started to panic. “I’m not ready to lose George!” I told myself. “He’s a good guy…at least he tries…and I love him.”

My voice broke when I said the last bit(7). It wasn’t so much the thought of losing my old self; in fact it was at that moment that I realized that I wasn’t losing anything. The me I was is still the me I am. The me I’ll be may look different, talk different, and act a little different, but it was me in here all along. I was just wearing a suit that didn’t fit quite right, and was feeling a little exposed, having cast it off.

What really hit me when I verbalized my existential panic was the fact that I had never said or thought that I loved myself. Even my old persona, which I’m leaving behind. I do love the person inside. I had always been rather unsure of myself before. There were times when I didn’t particularly like myself, and times when I actually hated myself. By the time that egg arrived on my desk, I was at the point where I was content with my existence. Not particularly happy, but not noticeably depressed. 

When I realized that I do actually love myself, it was like flipping another switch. Seeing myself clearly for the first time allowed me to love the person I am. 

That was it. August 10, 2023 was my rebirthday. 

Notes

(1) You kids under 40 might not get the reference. Here’s one of the Maytag ads featuring Jesse White, the original Maytag repairman who did these commercials for twenty years or so.

(2) I’m a sucker for meticulous scientific logic. By the time I reached the actual questions, I had a serious internet crush on this woman!

(3) I’m not going to describe that scene in detail. You’ll have to read the novel when it’s done.

(4) Unless you’re talking to a baby or a puppy. 

(5) Little did I know how that was going to change in the following week.

(6) Google Docs did not put a red line under “girlify.” Did I just make up a word that already exists?

(7) Yes, I talk to myself out loud at home. When you live alone, you need to hear someone’s voice; it might as well be yours.