I want to tell my younger self to take the hint – you’re trans

Lauren J Joseph has contributed to a book called Letter To My Little Trans Self. Lauren imagines a world in which she, aged 12, met her future self with the help of Cilla Black.

Lauren,

You’re 12 years old and rustling a packet of Maltesers. Nervous and fiddling for the crumbs, sat with your mother and all the other members of the studio audience.

You’re on the set of Cilla Black’s Surprise, Surprise. Your mum brought you here, to London Weekend Television Studios, because she always wanted to see behind the scenes. There’s no other reason, she says, but you aren’t that gullible.

You can tell by the way her eyes are darting about, from the way she fiddles with the strap on her handbag, you know just as you knew that she was leaving your step-father before she told you so; you know that you’re the one who’s going to be surprised by Cilla today.

Of course, you can’t be sure who you’ll meet, but you have a hunch it’ll be Geri Halliwell. Madonna seems too much to ask for. 

So as to not seem ungracious you’ve scripted your astonishment, you don’t want the producers to feel shortchanged. You’re going to give them the full ‘What? Me?’ *hands over the mouth* ‘Oh! My! God! I can’t believe it!’

You take a deep breath to steady yourself, stuff the empty Maltesers packet into your pocket and ask your mother if you have anything in your teeth. She tells you to hush because they’re about to start taping. 

Cilla sings the theme tune, though she has to repeat it three or five times for technical reasons you don’t understand. You’ve seen hundreds of episodes of the show and you know all the words, though it spooks you that Cilla isn’t singing live, she’s miming to her own voice, the way you do with Papa Don’t Preach.

Next there’s a funny video of Cilla feeding zebras at Chester Zoo, then the old lady from the previous week’s show comes back to talk about her trip to Australia to meet her Auntie June who she hadn’t seen since 1963. It’s very exciting!

Indeed you’re so caught up in it all that you aren’t at all prepared when the time comes for Cilla to call ‘a very special young person’ down from the audience. No, you don’t notice until your mother rests her hand on your shoulder, that she’s talking to you! 

Everyone starts clapping and one of Cilla’s little helpers leads you down to the stage and you’re ever so flustered.

You don’t have to act shocked now because you truly are, your face is flushed, you’re on the sofa with Cilla and she’s telling you there’s someone here who’s dying to meet you. 

‘Now,’ she says, ‘I know you love the Spice Girls but it’s not our Ginger,’ and the audience all laugh. ‘It’s someone even more exciting,’ says Cilla, ‘Someone who means the whole world to you.’

You’re thinking; No way, no f**king way! Forgive me father for swearing in my interior monologue. It can’t be! Is it really?

The screen doors slide open and the theme tune plays again and out she steps, and for a moment you’re confused because she doesn’t look like Madonna, unless this is another reinvention, but no, she’s too tall.

Then it rushes over you like a wave of nausea, the truth ringing in your ears like tinnitus, you’re dizzy when you recognise just who it is that’s coming through the dry ice towards you. How is this happening? How can she be here? It’s surely not possible.

But really, Lauren, who else could it be? Who else, but me. 

I’m sitting with you on the sofa now and we’re looking out at the live studio audience, they’re smiling, some of them are misty-eyed, among them your mother is blowing her nose on a Kleenex.

Cilla grins silently while I hold your hand and offer you some life advice, to help you navigate what the years ahead have in store for you.

‘Firstly,’ I say, ‘Take the hints that the universe is dropping. This guidance is good though unrequested, it comes from God.’ 

Cilla nods sagely to encourage us along, and I thread together a whole string of occasions to illustrate my point.

Your Nanny protesting to your mother that you’re too pretty to be a boy; the woman at Woolies who tells her colleague, ‘This girl over here needs a refund’; dads in pub toilets who let you know, ‘Sorry love, this is the gents”; the mothers of your friends who tell you how much you remind them of the singer from Placebo; the men who sidle up to you in the street with a line, then step back saying, ‘Sorry, ah, I didn’t realise,’ when your voice confounds them.

Each of them was trying to let you know something, only you couldn’t hear it because it felt so humiliating that they could see right through you, right through you, to me. 

I’m the kick you felt inside when your sister was chosen to be the May Queen and lead the whole school into church in her white Communion dress.

I’m the one who switched over to BBC2 that evening so you’d catch Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce, for the first of one thousand viewings.

I thought you might get a kick out of it. I was trying to communicate with you, you see, writing out REDRUM on your door in lipstick. Sorry if I freaked you out. 

‘And another thing,’ I exclaim, ‘Stop chasing gay boys!’ The audience roar, and the camera cuts to Cilla saying, ‘Eh! Watch it! This is going out before the watershed!’ but she’s only having a laugh, so I continue.

Really though, quit dating gay men. They don’t get it, they can’t get it. Even if they want to be cool about it, they’ll still be embarrassed by how you dress and how you do your hair. A few of them will become trans-allies™ later down the line and write to you on Instagram to apologise, and though that’ll fall short you’ll tell them it’s cool, just so you can draw a line under it.

Your real allies are the ones you think you’re protecting in some perverse way, the siblings and niblings who you don’t want to confuse or cause distress to. They are going to take it all in their stride, they’ll be your biggest advocates so don’t dismiss them, don’t patronise. I know that’s hard for you because it’s hard for me too.

Cilla wants us to stand and wave now, she’s got to sing us out. But, Lauren before I go let me just offer you this one final pearl. It’s important.

Please, tell Felix that you love him, as soon as you feel it, don’t make him wait. He’s where you’ll find me, he’s where you’re headed, see you there!

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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