Audio Stories is a collaboration between EMPOWER Malaysia and Two Book Nerds Talking. The show features stories and characters (fictional and IRL) that are underrepresented in media that we're sure you'll love. The first episode is now available on your favourite podcast apps or HERE. Alternatively, stay here and listen now! 👇
The following is the script for Transma.
Transma and Me
By Julya Oui
Seeing her sitting there makes me a little nervous. I have mixed feelings. I don’t know how to welcome her into my world and I don’t know what her world is like for the new generation.
I could have never imagined my granddaughter coming to find me after all these years. I was so sure I was going to leave this earth without any connections to the outside world. I had already accepted the fact that I was doing it alone on this last leg of my journey and I was contented.
Now, knowing that Sara exists changes everything. But I mustn’t get it in over my head though. She may be just visiting or passing through to satiate a teenager’s curiosity. I may never see her again after this. That is the truth I have to embrace. Here am I ranting again about something I have no business ranting about while making her uncomfortable.
“Do you know how your great-grandparents look like?” I decide to open our conversation with something tangible and neutral.
“We have a photograph of them but it’s quite old and faded. I never really bothered to look at it,” she says without conviction.
I stand up, walk to the cupboard, and rummage through the drawer to dig out the one and only photo album I keep. I got rid of the photographs of me before my transition and keep only the newer ones that I like especially those with my parents and some friends. Since I am living alone I make sure everything that I do not want anyone else to see are destroyed besides my not wanting to remember those agonising days and nights of self denial.
I sit beside her on the sofa and rests the photo album on my lap. It must seem peculiar for her since everyone view photographs on their social media these days but I don’t know any other way to reestablish our relationship. If that is what she wants to do in the first place.
I flip the album to the page where my late parents are, and I look at them wistfully.
“These are your great grandparents.”
“People look so serious those days.” She touches the plastic film gently to trace the contours of the old photograph but her mind is elsewhere.
“If you had come about five years earlier you would have had a chance to meet them.”
“If I had only known.”
That remark twists knots in my stomach and bleed my heart out. I pat her hand and tell her softly, “At least you’re here now.”
She does not draw away. It is a good sign that she is okay to be associated with me. All those years of experience reveal to me the human condition that I dread to recall. Knowing that someone is uncomfortable with my presence is as terrifying as knowing that they expect something out of me. I am alright without human contact ever since I sequestered myself in this little corner of the world. But now, touching my granddaughter’s hand brings back memories of a time when I actually appreciated another person’s company.
“Grandma, is it okay if I asked you something?”
“Of course Sara.”
“Even if it was something about being a transgender?”
“I don’t mind but I believe there’s no need for an article before the noun.”
“Huh?”
“I mean, you don’t need to put an ‘a’ before transgender.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that. Will you be offended if I asked you some personal questions?”
“No. I’m okay.”
“When did you realize you were transgender?”
“I’ve always known that I was different even when I was very young. But it was at the age of eleven that I knew I had to do something about it.”
“Did you confide in anyone?”
“No. I wanted to but back then it was not something you talk about freely. Besides, this is a very transphobic town and coming out transgender would have been catastrophic. I was very afraid to identify as transgender so I kept it to myself for as long as I could. It was only years later in my early teens that I shared my secret with two gay friends.”
“How was it for you? Was it hard to be who you are?”
“That hardest part of being different is self denial. All my life I was told anything other than the norm of being male or female was considered an abomination. I used to think my life was a tragedy. I believed I had to carry the world on my shoulders because of who I was. Caught between two worlds which I could not embrace or be contended with. My mother didn’t like seeing me being effeminate so she tried her best to make a man out of me. She made me work with my father who was a construction worker to help him carry cement bags, bricks, leftover materials and any hard work under the sun that could make a man a man. But that was not the hardest thing I had to go through. Not accepted by my own family was one thing but not accepting myself was the worst.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that grandma.”
“Don’t be. Times were different then.”
“What about school? Did you have any trouble in school?”
“Not at all. My schoolmates didn’t persecute me for being who I was although I have never confirmed nor deny anything in front of them. The most they did was tease me as though I was a girl. But not in a bad way. It was the teachers who made it hard for me. Some of them anyway. Other than that, school was a wonderful time for me.”
“When did you decide to go through the surgery? How did you know it was right for you?”
“I wasn’t like any other kid growing up. I started questioning about my existence ever since I could understand it. I wanted to know why I was created? Why I existed? What was the reason for my being? And what was it that made me me? It became my obsession to want to understand myself so much I spent most of my impressionable years looking for answers. I used to go to the streams and lay on the boulder to look at the treetops and sky to see if I could fathom even a small part of this idea of me against the whole universe. It even came to a point when I questioned God and asked him why he made me this way. What was the purpose? And why me in particular?”
“Did you find any answers grandma?”
“Not immediately. It took me years of deep soul searching and experiencing life with its ups and downs before I actually found myself. I was always afraid of the truth. To be able to look at myself in the mirror and see me for who I am was one of the hardest decisions I have to make. I could do without the label but that was the only one that described me.”
“Not anymore.”
“Yes, I’m glad times have changed. It does not help to associate someone with a derogatory label that implicates mental disorder, abomination and perversion.”
“And how the tables have turned for those who implicated them.”
“It was hard enough to go on with self renouncing and self loathing but I cared too much what other people think. I was always looking for approval but from all the wrong places and from all the wrong people. It drove me to become suicidal.”
“Did you … grandma?”
“Once. I took a cocktail of insecticide and medication but the only thing I got from it was a horrible stomach upset.”
“I’m so sorry you had to go through that grandma.”
“It’s okay Sara. I survived. I didn’t attempt it again but that thought never left my mind for a long time. Every now and then it came back. I was at the end of my ropes again in my late thirties so I gave myself an ultimatum. It was time to do or die. So I did.”
“It’s so heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time.”
“With nothing to lose, I decided to go online to look for a surgeon in Bangkok. Before the internet no one knew how to help me. I called up the suicide prevention center, talked to some NGOs, had sessions with a psychiatrist, and confided in friends but no one could advise me on the next step. So, when I found the hospital in Bangkok and they told me to get my documents together I gathered everything as quickly as I could within the next few months. I set a date, packed my bags, flew there with a friend, and went for my surgery. All my life I was wandering in circles looking for a way out and quite unexpectedly I just couldn’t believe it was that easy to make that life changing decision.”
“Wow, that is really something to cheer about!”
“I felt like a lifetime of burden was lifted off my shoulders. The tragedy I always thought my life was had become an adventure. The agony I had to endure because of who I am was not real anymore. My life had meaning now and there was something to look forward to in my every waking moment. For the first time I could express myself and be true to myself. When I was wheeled out of the operation theatre I looked frightful with ointment around my eyes, bandages in my crotch, around my chest and neck and I could hardly keep awake. My friend said I looked like I was in great pain but I wasn’t. Even if I was I wouldn’t have minded it. Although it did ache a little here and there but other than that I was fine. That was the highest point of my life where I thought everything was going to be smooth sailing from then on.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“I don’t want to overwhelm you with my stories Sara. Perhaps we could continue tomorrow if you like?”
“But I’m not tired yet. Can you tell me more please?”
“I will but tonight is your first night here. You just arrived. Let’s not rush into things. You may not be tired but I am. I am not young anymore like you.”
“What time is it?”
“Almost eleven.”
“Only? I don’t even sleep at one in KL. But I do feel a little sleepy though. Why is that?”
“Fresh air, peace and quiet, the calmness, it will do that to you.”
“But I want to know more.”
“Tomorrow. Are you a morning person?”
“I can try to be.”
“I cycle out every morning for exercise, followed by breakfast and errands. Do you want to go with me?”
“Yes, that would be nice.”
“Is Indian breakfast fine with you?”
“Definitely.”
“Help yourself to anything in the house and make yourself at home.”
“Okay grandma.”
“I have to tuck my furry family in before I go to bed. You can stay up to watch a movie if you like. They’re all in the study but I don’t know if they are to your taste. They are very old movies.”
“Yeah, I’ll check them out later.”
“Do you want anything to eat or drink?”
“No, thanks grandma. I’m stuffed with the food you laid out for dinner.”
“Okay, good night Sara, I’m really glad you came.”
“I’m really glad I came too.”
How can I go to sleep now? How can I wait for tomorrow? It’s outrageous! Sinful even to call it the night! But my eyes deceive me. Shutting down on me when grandma was sharing with me an incredible story of her life. I feel so unaccomplished compared to her. Will I have a life changing experience? I wanted so much to embrace her but me and my Asian upbringing. My Chinese upbringing that don’t encourage physical intimacy. Not even a verbal one. I don’t think I have even held my parents after I turned eight. So much for being a close knit family.
I don’t think I have ever felt what it’s like to be home. My parents are always around but we live in our own time zone. We have everything city folks have but after a while the novelty runs out. Just like my social media phase, my smartphone phase, my music phase, my dating phase, my everything phase when I hit the wall of boredom.
The only one thing that keeps me interested are old books, old songs, old movies. Things that make sense to me. According to some site on the internet I have an old soul. I didn’t know souls had an age. Now, looking at grandma I am beginning to understand why. Somehow, deep down inside, I know I am missing something in my life and it is her.
I switch off the lights to look at the stars through the window. I have never seen anything like this before since street lights are always competing with the night sky for attention in the city. Living in a condo among other condos I don’t even get a clear view of the sky. For someone who doesn’t know much about astronomy I am suddenly quite keen to discover more about the celestial bodies up in the sky. The one and only constellation I know is Orion. I’ve heard it somewhere or seen it mentioned in some movies and it’s the easiest to remember. There he is, right outside my window as if watching over me.
It is such a good feeling and I never want this night to end but I can hardly keep my eyes open. I like grandma’s house with barely any furniture around. It’s so minimalist. In the city it is difficult to get from one spot to another without having to avoid obstructions. A therapeutic chair here, a display cabinet there, a side table here, an antique vase there, and possessions that seem more out of place than they are worth keeping. Now, I am sleeping on a coconut husk mattress on a metal bed with a small cupboard at the corner of the wall. That is all there is and it is enough. I wonder where grandma hides all her junk.
I feel like I could finally breathe. I haven’t even thought of checking my social media, updating them and see what everyone else I know is up to. I could say I almost don’t miss it at all. The lull of the nocturnal sounds draw me deeper and deeper into slumber but I keep trying to prolong the inevitable. I don’t want to wake up the next day to find it is all just a dream. Please let this be real. I have never felt so connected to a complete stranger who also happens to be my grandmother. Now, how great is that?