When Elliot Web page was 10 years outdated, he minimize his hair brief and seen that folks would say issues to him like, “Thanks, bud.” In a while he wore a pal’s Speedo after forgetting a swimsuit—an expertise that was “such a thrill” as a result of “it was the primary time I actually might see myself,” per Good Morning America. Looking back these moments revealed his id, however his new memoir, Pageboy, particulars precisely when the lightbulb illuminated—the primary time he acknowledged being a trans man “past hypothesis.”
It was six years in the past, round Web page’s thirtieth birthday, he wrote, per an excerpt printed by Time. He had merely requested a detailed pal: “Do you assume I’m trans?” And the pal replied: “I might see that…”
Later, Web page convened with one other pal, Star, at a small home celebration, the place he expressed that he “couldn’t put on female garments anymore” for work as a result of they had been so uncomfortable. “I couldn’t take a look at footage, as a result of I used to be by no means there,” he wrote. “It was making me sick. I didn’t wish to be right here. I wished to be lifted out—the gender dysphoria slowly crushing me.”
Then, the query Web page had beforehand requested one other pal was directed again at him. “Do you assume you’re trans?” Star requested. Web page replied: “Sure, nicely, possibly. I believe so. Yeah.”
That admission was solely the start, as popping out as trans in a deeply anti-trans society felt “too huge,” he wrote, including: “It had taken a very long time to permit any phrases to come back out.”
Shortly after having that discuss, Web page took a self-described U-turn, compartmentalized his gender, fell in love, and acquired married to his ex-spouse Emma Portner in 2018. Throughout that point, remedy additionally fell by the wayside.
“It wasn’t till our relationship was falling aside two years later and my gender dysphoria was so excessive that I sought out [a therapist] in [New York City]. I used to be prepared to speak,” he wrote. He then relinquished the identical phrases he had spoken to Star years prior. There was no going again this time. “My physique knew, deep down I knew, and one thing had shifted,” he wrote. “It was now or by no means. It was alive or not.”
Web page got here out as transgender in 2020, and now, pleasure catches him abruptly. “A pal will merely take a photograph after which I get a glimpse, and it simply sends this electrical thrill via my physique, this kind of spark,” he instructed Folks. “As a result of it’s humorous—it’s seeing one thing new, but in addition not. I notice I look totally different to individuals now who’ve identified me from earlier than, however I’m considering, Oh my gosh, there’s that particular person I’ve seen however by no means thought I’d really get to see.”
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