Bionic Love

Confession: When I was eight years old, I was in love with The Bionic Woman, Jaime Sommers. *Pause to let anyone born after 1980 google The Bionic Woman*. I don’t just mean I was in baby love. I mean I was in completely bonified and serious love (well…for an eight year old). Yes, I can hear the Early Child Development educators frantically clicking their keyboards now.

I would scour the paperback TV Guide every day to ensure I did not miss one episode of either The Bionic Woman or its counterpart show The Six Million Dollar Man (aka The Bionic Man). This was extremely important to me because if I missed one of the crossover episodes (where Jaime Sommers would visit the Bionic Man, Steve Austin, or vice versa) I would be devastated. I couldn’t get enough. Even the made for tv Bionic Man/Woman movies didn’t satiate my love.

Keep in mind this was decades before on demand channels, personal computers or the internet. (*Whispers behind one hand* we didn’t even have VCRs then either). If you wanted to watch a show you best be prepared for it.  Those who know really know: bathroom breaks were very strategically orchestrated so as not to miss one second of action on the screen. Right down to the arrangement of furniture to maximize the efficiency of the flight/return path. Good thing I had my own bionic run down pat.

I am not ashamed to share that during the day, I would often pretend I was Steve Austin. I would squint one eye the way he would when he was using his bionic eye to scout long distances or see through walls. I secretly hoped if I squinted that eye enough it would be permanent. Who wouldn’t want permanent bionic vision? I would run in “slow motion” just like him as well. I even enunciated the “dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee” bionic sound effect out loud to accompany my slow-motion jaunt. I was thoroughly convinced that the orated sound effect made all the difference to the efficacy of my borrowed superpowers.

My little eight year old butt would also dream at night of being Steve. Just like in real life, there were often “crossover episodes/dreams” where Jamie would come to visit Steve/me. Those were absolutely my favourite dreams. I would wake up from them so pumped for the day ahead. You have no idea. Let’s call spades: I knew back then I wanted to be Steve Austin. Not at all because of his bionic powers or super cool aviator sunglasses, but because he got to spend time with Jaime.

If you think I’m exaggerating my love for this bionic icon Jaime Sommers – check this out. I wrote several love songs for Jaime from the perspective of Steve. I guess I was a pioneer of crossover fanfiction and didn’t know it. Which leads me to The Birthday Party Incident.

It was likely my ninth birthday. The very few party invitees and I were hanging out in my bedroom doing girl stuff. I wasn’t terribly proficient at doing girl stuff (shocking I know). It didn’t come naturally to me at all. I was truly faking it and not making it. The girls were not as enthused about my clarinet playing as I thought was deserved – that I do remember.

Why that specific birthday is forever forged in my mind is because that was the day I was unmercifully outed. An extremely curious partygoer started checking out papers on my dresser. She snatched up one of the papers, glanced over it quickly and inquired loudly, “Who is Jaime?” Everyone’s heads shot around towards me.

My eyes popped wide and my heart dropped through the floor to the basement. Panic completely set in. I tried to grab the paper from her, but it was too late. She began sing-song reciting words from the love song I wrote for my Bionic Woman. The rest of the girls joined in teasing me relentlessly and making fun of “the girl who loves girls”. I tried to backtrack and made up some insane explanation that I had copied the lyrics from somewhere else. But resistance was futile. The party was over.

I quickly learned that day my feelings for girls were not to be shared or discussed or even expressed in private letters or diaries. That experience reinforced the misbelief my feelings were weird, wrong, and gross. Not just feelings about girls/women but also feelings about myself.

Keep in mind it was only a couple of years prior to that I had an unfortunate experience with a group of girls on the playground. I have blogged about that incident before in my post “Man Up!” The premise: the aforementioned group insisted I was not a boy and that I should immediately adjust my play/interests to more girly things.

I had already learned to lock my gender in a deep closet*. Now, as a result of the traumatic birthday outing, I locked my feelings for girls in yet another closet. Those feelings would rumble at that closet door numerous times over the next approximate 15 years in multiple ways and situations. They affected my relationships with boys as well. But most of all they affected my relationship with myself.

*Footnote: I dare anyone to come at me with the “kids don’t understand gender at that young of age” diatribe. I know better.

It wasn’t until my mid 20s that I finally found the courage to unlock that sexual orientation closet door. While I grappled with my sexuality and a string of same-gender presenting relationships that required or demanded secrecy (for fear of loss of employment, family ties and or violence) there was always the omnipresent second and more heavily reinforced gender closet door waiting in the dark. In retrospect, that door was patiently waiting in the light for me. I spent many years and many ways trying to distract myself from seeing it.

It took me almost 45 years to get to the place where I was able to truly be my authentic self. I wish I had the knowledge and vocabulary earlier in life. Numerous researchers and educators agree that children thrive when they see themselves represented. But I grew up in the 70s and 80s. There just wasn’t representation for transgender kids like me on tv or in books. Nevertheless, we still existed.

When I look back at my infatuation with Steve Austin and Jamie Sommers, I realize something very cathartic. It wasn’t about Jamie at all. It really was about Steve all along. He was my boyhood dream of what it meant to be a man. He was the embodiment of my future self. He was engaged to the woman of my dreams. Don’t ask me why him and not Lieutenant Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica. I don’t have all the answers ok? 😊

I am going to make some time to visit my eight year old self. I will reassure Little Tristan that believe it or not, he will be a very happy and successful 47 year old trans dude someday. He will have the super cool Steve Austin aviator shades to kick off 2021. I will reaffirm for him not to worry about when his Jaime Sommers will appear. I will reassure him that she is out there – just on another assignment for the Office of Scientific Intelligence. Finally, I will remind him that she will be able to hear his heart wherever she is. Because after all, she has bionic hearing.

Stay Strong,

Tristan