A Holiday Wish
21.12.2023 - 22:09
/ thegavoice.com
The holidays were different when I was younger. Lacking the Internet, one would eagerly anticipate the arrival of the Sears catalog to your front door just around August or September. This particular catalog, known as the “Wish Book,” would hold in its many pages a treasure trove of toys your family could buy for the holidays.
The Wish Book, of course, was the basis of your letter to Santa.
I thought I was sneaky. Every year, I would comb the pages of the Wish Book, crafting a list for Santa of all the toys I might want. There was always some of the usual fare, like Hot Wheels cars and whatnot, but I would always try to sneak something in.
One year, I tried requesting a Barbie playset among the Big Jim dolls, but this was denied. Another year it was the Jamie Sommers Bionic Woman doll to go with the masculine variety, Steve Austin. That one time, amazingly, I was successful.
I knew that my likelihood of success was pretty slim, of course. I also knew what my real big ask was, and that it was the one thing I knew Santa could not bring me. It was the same thing I concluded my nightly prayers with, and what I might wish upon a star for more times than I might admit.
I wanted to wake up a girl, as if none of that past of mine mattered and just be myself.
I was, I suppose, fortunate. Even in my younger years, I knew trans people existed. While some will try to tell you that transgender people somehow only emerged in the 1990s, fully-realized, I recall hearing about Renée Richards, Wendy Carlos and others in my youth. While I may not have known all the ins and outs of being transgender, I definitely knew it was a possibility.
Of course, it was this knowledge that also informed me that a gender transition wasn’t likely to show