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I can’t remember when I knew that I was different to the others around me. I just was. Nothing I did helped me to fit in – it just made me stand out more. A freak. Different. Odd.

I’ve tried so hard to be what others expected me to be – the gender people expected me to be. I watched people like Marilyn Monroe, who had such a reputation, and tried to mimic them – or at least the movie versions of them. How they moved; how they spoke; how they thought. The words they used. Their quirks.

But somehow that just made me more of a freak.

I grew up in the midst of the Gender Bending eighties, and felt at home there. But in the conservative, mainstream small-minded place I grew up in, that just made me a target. I remember sitting in class thinking of the words to Prince Charming by Adam and the Ants over and over again – a mantra or spell to ward off the constant spikes being thrown at me.

‘Prince Charming’
‘Ridicule is nothing to be scared of’
‘Don’t you ever stop being dandy, showing me you’re handsome’
‘Don’t you ever lower yourself, forgetting all your standards’
‘Silk or leather or a feather respect yourself and all of those around you’

If it were not for Adam and the Ants I would not have survived Year Nine. It’s surprising what keeps us breathing just one more day when everything seems so bleak.

Every now and then a sale of weird, mostly odd or academic type books, would come to town and set up shop for a bit. I found a book there called “The Gender Trap: The Moving Autobiography of Chris and Cathy, the first Transsexual Parents” by Chris Johnson and Cathy Brown (with Wendy Nelson). It fascinated me! Looking back, I wonder what would have happened if I knew then what I know now. But back then, despite the Gender Bending, all I really knew was binary, and I hadn’t come to the realisation that I wasn’t. Binary I mean. I still have that book – a treasured piece that sparked something in my mind to believe that things could be different. One day.

Of course, I was different in many ways. I never grew into my physical self. I loathe the female things about me. The smell of menstruation, the mess, the draining of lifeforce that came with it. The bumps in my chest that are always in the way and need to be hidden as much as possible – an ugly deformity. The glaring absence of those parts of me that existed only in my mind. My never pairing up or chasing after people. My parents, who visibly and quite strongly showed how much they hated same sex coupling, would tell me that they wouldn’t mind if I brought home a girl. Actually, they wouldn’t have minded if I’d brought home a Martian. Anything remotely resembling human would have done. But that’s not my thing.

And then there’s my being a witch. But that’s a tale for another day.

This tale is about my rebirth. No – it’s about my coming home to myself; my becoming whole again.

It was being in the Pagan community – especially Wildwood and Reclaiming – that I first saw non binary people and people with other sexualities. That I found myself allowed, for the first time, to explore who I was in a safe environment. For a witch knowing yourself is actually quite essential! And it has indeed been quite the journey.

So several years ago now I came out. As non-binary. Then as asexual. And more recently, as Trans.

I remember vividly the intense, overpowering joy that came with speaking my whole name for the first time to a beloved. It felt so right – my soul just shone through me and I felt all lit up, wings proudly stretched. I felt strong. But the naming is just part of the becoming. An important part, and just as importantly to have the naming witnessed. But just a part. Logistics demand that the name be lived; be embraced wholly and whole heartedly. This required more than just asking people to call me my whole name – there were (and still are) forms to fill in, boxes to tick, people to tell and all the rest of it.

But more important than any of that was the honouring of my old self. That part of me that was being laid to rest. I’d lived that other part, however misshapenly, for such a long time. She needed to be properly acknowledged.

And being a Witch, I found myself at a time of year when the veil is thinnest spontaneously undertaking a ritual to lay her to rest.

I opened the cross roads, called on the Watchers, the Guardians, the Maidens, the Sacred Four – and other beloved spirits – to witness. And they came.

I conjured her up and held her one last time, as one holds a beloved, and found myself singing

‘Bone by bone I honour you
Bone by bone I honour you
Bone by bone I honour you
Bone by bone I honour you
I lay you down
For all that you’ve been through
I lay you down
And promise to remember you.’

(Song by Sefora Janel Ray with some help from Dani Phoenix Oatfield)

Tears started to flow as a stream of past lived experiences – good and bad – flowed. She was real and heavy in my arms. And I felt such love for this person as I sang – such joy at having known them – valuing them and everything they’d gone though, thought, felt, done. She smiled up at me as I promised to remember her.

And then I let her go.

Cried till there was no more need to cry.

I stood, whole unto myself, and called out my whole name. And again. And again. Smiling with the euphoric release of acknowledging who I am to myself, and to my beloved spirits.

Standing there, feeling whole, feeling complete, seeing my path clearly in front of me.

To honour the occasion I pulled a Tarot card – the Magician. It felt so apt.

Thanked those who witnessed, closed, and stepped away.

Renewed.