Learning to Love Myself on Zoom

On the screen facing me, next to the podcast host about to interview me, is a mature, attractive woman wearing a sleeveless cobalt Max Mara dress which hugs her body highlighting her figure. A large piece of costume jewelry adorned with flowery rhinestones as petals hangs around her neck. Her posture is impeccable, back ramrod straight and legs crossed demurely on the stool she sits on.

It is late Spring last year, and white and lavender lilacs in seasonal bloom spill out of vases behind both me and the woman on the screen, arrayed thoughtfully to create depth in the background. She begins to, meticulously and thoughtfully, answer questions put to her by that podcast host and before she knows it, the 45 minutes of questions has passed, and she slumps ever so slightly in relief and satisfaction.

In my experience, identity goes a?long?way in determining how people?feel about themselves; and, it cuts both ways. Some of my earliest, most vivid memories were of me as a six- or seven-year-old boy looking at my reflection, shutting my eyes and banging my head on the mirror while repeatedly muttering, “I hate, I hate you, I hate you.”

From that time on, I could only look in a mirror fleetingly. When I shaved, I would peer from my nose down so I would not see my eyes or hair. When I had to look at myself in a full-length mirror, I’d adjust the angle of the mirror downward. I detested photos which included me in them.

In 2018, sitting in my office in Lower Manhattan, I had an epiphany that I was transgender. Suddenly, all that history made sense. Instead of general self-hatred, I now realized much of my self-loathing stemmed from a dislike of my masculinity. As I began my physical transition with hormones in early 2019, followed by laser hair removal, my body became more acceptable to me, though the process was incremental. Clothes, hair and make-up came next, and they helped too.

As a hopeful 2020 dawned, more physical change was on the horizon. I was scheduled to have gender affirmation surgery in May. But soon after Covid broke out across the US, elective surgeries, including mine, were postponed. Fortunately, it was rescheduled for early June.

Zoom, which I had only been vaguely aware of before the onset of the pandemic, had already been a part of my life before surgery. But now it was about to become a movie starring me and chronicling my physical transformation. I also had a front row seat.

I was enjoying a Zoom hang out with friends the night of my surgery, feeling extra amped from all the pain medication circulating around my body. Wearing a hospital gown, cap and a face mask, I knew nobody could see what I had been through and what had resulted. But I understood. I felt different, and my smile was big even if no one could see it under my face mask.

Zoom has been compared to a person following you around all day with a mirror as you go about your daily business of making decisions, talking to people, and showing your emotions.

But for the first time in my life, I was beginning to like what that mirror showed. After my surgery I took a leave of absence from my job but was still doing some public speaking at Pride events and in support groups. I attended the board meetings of the nonprofits I was involved with. In other words, I jumped right back on Zoom. From that vantage point, I watched myself recover, the angle of my body slowly rising from a flat 180 degrees to something closer to 90 degrees by the end of two months.

Over time, my skin has changed, my features softened, and the dark outlines of a beard faded with electrolysis. I had breast augmentation surgery as well. I witnessed the progress of my body toward something I could truly appreciate.

There are almost no photos of me smiling before I transitioned. But on Zoom, I saw my sincere smile more and more often, and when I reverted to my sullen male alter ego, my friends began to call me out. “You look so much younger when you smile,” they’d gently admonish.

And I wasn’t only observing. I was also listening. Though I don’t believe I have a deep, masculine voice, in a vacuum, it would not be considered feminine. Speaking to strangers on the phone, I often have the deflating experience of being called “sir.” I began taking speech lessons via Zoom and listened to my voice creep into a higher pitch.

Of course, I also get Zoom fatigue. But other times, I see my image on the screen, particularly when I’m grinning and animated, and find myself wondering,?Who is this person?

It’s as if my identity has split and the person watching the screen is the unhappy man that I thought I was and the person on the screen is the exultant woman I have become. If I look long enough, the two become one and that’s when I see the biggest smile I can muster.?

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