I’m Trans — And JK Rowling Saved My Life
I was gutted recently when the Harry Potter author successfully obliterated more rights for people like me. She was the key to my survival when I came out to my Mormon husband and family.
By Will Cole
To be a trans person who once loved Harry Potter is gutting.
In my twenties, I devoured the books in real time. I discovered the series after book two and preordered the rest, watched all the films in the theater, and bought the DVDs. During the terrifying year when I was losing my Mormon faith, MuggleNet was my distraction, my rabbit hole coping mechanism. (JK sued MuggleNet, the largest online Harry Potter fan site, a dick move towards her adoring fans that presaged more dick moves.)
When I became a parent, I eagerly ticked down the years until my son would be old enough to share the series with. He read every book in second grade. I was thrilled.
Maybe seven years later, I visited my natal family in Utah around Halloween. A dozen of my nieces and nephews were the perfect age for a Harry Potter-themed party. My mom, three sisters, and I spent an entire day creating, cooking, and decorating. We had floating candles, chocolate frogs, individualized wands, pumpkin pasties, tiny potion jars, Ferreo chocolates with attached wings as golden snitches, and even butter beer.
At the time, I lived thousands of miles away and was tiptoeing out of the gender closet at work — but I was still closeted to my family. Producing this immersive wonderland for the kids was a rare moment of closeness. When we had nothing else in common, we bonded over the joys and frustrations of parenthood.
My tween niece and I used giant sponges dipped in red paint on a tablecloth to create the brick wall at Platform 9 ¾ for that party, and the youngest of my nieces, a three-year-old, burst through it and back dozens of times. It was childhood at its most magical.
A couple more years passed before I fully came out as a trans man. When I told him, my husband of 19 years was adamant that I “not do anything medical.” I asked myself (though not him) if that meant he would leave me if I took hormones. And if I did it anyway, was I leaving him? Or was he leaving me?
In this impossible bind for months, I started thinking, It would be nice to die. Once I took two Tylenol for a mimosa hangover headache, then thought, The rest of the bottle would do it. I didn’t actually want to die; I just didn't want to choose between my transition and my marriage. I tried desperately to counter these thoughts with ways to live.
My Mormon family was against divorce (but pro wife-self-sacrificing), and they provided what was the opposite of support. My brain wasn’t functioning. Workaholism wasn’t an option (though alcoholism maybe was). I saw my therapist and psychiatrist, but I still had to find a way to get through each day.
To cope, I asked myself, “What can I do for the next ten minutes? Anyone can do anything for ten minutes.” The answer: Re-read Harry Potter. I had the new illustrated volumes one through three. Comforting, simple, the good guy always wins. I’m an Hermione. A Ravenclaw. In ten-minute chunks, I lived by escaping into this familiar fantasy world, now with colorful illustrations.
I lived. I transitioned. I divorced.