Dear Roland,

I’ve got a lot to say to you and not much time to say it. You’re a man. You’ve figured out that much, at least. Only just now figured it out, assuming I’m writing this letter to the correct version of myself, adrift and desperate in the summer of 2021. After decades of first resisting and then trying to reconcile yourself with femininity, your body rejected it like a bad plate of seafood. It was making you sick. If you kept trying to swallow it, it might have killed you. Harsh as it is, that’s the long and short of it. There was no winning that game. I’m glad you pulled out while you still had the chance.

You might be asking yourself what you do now. It’s hard to condense years’ worth of hindsight in a letter like this, but I’ll do my best to give you some pointers without breaking any major laws of causality. I’ve put it into bullet points for easier digestion. I wish I could tell you that you could write back if you had any questions, but that’s kind of impossible. You’ll figure it out. That much I can promise.

That was the theme of the first couple months, wasn’t it? Telling yourself that if you were really a man, you would have figured it out earlier? First of all, you did. What do you think all that militant tomboy business up until the age of 14 was about? And secondly, what were you gonna do, man? You grew up in Kentucky, which has somehow only gotten worse over time. How do you think that was going to turn out? The vast majority of the adult influences in your life were concentrated on trying to make you as small and compliant as possible, through violent force if necessary. You dragged yourself out of a black pit, put your head down, got through university, and then hopped on a plane and never looked back. You lived. You got out. That was your only job, and if anybody tells you any differently, you direct them to me. You saved us both.

You’ve always loved this place, right? This is a major European city with protections codified into law. You could do a lot worse. I mean, Vienna is a place where you’d be hard pressed to get strangers to pay attention to you and what you’re doing if you were juggling lit torches. Some politicians are gonna say some weird shit sometimes, but they’re wholly irrelevant as human beings to your life anyway. There’s gonna be some crazy stuff that kicks off in the US in a couple years that makes you glad you’re here instead of there. You’re going to wear a lot of very questionable Tracht from the 90s that you picked up in a thrift store and experience a weird form of gender euphoria from being called “Bruder” by those dudes hanging out by Praterstern. You’re going to envy the sheer amount of old-man drip you witness being sported by Austrian guys in their 50s and 60s walking through the first district. You wear socks with Birks now. It’s a hell of a ride. Sit out in the park with a book and a water bottle filled with Aperol, content in the knowledge that nobody’s going to come along and mess with you.

He’s a couple years older than you and has been on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for way longer. Your friendship moves quickly and then develops, punctuated by weird stages of withdrawal and avoidance. That’s interesting, and familiar. You don’t know how to deal with consistent affection anyway. He has a stable job, retirement savings, and seems like he’s got it figured out. He doesn’t. He’s just as unhinged as you are. I know you thought he understood you, but he doesn’t, and he’ll tell you as much when you break up shortly after he begs you to move in with him. He doesn’t know what he wants, and that’s not your cross to bear. Someone being further along in “the process” than you are doesn’t mean they understand all of this more. Just because somebody looks stable doesn’t mean they aren’t also a broken person. Maybe the more stable you present yourself, the more broken you are. I hope you’ve learned not to be self-righteous and weird and paternalistic towards people who aren’t quite to where you are. Remember how much it stung every time he dismissed you or tried to catch you out, to show you that he was the more level-headed one. How much it incensed you every time he told you that you were taking something too personally or getting too involved. It’s an ego thing. It wasn’t about you. Acknowledge it and let it go. Don’t do it to anyone else. Maybe there’s a way to guide people without trying to steamroll them. You’ve certainly learned that you can’t shove someone away and try to control them at the same time. Sulking and brooding solves nothing. You’ve learned better than he has that solitude is not a strength. I’m not sure if we forgive him. Part of me is hoping I get a letter just like this letting me know.

Roland was a USTA in Upper Austria during the 2019–20 program year and in Vienna during the 2020–21 program year. All photos courtesy of Roland Bailey.

You can also watch the interview we had with Roland as a follow-up to his article.

Are you a member of the Fulbright Austria community interested in sharing your experience as a trans person in Austria or the US? Please contact us.