Monika: Tilly Bridges is an American writer of teleplays, comics, screenplays, and a pioneer of audio dramas. Along with her wife and creative partner, Susan Bridges, they are a married trans woman/cis woman writing team in Hollywood and their works include head writing for the 2021 Hugo Awards, 2023 Nebula Awards, writing for the new Monster High animated series, more than half a dozen comic anthologies, their unscripted podcast Tilly’s Trans Tuesdays and the Star Trek Adventures and Fallout role-playing games. She is the author of “Begin Transmission: The Trans Allegories of the Matrix” (2023). Hello Tilly! Thank you for accepting my invitation.
Tilly: Thank you so much for asking! I’m delighted to be chatting with you.
Monika: Before we talk about the trans allegories of Matrix, I want to ask you about your teenage years and the start of your professional career. Did you always know that writing would be your vocation?
Tilly: No, not at all. In the time and place where I grew up, being a screenwriter wasn’t something anybody had ever heard of or knew how to do. I would write a few stories on my own, and would love getting to write fiction for assignments in English class in school, but that was the extent of it. I wanted to know so badly how to write for movies and television, but that wasn’t an avenue that was open to me. I initially went to college studying for a dual major in chemistry and physics, but I grew disillusioned with it pretty quickly. That’s when the writing bug really bit me and there was no turning back.
Monika: You are a screenwriter too.
Tilly: I am, yes, as part of a team with my wife. You’ll get to see some of our work in season two of Monster High which will hopefully be out later this year. We wrote six episodes for that season.
Monika: You came out publicly as a transgender woman in the summer of 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Was it a coincidence?
Tilly: It actually was. I know the pandemic lockdown cracked a lot of eggs. So many people were stuck at home with time to just exist and think and be, and a lot of trans people realized their transness. Looking back at my life, I always knew I was trans but didn’t have the words for it. I didn’t know it was something someone could be, I just felt broken. It was sometime in 2015 when I finally fully realized and accepted my transness. I did small things then to help transition my body away from the one I had to the one I wanted, because I had a hard date in 2020 that I couldn’t really transition before, due to personal reasons I won’t get into here. I think it was early June 2020 when I began my social transition, and then I came out and began my medical transition in July of 2020.
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Image from Monster High"Hello! Meet the only married trans woman/cis woman writing team we know of (do you know of others? Tell us! We want to know them!), which gives us an entirely unique perspective. We write fun, hope-fueled sci-fi, with blue sky imaginations and a sprinkle (or three) of comedy! Our stories explore personal identity and how society shapes us. We delve into the reasons we are who we are, who we can become, how we can get there, and what we owe to each other along the way." Tilly and Susan Bridges - for more info about the couple visit their website. |
Monika: We all pay the highest price for the fulfillment of our dreams to be ourselves. As a result, we lose our families, friends, jobs, and social positions. You seemed to have managed to steer your way without such problems.
Tilly: I am incredibly privileged and lucky to have basically lost none of those things. I discussed everything with my wife at every part of the process, and she fully supported me through everything. And so has my son. I have run into some barriers with writing as an out trans woman, as there are definitely extra barriers that we face (in both publishing and Hollywood), but otherwise I somehow was able to avoid so many of the large problems so many of us struggle with.
I knew in transitioning that I would be giving up a massive amount of (perceived) privilege, as the world previously saw me as a cisgender heterosexual white man. Trans women pre-transition don’t fully experience male privilege the way cis men do, of course… we don’t conform to what cis men expect and we’re usually punished for it. But I still knew that I’d no longer be able to walk into a room of strangers and be afforded the privilege that comes with everyone seeing you as a cishet white man.
And yet I’m still incredibly white, and that privilege isn’t going away. And because I’ve lost so much less than many other trans people, I’m privileged in that way too. So I decided that if I was going to transition (which I very much needed to do), I was going to use my privilege to help people as best I could.
I’m a writer, it’s what I do. So I started chronicling my transition and talking about all aspects of trans life in weekly essays I called Trans Tuesday. They’ve been running for over three years now, there’s over a hundred of them, and they’re all archived and free at tillystranstuesdays.com. At the beginning of 2023, I also started releasing them as a podcast.
Monika: The Tilly’s Trans Tuesdays podcast became the diary of your transition. Did you produce it to help yourself or other ladies? Or both?
Tilly: It’s 100% to help other trans people out there, trans ladies and trans men and nonbinary folks and everyone who’s gender-nonconforming. If I can help them understand themselves better, or put into words something they have difficulty explaining, or just let them know they’re not alone in what we all go through, that’s the goal. A lot of people have let me know how much they’ve been helped by them, or that it helped the cis people in their lives understand them better, which is the best feeling ever. Cis parents have told me it’s helped them understand their trans kids better. All of that is more than I could have hoped for.
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| "I’m a writer, it’s what I do." |
Tilly: I missed them initially, too. It took seeing them after transition began to really understand what they were saying, but I think part of the reason is also that I’m a screenwriter. I know how the story sausage is made, so to speak. I think that helps me (and all writers) analyze media in a way the general audience doesn’t. So I was in a fairly unique position of everything coming together to help me see the code behind the matrix, if you will.
Monika: Lana Wachowski publicly revealed her transition after Speed Racer's release in 2008 and Lilly came out 8 years later. I always wonder what would have happened if they had done it in 1999 when Matrix debuted in the theatres. Would we have the transgender anthem movie now rather than a masterpiece with trans allegories?
Tilly: Absolutely not. How many movies do we have released in the present day that are by trans writers and directors? And are about what it’s like to be trans? There’s incredibly few, and those that do exist are often indie films made with small budgets. And I’m not deriding those kinds of movies, we need them and they’re incredibly important. But we need to be in mainstream media, too. That’s where you reach the widest audience, and can change more hearts and minds.
If the Wachowskis had been out as trans women, they’d never have been given hundreds of millions of dollars to make that series. If the franchise was surface-level trans, it also would have never been made. The fact that they weren’t out yet, and the experience is told via allegory, is what allowed them to become what they are. I wish we could have blockbuster sci-fi action movies starring, written by, and directed by trans people, but that sadly still feels a long way off, even here in 2024. There’s no way it would have happened in the late 90s.
Monika: My favorite Matrix scene is the red pill and blue pill moment, which reminds me of my first Premarin pill and the start of my hormone replacement therapy. However, the movie critics claim that the red pill represents a choice between the willingness to learn a potentially unsettling or life-changing truth (i.e. the reality principle) or remaining in the contented experience of ordinary reality with the blue pill (i.e. the PLEASURE principle). I did not have any pleasure while “staying on the blue pill”. I chose the red because I wanted to be me, to be free…
Tilly: Critics can claim that if they like, art is subjective and it means different things to different people. And the Matrix films are very much more than just trans allegories, even if the trans allegory is the bedrock. But a “willingness to learn an unsettling or life-changing truth” is very much waking up to being trans and choosing to transition, and “remaining content with ordinary reality” is very much choosing to deny your transness to keep living a lie (that society rewards you for). They’re not talking about anything different, actually, they’re just likely cis and haven’t experienced that trans frame of reference. That’s part of what I hope my book BEGIN TRANSMISSION helps with.
Monika: The story of Neo’s transition from Thomas Anderson to Neo to Trinity completes itself in the fourth Matrix movie, Resurrections. Trinity is free of any dysphoria. She totally passes as a woman whereas we are said to be prisoners of passing or non-passing syndrome. Although cosmetic surgeries help to overcome it, we will always be judged accordingly.
Tilly: By the end of Resurrections, yes, I believe she’s probably free of dysphoria. I don’t think we can make any judgment on whether or not she “passes” though, as the story is allegorical and Trinity is played by a cis woman. We trans folks are certainly judged by cis people on whether we pass or not, and there’s definitely a point to be made that it’s safer to pass in our horribly transphobic society. But for a lot of trans folks, myself included, passing isn’t the goal. I don’t pass and I don’t want to. I’m happy and proud to be trans, and I don’t mind if I “look trans” (even though that’s a horribly loaded phrase it would take two essays to unpack).
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| "The Matrix films are very much more than just trans allegories, even if the trans allegory is the bedrock." |
Monika: Do you remember the first time you saw a transgender woman on TV or met anyone transgender in person that opened your eyes and allowed you to realize who you are?
Tilly: The first time I remember seeing a trans person represented in media was in “Ace Ventura,” and I can’t even tell you how damaging that was. She was a predator, and a joke, and played by a cis person. It’s a trifecta of awfulness, and it likely added years to the time it took me to realize and accept my own transness. Representation like that is so, so harmful.
Jamie Clayton in SENSE8, Laverne Cox in ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, and Nicole Maines in SUPERGIRL were the first positive, real portrayals of trans women I remember seeing in media. There were others in my personal life who inspired me, too. All of them got mentioned in my coming out essay, and get a special thanks in the back of BEGIN TRANSMISSION. As do, specifically, trans women writers who made me feel I could transition, come out, and still have a writing career. Just seeing other trans people happy and living our lives inspires so many more of us and helps them know they can do it too. I wouldn’t be here without all who came before.
Monika: Did you have any transgender sisters around you that supported you during the transition?
Tilly: Coming out during lockdown and the height of the pandemic meant I had to get my community virtually. And I did, and met some lovely people, but I never got very close to any. That’s changed now, though it’s mostly still all virtual. But for the first few years of my transition I was basically going it alone, and that’s another reason I started Trans Tuesdays. Because I didn’t even have a resource like that to help me, and I didn’t want anyone else to have to go through it alone.
Monika: What do you think about the present situation of transgender women in your country?
Tilly: It’s bad! Very very bad. It’s not specifically targeted at us as much as at all trans people, and half the country who is actively stripping us of our rights while nobody from the opposing party will do anything to stop them. We trans women do face incredibly heightened levels of violence however, which is even more dangerous for trans women of color and especially Black trans women. Sadly I don’t know how we fix it, because so few politicians care enough to step up and protect us.
Monika: I remember copying my sister and mother first, and later other women, trying to look 100% feminine, and my cis female friends used to joke that I try to be a woman that does not exist in reality. Did you experience the same?
Tilly: No, my cis friends were generally more accepting than that. But I did get a lot of “welcome to being a woman” type comments when I’d post about an uncomfortable bra or something, which can sometimes pile up like microaggressions. I was always a woman, I just wasn’t dressing like one. I know how bras can be.
Monika: When I came out at work, my male co-workers treated me in a way as if the transition lowered my IQ. Did you experience the same? Do you think it happens because we are women or because we are transgender? Or both?
Tilly: Separating misogyny from transphobia is nearly impossible, because they’re inextricably linked. That’s why we just call it transmisogyny. So I think it’s definitely both, though I suspect a lot of cis men don’t even realize they’re doing it. So many implicit biases are implanted in us by society, and if people don’t do the work to recognize them and root them out, nothing will ever get better. It definitely happened to me too, though. The same month I came out I was on a zoom call, and a cis man interrupted me, spoke over me, and then restated what I’d just said as if it was his idea. And like, I guess that’s affirming in the sense of “he definitely sees me as a woman now” but eeeeesh.
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| Available via Amazon. |
Tilly: Not as much as I’d like to be. The town I live in doesn’t have its own queer community center or anything, and due to having to be extra careful around Covid I can’t really do indoor events with a lot of people. So most of my community still comes from connections and groups online, though I do know several local trans folks who are lovely. They’re mostly all in the entertainment industry too though, which makes it incredibly difficult to coordinate schedules just to have coffee together.
Monika: Could you tell me about the importance of love in your life?
Tilly: My wife and I like to challenge ourselves in our writing (I know this seems ancillary, stick with me here). And a few years back we wrote a script tackling the very idea of what is the point of life? No pressure. In any case, my discovery as we wrote that was that the only thing that makes life worth living is love. The love we give, and the love we receive. Love for each other, for our planet, for everything. Love is all there is. And that includes loving yourself, and being kind and compassionate toward yourself, as much as you would be toward anyone else you love. And that played a big part in working up the courage to transition and come out. I did it because I loved myself enough to go through everything we go through just for a shot at an authentic life and true joy. I love everyone. My wife and son, my friends, my colleagues, you, the people reading this. Love is all we’ve got, and we are all in this together.
Monika: What would you recommend to all transgender women who are afraid of transition?
Tilly: It’s okay to be afraid. I was. Sometimes I still am. Do it anyway. Don’t wait for the day you’re not afraid anymore, because that day may never come. Do it anyway. Do it anyway. Because you’re worth it, and you deserve to live as your true self. Just do it scared.
Monika: My pen-friend Gina Grahame wrote to me once that we should not limit our potential because of how we were born or by what we see other transgender people doing. Our dreams should not end on an operating table; that’s where they begin. Do you agree with this?
Tilly: I agree with the first part of it! We shouldn’t limit ourselves in any way based on someone else’s expectations, or what someone else has done. But that plays right into my stance on the second part, because not every trans person wants to be on the operating table. And that makes them no less trans. Just because some trans people get surgeries doesn’t mean we all need to. Transition is wildly varied and unique to each person, and it’s about finding what’s right for you, and you shouldn’t limit your transition to what other trans people have done or what anyone else expects you to do.
Monika: Tilly, it was a pleasure to interview you. Thanks a lot!
Tilly: Thank you again for having me! Sorry I talk so much (I’m a writer, sorry, I literally can’t help it).
All the photos: courtesy of Tilly Bridges.
© 2024 - Monika Kowalska
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