"I could not picture myself as a woman aging."

Taking apart Elliot Page's Esquire interview

This interview’s got it all:

Hyperbole!

There are people in elected office saying that, essentially, transgender people are going to be responsible for the end of existence. That degree of rhetoric is really alarming and horrible.

Historical revisionism!

The idea of gender being a binary concept specifically based on genitalia is a very new idea in relation to human history. We existed in every culture throughout history! People don’t learn about that reality. They’re banning kids from learning it. It’s all tactical.

Co-morbidities and suicide-mongering!

I struggled with food. Intense depression, anxiety, severe panic attacks. I couldn’t function. There were days when I’d only have one meeting, and I’d leave my house to go to the meeting and have to turn around. Not being able to get through a script—could not. Reading is one of my favorite things to do—I couldn’t read, couldn’t get through a paragraph…

Can I relate to the suicide problem among trans people? Yeah, I can relate deeply. And not only to the very conscious, direct act of doing it but also certain times when I lost so much weight or when I was having such severe panic attacks and collapsed multiple times—all these things that very easily could, and statistically do, lead to death. And that’s all a manifestation of that trauma and discomfort that’s a disproportionate issue for transgender people.

There were moments of wanting to not be here, but that was just the sensation that I was left with. It wasn’t a movement for action—other than the ways in which I was abusing my body, clearly. I would look out the window of my apartment and think, With everything going on right now and how incredible it all is, this is how I feel? And I’m twenty-two? It was like, I don’t know if I could do it.

And this, which I’ve heard so often from young lesbians—even young women generally—in a world that erases (or transes or cancels) older role models. Maybe you can’t picture growing old as a woman because you don’t see it:

I could not picture myself as a woman aging. Obviously. It was just like, what is my future? There’s not a future. That’s kind of what it felt like. I would say, verbatim: I’ve never been a girl. I’ll never be a woman.

Esquire headlined the piece “The Euphoria of Elliot Page.” ‘Euphoria’ is the frame through which you’re meant to read the story.

But it’s a funny shade of ‘euphoria.’ Here we have yet another 'uplifting' story about a gender journey that contains an underside narrative of severe mental illness and trauma and medical abuse that is present in every sentence and yet does not speak.

Much like the New York Times Magazine’s recent article on phalloplasty—“How Ben Got His Penis”—this feels like an exercise in desensitization. As a reader, you encounter both the official narrative and all the evidence to the contrary. The cognitive dissonance is intense.

Page looks like an empty shell. But ‘he’s’ happier than ever. Red flags leap off the page (suicidal ideation, disordered eating and references to ‘abusing’ one’s body, depression, anxiety, panic attacks). But you’re supposed to ignore them. Don’t trust your eyes. Don’t draw your own conclusions. (That’s trans ideology in a nutshell.) This is a man and he’s euphoric about it.