Photo by SaMaria Boyd
I met an amazing person recently, and it’s with a happy heart that I get to relay this tale to my readers. I met a transgender woman named Artemis (age: 28) on October 5th, 2017 at the Steen Ralph Library on the SFA campus. I was exceedingly excited to meet and learn about her.
When we began to chat, I asked her to tell me everything she had to offer me, open her soul for me to see and understand its complexities; thus, she did. With her good friend, Eleni, by her side, Artemis told me her story.
It begins with her as a male, a small child with their head in the clouds, and wanting to try on their sister’s life-size Barbie dresses. Happiness in their heart as they wore the beautiful dresses, but Artemis confided in me that she never understood why she wanted to wear the dresses as a child. However, looking back now, she grasped the concept; she had anxiety within, but she put on those dresses for her own happiness.
Artemis continues her story; her family didn’t make it easy for her. There were moments she feared her father finding her in her sister’s dresses when she was a child, terrified of his burning blow. She also dealt with her stepmothers overbearing ways, dealt with her particular lifestyle choices being shoved down her throat, choking on falsities. All these variables added up and became too much to handle. Artemis came to the only solution she could, and turned away from her family She is completely cut off from them.
She switches the topic, Artemis was in the army, which she served for six years, and I must say, I give the upmost respect for this amazing woman. “I did good,” she admits, humbly. During her time with the army, she learned a whole kitchen’s cabinet full of skills. She worked as a shots expert, an ammunition specialist—basically, dealing with bullets—amongst other tropes. I can only imagine what she went through.
Artemis moved onto specifically talking about being transgender, and transwomen, as well as her own feelings on the topic.
Artemis has a lot of fear within, to the point it has become a base emotion to carry. In her eyes: kill life or extend it—is it happiness or fear? Even she doesn’t have the answer. Nevertheless, despite the fear that plagues her, she knows what she wants. Artemis wants to transition to bodily be a woman, but is afraid because of the social stigma surrounding it. She wonders if she’ll be looked at like other transgender women have been viewed, as a ‘trick on people to thinking they’re a woman’.
This fear also bleeds into her self-views, having dysphoria due to her non-transitioned appearance, and calling herself derogatory terms.
“Other transwomen have an idea of what they want,” Artemis shrugged. “Me, not so much.”
Again, she wants to transition and take the proper hormones to establish herself as what she wants, but that stems a problem. Artemis relayed to me that she feels conflicted on the matter. She feels as though she doesn’t need to transition but needs to because of her dysphoria—she can’t take too much more, she told me. Then a theme in her life, one where she smoked weed to release herself from the burdens of the outside world, from the negative things surrounding her, but no help came from it. To write loosely, it made her lose aspects of herself, which she really didn’t like. Artemis quit smoking weed for the benefit of herself, which I believe was the best self-love she could have established.
“Life is a Transition,” she says, drinking her soda.
Artemis has a passionate goal to live visibly, to make sure that other transgender women are safe, she wants to be there for others. She wants to be the hand that helps guide someone like no one guided her. Artemis used have a habit of not talking about her problems, due to familial upbringing restricting her, but during an influential night, she spilled the beans to a close friend. That night she learned that, “You need to hear it’s okay to talk to people,” and that it helps. Hence, her deep aspiration to be visible for other transgender persons in the LGBTQ+ (MOGAI) community. “The world needs me,” she says, smiling, and I couldn’t agree more. We do need more people like Artemis who are willing to reach out and help those who are struggling in the LGBTQ+ community. Artemis is truly the definition of one in a million.
Photo by SaMaria Boyd
Artemis tells me a lot of things in our short, 30-minute interview; she has a wife named Samantha who has helped her out so much and helped Artemis see who she truly is. She really likes her wife’s family, and loves to make pizza—it’s a great distraction, she tells me. She hopes to find alternative hormones to take since her Testosterone-blocker messed with her kidneys. As well as the fact, she’s coming to terms with death, loves the TV show Rick & Morty, and finds that her life experiences made her quite the character.
Artemis is an amazing, wonderful, transgender woman that I had the pleasure to interview. She is an absolute delight to have around, and I just had to let everyone know about her story.
I leave this article with a quote by Artemis:
“Transwomen are cool, give them a chance.”