The Funeral Photoshoot (Age 29)

I was twenty-nine years old, and I had decided to kill her.

The strain of living a double life was fracturing my mind. I had written a third suicide note. I believed that for Dawie to survive, Juanita had to be erased completely. But before I buried her forever, I wanted one last look.

I booked a photoshoot. It wasn’t meant to be a celebration; it was meant to be a memorial service. I wanted a few professional photos to remember the woman inside me before I locked her away in the dark for good.

I arrived at the studio as Dawie. I met the two women who would be taking the photos. I was polite, reserved, the perfect “Eligible Bachelor.” Then, I went into the changing room to summon the ghost one last time.

I stripped off the male costume. I put on the dress, the makeup, the wig. I walked back out, expecting them to see a man in a dress, a final confirmation that I was right to destroy this part of myself.

But they didn’t see a man.

The photographers didn’t laugh. They didn’t look confused. They started shooting.

After the session, they took me aside. They looked at me with a sincerity that disarmed me. They told me that while Dawie was attractive, there was something undeniably special about Juanita.

“Promise us something,” one of them said, her voice serious. “Promise us you will continue to be Juanita.”

It was the first time in twenty-nine years that a woman had looked at me and asked me to stay. I had gone there to stage an execution, but their validation stayed my hand. Instead of killing her, they gave me permission to let her breathe.

The Digital Debut

The photos from that session were not just keepsakes; they were proof of life.

For days, I stared at them. I saw a woman who looked back at me with confidence I didn’t feel yet. Emboldened by that glossy evidence, I did something dangerous.

I created my first social media profile.

It was 2008, and the digital world was still a frontier. I didn’t use my legal name. I uploaded the photos from the shoot, the first time my digital avatar matched my internal reality. For the first time, I wasn’t a faceless “user” or a man in a suit. I was the woman in the red dress.

I stared at the screen, waiting for the digital world to attack me. I expected the ridicule I feared in the streets. But the internet, for all its toxicity, also offered distance.

People accepted the image. They liked it.

It was a small, digital step, but it broke the seal. I realized that Juanita could exist in the world, even if it was just in the binary code of the internet. The “Funeral” photos hadn’t buried her; they had launched her.

The Scientist of the Surface

I was twenty-four years old when I became a professional observer.

My job at the Agricultural Research Council was in Remote Sensing. The term is technical: it refers to acquiring information about an object or phenomenon without physical contact. It is the science of watching from a distance.

It was also the perfect metaphor for my life.

By day, I processed data on drought and fire. I watched the African continent turn brown and red on my screens. I was measuring the stress of the earth from a safe distance, documenting the early tremors of climate breakdown. But while I could track a drought across the Limpopo province with pixel-perfect precision, I remained completely dissociated from the drought in my own soul.

I became a scientist of the surface. I was observing my own life from a satellite’s orbit, terrified of making contact with the ground.

The office culture was a bastion of traditional masculinity, and I played my part in the theater. I grilled the steaks at office functions, laughed at the rugby jokes, and maintained the “Eligible Bachelor” mask. I was the independent man, the successful scientist. In reality, I was a ghost haunting my own career.

The Bachelors

At the ARC, I was drafted into a social unit I neither earned nor wanted: “The Bachelors.”

We were a group of four young men, seen by the rest of the institute as the vibrant future of the organization. To the outside world, we were a tight-knit wolf pack. To me, it was an exhausting, never-ending performance of masculinity.

My membership in this club was mandatory, not voluntary. They would often play pool after work on Fridays or gather to watch TV series. They would always invite me. And I, terrified of being exposed as an outsider, would always say yes.

But “yes” was a lie. I would agree to their plans, and then, as the hour approached, panic would set in. I would flake. I would manufacture headaches, family emergencies, or sudden workloads. I became the master of the last-minute excuse. I wanted to be part of the group to be safe, but I couldn’t bear to be part of the group because it required me to be a man.

The other three members of our quartet were a study in the different archetypes of the male species I was trying to emulate but secretly despised.

First, there was The Scientist. He was brilliant, a man whose mind I admired deeply. But his intellect ended where his misogyny began. He was a true believer in the “barefoot and pregnant” doctrine. He spoke of women not as equals, but as broodmares and kitchen appliances. I sat there, a woman hiding in a man’s body, listening to him dismantle my gender while I nodded in silent, cowardly agreement. I respected his brain, but I hated his soul.

Then, there was Johnny Bravo. He was built like a Greek god, a wall of muscle and bravado who walked as if he were constantly posing for a photo that was never being taken. He acted the part of the alpha male, loud and brash, but I saw through the act. Underneath the layers of performative testosterone, I saw a good heart. I knew that if he could just get over his own ego, he would make someone a wonderful husband one day. But for now, he was a cartoon character of manhood.

Finally, there was The Jester. He was the funny man, the one who used humor to navigate the world. But unlike the others, his humor didn’t punch down. He showed respect to everyone, from the cleaners to the directors. He was the only one I genuinely liked, yet I kept him at arm’s length, too.

I was the fourth member: The Ghost. The one who was always invited but rarely there. The one who judged them for their toxic masculinity while envying them for their ease in the world. They were playing pool; I was playing a role.

The Carnivore

The performance of masculinity wasn’t just about how I walked or talked; it was about what I consumed. In the South African lexicon of manhood, meat is a sacrament. A “real man” eats steak, braais over an open fire, and treats vegetables with suspicion.

During a field trip to Bloemfontein, the city of my birth; I decided to canonize myself in this religion of flesh.

I was traveling with a colleague, a man who bought fully into the “Dawie” persona. We went to the legendary Copper Clover, home of the “Cheetah Burger.” This wasn’t a meal; it was a dare. It was a kilogram of meat, a massive patty topped with bacon, eggs, and cheese, served with a mountain of chips. It was a heart attack on a plate, designed to separate the men from the boys.

“I’m going to do it,” I announced.

I had prepared for this act of gluttony like an athlete. I had starved myself all day. I had gone for a run in the morning to create a calorie deficit. I wasn’t hungry; I was determined.

I sat there, surrounded by other men, and began to eat. It was a grotesque, mechanical process. I shoveled the meat into my mouth, bite after bite, forcing my stomach to expand beyond comfort. My colleague cheered me on. The waiter watched in awe.

“You’re a machine, Dawie!” they shouted.

I finished it. Every crumb.

I sat back, bloated and in physical pain, while the table applauded. I had conquered the burger. I had proven my capacity for consumption. But as I sat there, trying not to vomit, I felt a deep, piercing sadness.

I didn’t want to be a machine. I didn’t want to be a carnivore conquering a plate. I wanted to be the woman at the next table ordering a salad and a glass of white wine. I wanted to be small. I wanted to be delicate. Instead, I had turned my body into a landfill for dead animals just to get a round of applause from men I didn’t even like.

I paid the bill, smiling the smile of the victor, while Juanita screamed inside the cage of my overfull stomach.

The Body as Contraband

My work eventually required me to leave the safety of my laboratory. In 2004, I was invited to present a paper on drought monitoring in Anchorage, Alaska.

Traveling to the United States was my first encounter with the Global North, not as an idea, but as a border enforcement agency. The journey began in chaos; armed robbers had just tried to steal gold and diamonds off a KLM flight at Johannesburg International, the airport now called OR Tambo, and it delayed our flight, a reminder of the violent transition happening at home. But the real trauma awaited me on American soil.

At the Minneapolis airport, I was pulled aside by security. The scanners had picked up something “anomalous.” I was subjected to a strip search.

Standing there, stripped down to my pants and t-shirt while uniformed officers scrutinized my body, I felt the visceral reality of state power. The state claims the right to inspect, classify, and violate the body in the name of security. For a closeted trans person, the airport is a site of high-stakes terror. My body, with its hidden history, its shaved legs, and its suppressed chemistry, felt like contraband. I wasn’t just a traveler; I was a biological suspect.

Alaska itself was a shock of cold and beauty. I found refuge in a Subway sandwich shop, where the female staff were fascinated by my South African accent. For a week, I basked in their attention. It was the first time I felt “seen” by women, not as a romantic prospect, but as a curiosity. Yet, the attention felt hollow. They were charmed by the “bachelor scientist,” a character I had invented to survive. They didn’t know they were feeding a ghost.

Once I made it through the border, the fear dissolved into a strange, cold freedom. Alaska offered me something Pretoria never could: anonymity.

I drove to a Walmart, a cathedral of consumption unlike anything I had seen. I walked into the women’s section. My heart didn’t hammer against my ribs this time; the panic of the Brooklyn Mall was gone. I bought a few items, soft pajamas, a top, and took them back to my hotel.

That night, while the snow fell outside, I wore them. It wasn’t a performance; it was a sigh of relief. For a few nights, I slept as myself. I realized then that my dysphoria was partly geographic; in a place where no one policed me, I could breathe.

Somatic Rebellion

Back at the ARC, the atmosphere shifted. We received a new division head, Nisha.

If my previous bosses had been distant, Nisha was an exercise in authoritarian micromanagement. The workplace became a cage where power dynamics were stripped bare. She ruled through confusion and fear. Instructions changed daily; public scoldings were routine.

One afternoon, the pressure broke me. I sat in my office, my heart beating so hard it hurt. My breath wouldn’t come. I locked the door, convinced I was dying. I hoped I was dying. It was my first panic attack, a somatic rebellion against a toxic environment. My body was screaming what my mind refused to acknowledge: I am not safe here.

I decided to fight back. I initiated a grievance procedure. It was a terrifying act of agency for someone who usually hid in the shadows. I rallied my colleagues, and we signed a collective grievance.

The process turned ugly. In a closed meeting, Nisha accused me of faking my panic attacks. She attacked my character. Then came the accusation that silenced the room: she accused me of racism.

In South Africa, this is the nuclear option. It is a charge that carries the weight of centuries of colonial violence.

It was a perfect storm of invisible currents. To the labor consultant, I was a white man attacking a black woman, a dynamic loaded with the painful weight of history. But underneath that visible layer, I was a terrified, closeted trans woman being crushed by a system of authoritarian control. The system could see my race, but it could not see my gendered vulnerability.

I collapsed, another panic attack, right there in the arbitration room. The labor consultant saw it. He saw the physical toll of the abuse. The accusation didn’t stick, the cleaning staff, the people most often invisible in the corporate hierarchy, vouched for me, but the damage was done. I realized that institutions protect power, not people.

The Nuclear Silence

To escape the fallout, I volunteered for an international project in Belgium in 2010. I negotiated a stopover in London to take my mother on a holiday, a fulfillment of a promise my father had made but never kept.

London and Paris were overwhelming. Standing in the Louvre, staring at the Mona Lisa, with Veronese’s enormous Wedding Feast at Cana filling the wall behind me, I didn’t feel awe; I felt the weight of hegemony. These were the artifacts of the civilization that had colonized my mind, the culture that had invented the binary that was killing me. They were beautiful, yes, but they were also monuments to a history that had no place for me.

When my mother flew back to South Africa, I took a train to Belgium. I was stationed in Mol, a small town that is home to Belgium’s nuclear research centre. The symbolism was too perfect: I was living next to a reactor, while my own internal core was approaching meltdown.

Isolation in a foreign country is a magnifying glass for the soul. Alone in my dormitory, with only a bicycle for transport, the distraction of work faded. I had no “bachelor” role to play. I had no parents to please.

I ate rabbit for dinner one night at a colleague’s house, a pet transformed into meat, and vowed never to do it again. It felt like a betrayal of the Survival Wing, the animals who had been my only true friends. I rode my bicycle through the flat, gray landscape, the nuclear sirens testing daily at 5:00 PM, screaming a warning that only I seemed to hear.

I missed the red earth of Africa. I missed the sun. But mostly, I missed the ability to run away from myself. In the silence of that European winter, the “Cross-Dresser” label began to peel away. I realized I wasn’t a man playing dress-up. I was a woman starving in a man’s life.

I locked myself in my hotel room in Brussels for two days before my flight home, hanging the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. It was a plea to the world, but it was also a lie. I was desperate to be disturbed. I was desperate for someone to break down the door and see me.

I returned to South Africa hollowed out. The digital world was waiting, and I was about to make a dangerous bargain with it.

The Death of the Anchor

While the mirror in the gym had shattered my illusion of control over my body, life was about to shatter my heart.

Eighteen months earlier, my Siberian Husky, Nikita, had survived cancer against the odds. I had forced the vet to operate when he wanted to put her down, refusing to discard a life simply because the “return on investment” was low. She had lived. For a year and a half, she gave me the unconditional love that no human, not my mother, not the church, not my colleagues, was capable of giving. She was the commander of my Survival Wing, the infrastructure of care that sustained me when the state and society failed.

But biology, like the state, eventually claims its due.

One morning, while I was sitting at my desk at the ARC, already feeling the walls of the institution closing in, my phone rang. It was my mother. “Dawie, you need to come home,” she cried. “Something is wrong with Nikita.”

I drove home with a cold dread settling in my stomach. When I pulled into the driveway, the ritual was broken. Usually, Nikita would be there, howling her wolf-like greeting. That day, there was silence.

I found her in the backyard. She had suffered a massive stroke. She was dragging her hind legs across the grass, frantically trying to run away from a body that had betrayed her. She didn’t recognize me.

The drive to the SPCA was the longest of my life. She was thrashing in the back seat, terrified and confused. I drove with one hand on the wheel and the other reaching back, blindly trying to comfort the only living being who knew my soul.

When I carried her into the reception area, the mask of “Dawie”, the stoic man, the project manager, the soldier’s son, finally disintegrated. I wasn’t a man anymore; I was a child losing his only protector.

I collapsed onto the floor, holding her broken body against mine, oblivious to the people staring.

“I need help!” I screamed, my voice cracking into a sob that had been suppressed for thirty years. “Please, someone help me!”

They took her from my arms. The veterinarian asked if I wanted to be present when they put her down. I shook my head. I couldn’t watch the light go out. I had seen enough death; I had watched my father wither, and I was watching myself die slowly every day. I wanted to remember the lick on the cheek, the howl at the gate, not the needle.

I walked out of the SPCA alone. The Anchor was gone. The creature who had absorbed my tears, who had listened to my secrets without judgment, who had kept me alive when I held the knife to my wrist, was dead.

Returning to the empty house, I realized the universe was stripping me bare. My body was a cage. My job was devaluing me. And now, my home was empty. The structures I had relied on to survive as “Dawie” had collapsed. I was hollowed out.

The isolation was compounded by a grief that few understood. I had lost Nikita, my dog. She wasn’t just a pet; she was my soulmate in a fur coat. For years, when I came home to an empty house and a silence that rang in my ears, she was the heartbeat that greeted me. She didn’t care about my gender. She didn’t care about the Colonel or the church. She just loved me.

When she died, the silence in the house transformed from peaceful to predatory. I realized I was completely, utterly alone. The unconditional love had left the building, and I was left with the ghosts.

I went back to the ARC, looked at the toxic environment, and realized I had nothing left to lose. The emotional tether was cut. I resigned. It was time to walk into the wilderness.