Alexandra Billings - This Time for Me

PRAISE FOR THIS TIME FOR ME

Alexandra Billingss extraordinary memoir moves from nightmarish, traumatic horror to a magical journey toward self-worth and artistic flowering. Alexandra has given us a treasure of a book full of wit, insight, and love.

Charles Busch, actor, playwright, cabaret entertainer, novelist, and screenwriter

Alexandras warmth, humor, perseverance, and compassion shine through on every page of This Time for Me . The arts reflect and shape our world every day, and Alexandra has been at the heart of Hollywoods long-overdue Trans revolution. Alexandra brings you along for her moving and human journey of hope undeterred by hardship, grace in the face of indignity, and the kind of radical love that fosters real changeboth for ourselves and our society.

Delaware state senator Sarah McBride, author of Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality

Text copyright 2022 by Schmengie, Inc.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by TOPPLE Books/Little A, New York

www.apub.com

Amazon, the Amazon logo, TOPPLE Books, and Little A are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

ISBN-13: 9781542029414 (hardcover)

ISBN-10: 1542029414 (hardcover)

ISBN-13: 9781542029407 (paperback)

ISBN-10: 1542029406 (paperback)

Cover design by Rex Bonomelli

Cover photo by Aaron Jay Young

Unless otherwise noted, all interior images are courtesy of the author.

First edition

This book is dedicated to the three women in my life:

Chrisanne,

Mimi,

and

God.

CONTENTS

AUTHORS NOTE

This is a memoirrich in the poetry of memory. Like all memory, it is truth seen through the lens of a very personal experience. Every event in this book happened. Facts are not the core of the worktruth and experience are.

Some names and identifying characteristics have been changed in the interest of protecting privacy.

A NOTE FROM TOPPLE BOOKS

What does it take to be a true trailblazer? Persistence. Creativity. And a sense of humor. Alexandra Billings life and career are nothing short of astonishing. I know firsthand from our work together on Transparent how she has paved the way for Trans actors and created a safer world for young Trans people.

Born in 1962, Alexandra Billings started transitioning in 1980, before the word Transgender was commonly used. She forged an identity for herself in a time when she had no openly Trans role models, no path to follow. Alexandras This Time for Me is a bold, witty, and unique look at queer history through the lens of this accomplished actor and activist, whose star keeps rising.

At TOPPLE Books, we are proud to celebrate the work of revolutionaries who have changed the world for the better, like my friend Alexandra Billings.

Joey Soloway, TOPPLE Books editor-at-large

PROLOGUE

T he sound was overwhelming. People chattering, gesturing, munching on lettuce leaves, and guzzling champagne out of fancy flutes. I sat at the table in my black-and-white Carolina Herrera, the first designer gown that I didnt either steal or give a hand job in order to own. Next to me was Jeff Bezos. Across the table were Judith Light and Jeffrey Tambor. I was delightfully sandwiched between Joey Soloway and Amy Landecker, both longtime Chicago theater friends.

It was the end of our first season on the Amazon show Transparent . We were being honored by critics and audiences, and the whole thing felt ridiculous. I simply couldnt accept the praise or the celebration. Yet, there I was, all dressed up and plopped in the center of the 2015 Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, wondering how the hell all this had happened.

Ellen DeGeneres waved at us. Two or three fabulously wealthy humans in snappy suits shook Jeffs hand and tried to introduce themselves to us. I sat googly-eyed, plotting a selfie attack on Viola Davis with the precision of a well-trained CIA agent. Commercial breaks at award shows are not for the meek. If you want the Streep pic for your Facebook, you cannot be timid.

And we laughed, and ate, and applauded as the luminaries sailed up to the podium. I missed my wife terribly. Spouses were asked to sit this one out, and dance and sing and watch the awards live next door at the Amazon party. I was texting Chrisanne madly, sending her the backs of famous peoples heads, snapping myself eating and giggling with Amy and Joey, and eventually, attempting to pee in a long gown... no small feat.

The night went on, the winners beamed, the categories passed, and it never got old; I was never bored. Not once. The fact that I was alive was enough for me. The room spun and I couldnt move. I couldnt mingle. I felt heavy. Undeserving. I was the Brown Trans Hooker in the room, and no matter how much I adorned myself with glitter, that would always be true. My past life was still a part of my present. Despite befriending my shame, I was still a victim of italways on the outside, guarding my deeply damaged inner life. I missed my wife, and I yearned to feel the celebration of that night, rather than simply take pictures of it.

Then they called our name from the stage, and the entire table erupted in a fever of sound. It engulfed me: And the winner is Transparent ! It seemed to echo as we tried to get up from our corner table, stunned and a little lost. Then the room slowed, and in the middle of the screaming crowd, I stopped. As I held the back of a chair, I looked around and remembered. I saw the lights bouncing off the gold banister and streaming across the width of the ballroom, and I saw my first prom with my first real girlfriend, Cassandra. I saw the half-eaten food and the crumbs of bread and the fifty-four packets of empty sugar near my plate. I saw my mother, and Thanksgiving dinner, the first time I came back to our house in Schaumburg, Illinois, in a dress, and the look of horror that swept across her face. I saw my high school gym teacher, I saw my first bully, I saw my high school choir, and then I saw my wife. I saw Chrisannes face beaming and her eyes dancing in the light of the ballroom, and I ached for her.

Then I saw my father.

I saw my dads round face and his large hands holding on to his conductors baton, waving me upward to the stage, where the cast was beginning to gather. Music poured from his fingertips. It engulfed the room as I started toward the white light. I stood on the stage as Joey held the Golden Globe in their hand and I tried to remind myself of what gratitude wasthat this had absolutely nothing to do with winning and that the award was not the point. I stood there, praying that somewhere on the planet, another Trans person would see us. That perhaps they were sitting in their room, alone and isolated, thinking they were the only one. And perhaps they had finally decided to leave the planet. They had had enough. But after witnessing our triumph, after sharing our joy, they had decided to stay for a while.

In all fairy tales, there are witches and dragons. There are heroes and magical talismans. There are tornadoes, red shoes, and yellow brick roads. There are close calls and near misses. There are beautiful endings and insidious beginnings. There are births. There are deaths. And for me, there was a princess asleep in the heart space of a presumed prince. And I was lucky enough to marry her.