Do you feel that your biological age is really your age? Believers of transage disagree.
In a standard biodata form, we’re asked to fill out the blank spaces with our name, contact details, address, birthdate and gender. They are the data held by society and institutions about us. Mainly for identification purposes, our personal information points to who we are—on the surface. At the core, there are parts of ourselves that identify with the person named on the form only on paper.
In a news story that popped in my screen one mindless day of social media scrolling, a Japanese man born in 1984 identifies as 28 years old. Featured in the Japanese reality TV show Abema Prime, the man, called Jackie, defended his adopted age as the one that resonates with his personality after experiencing a distressing period in his life. He explained that he felt a strong desire to stay young and relevant, finding 28 as the most comfortable number. He also spoke of his chosen age as the point where the balance between his maturity and youthfulness meet. NextShark, the Asian-American publication that ran Jackie’s story, dubbed his attempt to bridge the gap between his biological age and self-perception as being ‘trans-age’.
That the story was deemed newsworthy meant that concepts incongruous with biological and chronological narratives familiar to us stir curiosity and sarcasm, and spark debates and ridicule.
A comment from a social media follower read, “Most buffets are free for 5 and under. I believe I’m a 4 year old [sic]…Can I eat for free now?” Another asked if Jackie can also claim that he graduated from high school at whatever age he chose to reduce it to and therefore be considered a genius for graduating at such a young age. As the adoption of self-assigned pronouns and identifications permeates social norms, they become the subject of memes. Two of them that made me chuckle were a photo of a rubbish bin that a man chose to identify as, and a photo of a sliding door with a signage that says you cannot enter as it identifies as a window.
It may be hilarious, but at the core of these jokes is a desire to express a repressed identity molded by years of experiences rather than stamped at birth. With so many expectations attached to age, there is an urge to resist what individuals perceive as life events they’re not prepared for or choose not to participate in. Some just want to design their own timeline; it doesn’t have to be A to Z, but backwards, with letters missing in between. You may have heard of these expressions: they have come of age, a woman of a certain age (I’ve not heard of ‘man of a certain age’), act your age, age of innocence, age of reason. They always point to a level of maturity. When you are young—a relative point of view—you have an excuse to be stupid. With accumulated years, there’s more pressure to be wiser emotionally, intellectually and morally. It’s testing to be an adult; can we blame those who don’t want to be one?
Which takes me to this question: are ‘trans-age’ individuals simply in denial? It could be the psychological equivalent of physically halting aging in the form of cosmetic procedures. Somehow along the way, many of us adopt an alternative reality where how old we feel takes precedence over how old we are.
There are instances when our inner workings refuse to cooperate with our youthful intentions. I recently had an overall health check-up. Whilst everything else was normal or below risk: cholesterol level, BMI, blood pressure, and the like, the health of my heart was found to be equivalent to that of someone four years older. Even though it’s not much, I now can’t claim that I’m young at heart—at least physiologically.
In a recent conversation with a friend, I told her how appreciative I am that despite our more than a decade age gap, we connect in many ways which are evident in the wide array of subjects we talk about, not to mention our shared sense of humor. I backtracked and teased that there’s not much difference in our age as I identify as a 35-year-old woman. She said that her bad back makes her identify as an 85-year-old lady. We’ve found our trans-age spots.
Harriet Anderson, the oldest woman to have completed the Ironman World Championships at the age of 76 in 2011, said that she used to think that 50 was old. “I was wrong; not even close,” she concluded.
A person´s age or concept of being old has become subject to interpretation. We identify with the sense of belonging to who we are and how we feel about ourselves which we discover at different stages in our lives. As opposed to living an alternative reality, we choose to express our authentic selves. Jackie does at his preferred age of 28.
I sometimes forget how old I am. Maybe it’s not a bad thing after all.
Cover art: Kiara De Guzman
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